Banff Day 2: Lake Louise

On Day 2 after the huge breakfast, we went down highway 1A (rather than the Trans-Canada Highway, Highway 1) which turned out to be more scenic. We stopped off first at Johnston Canyon and saw the Lower Falls there. We became quite accustomed to "falls" since the pathway was insanely icy, and we almost fell over like 20 times. It was funny and I took a good video of Norm trying to walk along the ice. Eventually we got to the falls and it was great.

After that we drove to Lake Louise. We were sorry to see that the road to Moraine Lake was closed, we really wanted to go there. Since that was the case, we just spent a longer time at Lake Louise, which was fantastic. We took a bunch of photos, walked along the edge of the lake, and then went for tea at the Banff Lake Louise hotel. They also had scones, which was EXACTLY what I was keen for. Awesome stuff.

Then we made our way back to Banff, and checked out the city itself. It was Halloween so to "celebrate", we bought $20 each of candy at a candy and chocolate store. Yes!!

In the evening we hung out in the heated outdoor pool while it was snowing outside, awesome times.

River near Johnston Canyon

Haha they had an ice cream store?! It was freezing outside!!

Norm trying not to slide down the ice

Still walking carefully on the ice

Icicles

Beautiful

Lots of flowing water too

Lower Falls!!

A weird bird who landed on our car in the Lake Louise parking lot

A little snowman and Lake Louise

Glorrriouuuus. You can see the Banff Lake Louise hotel in the distance

I loved this tree

Hangin' out

Word!!

At the "V" of the Lake Louise mountains, this is the classic postcard photo

Lake Louise!!!

Then, back to the hotel for dinner

Norm chillin' out

Haha

Funny mailbox chute

Banff Day 1: Arrival

Holy crap this was amazing. My sister was at a conference in Banff, Alberta, Canada and as her conference finished I headed up there to hang out, see the mountains, and stay in this sweet hotel in the rockies. Norm got to stay here for the conference, so we extended the stay and it worked out amazingly well. I arrived late on the Friday night (about midnight local time), and thanks to my trusty brand new GPS (and new maps, see earlier post for the map updating excitement, haha), I managed to get to the hotel pretty quickly.

It was pretty dark on the way from Calgary to Banff, but it was pretty clear that the view was going to be frickin' spectacular, and it WAS.

Also, the breakfast in the hotel was AMAZZZZZIIIIINNNNNNG. It was really, really good, and each item was really intense/flavoursome, it was nuts. Even the french toast was intense!

The hotel was absurdly awesome, we stayed in the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel (thank you, hotel conference rate!), and it was just nuts. It was created in the late 1800's by the Canadian Pacific Railway in an effort to get people from all over Canada to travel to the rockies. It has a long history, and a great museum inside too. It's referred to as "The Castle in the Rockies", cause, well, it's a castle... and in the rockies!! Super amazing.

Awesome room at the hotel

The classic "taking a photo of everything in the room" photo

This is a zoomed in view of what we saw FROM OUR HOTEL WINDOW?!!!!!!!

Norm excited for breakfast

Norm at breakfast, fancy!!

This was so frickin' GOOD. Baked apple with marzipan, Pineapple french toast with strawberries on top, and gooseberries were my favourite things.

Oh no, is it raining?! (This only lasted an hour, and then cleared up totally)

Rundle Hall/Rundle Lounge

Chandeliers

Awesome entranceway

Haha, really funny Canadian Pacific Railway clothes/vests etc.

ILM Halloween 2009

Awesome Halloween party this year for work!! It was SO great, tons of good food and awesome people, and some ridiculously cool costumes too. Matt and I went as Hipsters, and I spent a bunch of time trying to find an "ironic t-shirt" - turns out Urban Outfitters had one that said "Socialist" and I thought it was EXTRA ironic because I am Canadian :)

Gelling my hair

Ready to go!

Clark Kent/Superman, Dwight, and a Cat walk to the party :)

Rolled up my pants and ready to go!

Who you gonna call?

Frank, you've got some red on you

Awesome pinata costume

Hao look insane

The McD's and the Becknerwalds looking awesome as usual

AMAZING

In each photo we try to look more and more hipstery. Sometimes it works!

haha

Hipsters unite!

Uma

LOVED the Up house

Perfect

Woo!!

This 50's monster was hilarious

Classy

Haha, a bit less classy

Mary Poppins and Hobbes chillin' at the bar

Glorious

Good times!!

Mountain Biking in Marin County

Haven't had a chance to post this yet... Matt and Ollie and I went biking in Marin County a month or so ago, and it was totally awesome. Matt crashed a couple times but was all good with only a few "battle scars" - GREAT times.

Matt after falling down the hill

Matt showing off his "battle scars"

Deer!!

Almost back at the cars...