There is a joke here that the mosquitos are actually the provincial bird because they are so many and so big. We decided to experience them first hand by going camping in Banff. We put on our mosquito spray and hoped for the best. We hoped for this campsite near a lake but it was all full by the time we got there. The site we go was nice as well but had a lousy excuse for a fire pit. We made it work though. Jane loved sitting in the dirt and playing with the rocks and pine needles.
Our tin foil dinners. They were hard to cook in the little fire pit but they came out alright.
Jane had her food to and got it all over.
Did anyone notice how awesome Jane's outfit is? Yeah I just put on a sweater over her pjs in the morning. Who cares what we look like while we are camping, right? After breakfast, we packed up our site and took a long time to decide if we wanted to see more of Banff (we have already seen most of the park that is close). We chose to go on a hike to a water fall. It was an easy hike, which was good since we were both tired.
Our first experience camping as a family and overall it was a success. None of us slept that great but we don't sleep that great at home either :) Oh and we did pretty well about not getting too many mosquito bites. Jane had one on her head and I had some on my feet. Jeff came out unscathed. Luckily, they mostly going away as the summer is winding down.
So a few weeks ago, my parents came up to visit. I had a 3 day weekend so we took some time to visit banff and other sights in the Canadian Rockies. When Mom and Dad first arrived, they took some time to relax from their long trip up here. It is about 16 hours from Salt Lake to Calgary - we are pretty far north. We headed up to Banff on Friday morning and decided to drive to the Columbia Ice Fields. I had no idea what all the hype was about, just that there were glaciers - but it turned out to be really cool. Here is a picture of the glacier.
So after we got there, we found out that you can actually catch a bus that drives you up into the middle of the glacier. But it's not just any bus, it's a $1.2 million 4WD bus driven by a teenager over the steepest grade dirt road I have ever been on. Here is the bus.
Here is Mom and Dad and the Southern side of the glacier as viewed from the bus drop off.
And of course, Kim, Jane and me with the western slope of the Athabasca glacier
They say that the water from the glacier is the best tasting water you might ever taste. I had to have a taste and I think it just tastes good because it's really cold.
We stayed in Banff at a hotel and got some dinner and set off the next morning to go to Lake Moraine. We heard it gets crowded there so we tried to get there by 9 or 9:30. This is Lake Moraine.
The light blue color of the lake is supposed to be finely ground rock powder mixed in the water that refracts the right kind of light to give it the light blue color.
Here is Mom and Dad in front of Lake Moraine after we finished hiking halfway around the lake.
And of course, a picture of Kim in front of the lake from the front moraine (a moraine is a mound of dirt pushed up in front of the glacier and then just becomes a small hill after the glacier recedes). As we were leaving, the cars were lined up and parked nearly a mile along the road on the way out of the parking lot. We were glad we arrived early. When we got to the bottom of the road, we noticed that somebody was there letting cars in - 1 car in for every car that leaves.
Here is also a video of Grandma getting some big laughs out of Jane.
We really enjoyed having my parents here to visit us and Jane obviously loved it, too. We look forward to Christmas when Jane can see Grandma and Grandpa Miner again. That is all for now.
A couple of weeks ago there was a thunderstorm in Calgary. We stood outside and watched as it hailed.
About an hour or so later we started smelling smoke. I looked out onto the golf course and there was quite a bit of smoke out there. Jeff went out to investigate. He came back and said one of the buildings was on fire. Our fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. This is what it looked like.
We left the apartment for a couple of hours. When we came back the flame were gone but they were still spraying water on the fire. A cop said that there was a natural gas problem that they were still trying to extinguish. After being home for a while the power went out and we were told we had to leave again. We packed up some stuff (unsure when we could get back in) and went to a hotel. Oh I forgot to mention that it was lightning that started the fire. Crazy.
There used to be a roof there. The firemen were still spraying water on it when this pictures were taken. This is about 4 hrs after the video was taken. Luckily we got back into the apartment the next day.
On a lighter note. Jane love, love, loves to be sung to. If she is upset and you start singing, she will usually calm down. One of her favorites is the popcorn song. I noticed something the other day when I was singing it to her. For those of you who know the actions to this song, you can appreciate this.
