It's always fun when Grandma (and Grandpa) comes

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.