Day 4: Banff, AB to Dawson Creek, BC

Having very good intentions of waking up at 6AM to get on the road early, my wake up call went something like this: "Auntie Beth? It's 8:50. We should go." Things don't always go according to plan. We got ready in a hurry and threw everything into the car so our journey could begin.

Before we got on the road we traveled a couple of miles down the road to the iconic Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. We did a little shopping, had some breakfast and then got back in the car to continue our journey north through Banff National Park.

Lake Louise was on the list of things to see, but we ended up skipping it because there were WAY too many tourists. You have to park in a parking lot (which was full), then take a shuttle. We opted to just visit the little village and then get on our way. We found another pretty lake with less people that Vanessa said was "...the bluest water I've ever seen!" Indeed, it was as azure as any beach in the Caribbean.

Jumping back into the car, we drove on. The mountains got bigger and more beautiful around every turn and we found ourselves on the banks of an aquamarine river that wound its way through the valley. Every time we stopped, we found ourselves in utter disbelief that what we were seeing could possibly be real.

I have seen the Rockies in the United States multiple times, but the Canadian Rockies are much different. They feel bigger for some reason; more rugged and more vast -- they seemed to go on forever! And most were capped with many, many feet of snow! The signs we were passing read "Avalanche country", and the twisty road continued through the park and took us around a giant hairpin curve and up the side of a mountain.

Suddenly, we were looking down upon the road we had just been driving up, and back at the mountains we had just sped past. As we looked down at the road, we realized that to the left of us was a gushing waterfall that cascaded the entire way down the side of a cliff.

The next stop was at a "champ de glace". Translated, it means "field of ice", in other words "glacier". We came around a corner and there it was. It was about a 10 minute, gasping-for-air walk up a rocky hill. With each step, the wind got colder and colder!

Since we were at elevation, it did not take much for us to get out of breath. Vanessa is in track so I did not feel too bad that I was out of breath -- she was too. However, an elderly Japanese lady passed us as we were catching our breath and laughed at us! She muttered something about "You young girls!" through her giggles. As if that wasn't enough, we had on hiking boots and she had on penny loafers.

When we got back to the car, we realized we were burning daylight. Not wanting to repeat the deer situation from a few nights before, we made it a point to get the heck out of Dodge as quickly as possible after stopping for a couple of sandwiches. On our way out of the park we saw a mama sheep with 2 of her babies, and also a brown bear!

Subsequently, the drive went by pretty quickly. The mountains turned into rolling hills and then into flat land. We saw many caribou crossing signs, so we were very careful to pay attention to what was going on not only in the road itself, but on the sides of the road in the vegetation, especially since the sun was starting to go down.

Our last stop before leaving Alberta was the liquor store. The drinking age there is 18, so taking Vanessa to buy her first legal drink was sort of obligatory! I found her a lovely bottle of sparkling rose moscato! :-).

We made our way to Dawson Creek, BC. The hotel was a little less than desirable, but it was a bed. After a quick, forgettable meal of soup and salad, after about 14 hours in the car, we proceeded to fall asleep.

And so ended Day 4.