We arrived in Calgary on Thursday evening. David's bag decided to stay in Colorado for a few extra hours so we had to fill out paperwork to have it delivered to our hotel. After completing that and going through customs, we were on vacation! The first 2 nights we stayed in downtown Calgary. It's very similar to Denver. Thursday night we walked around downtown and had dinner. Since Calgary is so far north, the sun doesn' set until about 10:30pm. That took some getting used to! Friday we went to the Calgary Tower (not as cool as the CN Tower in Toronto) and spent the rest of the day relaxing and sleeping in the hotel. I took a 3 hour nap! Friday night we met my cousin Matt and his girlfriend for dinner. It was great to catch up with him and they gave us great tourist info. We finished dinner around 9:30pm and since it was still light out, David and I explored more of the downtown. Then we went to the hotel and watch a movie. It started to get dark around 10:45pm and I happened to look out the window just in time to see a shooting star go by. It was so close to us and was extremily bright. It was the highlight of our time in Calgary!
Saturday we slept in and drove up to Banff. It was about an hour drive through gorgeous mountains. The mountains up there look different from the ones here. David said they are more "dramatic". Banff is the cutest town with a main street full of restaurants and stores. My mom mentioned liking a gemstone called Ammolite so we spent alot of time looking for the perfect present for her (and me!). We bought her a necklace and I got a ring. Ammolite is only found in Alberta and is the rarest gemstone in the world. The mines will be gone by the year 2012. So it's an investment piece :) After shopping, we went to the Fairmont Castle. It's actually a huge castle built on the mountain with stunning views of the scenery. We spent a few hours having drinks on the patio.
Sunday we woke up early and drove to Lake Louise. Everyone told us that this area is gorgeous and they didn't lie. There are a bunch of glaciers in the area and the slit run-off makes the lake water turquiose. The pictures don't do it justice. We hiked to a tea house behind the lake (5.5 km each way). The weather was perfect! After the hike, we had drinks at the Lake Louise Chateau and people watched.
Monday we woke up early again and headed to the Columbia Icefields. It's a huge icefield that connects several glaciers together. It was interesting learning about glaciers. The ice we stood on was as thick as the Eiffel Tower is tall!
Monday night we stayed in a log cabin which was adorable! I wish we had had more time there, but it was the end of our vacation. We celebrated our anniversary (a month early, but oh well) by having a delicious dinner of bison tenderloin.
Tuesday we flew out of Canada and back to Colorado.
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