Oh Ca-na-DA!

This is the line Greg sang over and over in the car as we made our way from Pullman, to Banff, Alberta, Canada! Last week I (with the help of our families!) surprised Greg with a trip to Banff to celebrate his upcoming 30th birthday! We left early Saturday morning and stayed in Banff for two nights. The drive through Northern Idaho and the eastern part of British Columbia and then Alberta was fantastic. The mountains, rivers, lakes, and sky seemed huge after spending months looking out over the Palouse rolling fields.

En route to Banff, we got a great view of Columbia Lake, which is the source of the Columbia River. The beautiful teal water of Canda's glacier-fed lakes is very hard to describe in words and equally difficult to capture in photos. If any of you ever have the opportunity to visit the Canadian Rockies....GO! You won't regret it. Down the road from Columbia Lake we had our second wildlife sighting (first sighting...a coyote almost ran in front of us in Northern Idaho). Just as I was laughing at a roadside caution sign with a picture of a bighorn sheep, we came upon an entire clan of bighorn sheep right along the side of the highway. We pulled off and captured some video and pictures out the sunroof of the Subaru. We even got to see two of them butt heads! Cool!

Columbia Lake, source of the Columbia River. The water that wasn't frozen was blue-green.

We entered the system of Candadian national parks through Kootenai National Park. The entrance was an impressive group of huge rock cliffs that we snaked through. After crossing Kootenai, we entered Banff National Park, the area that was the birthplace of Canada's national park system. The glacier topped moutains and the sheer volume of evergreens were amazing. The town of Banff was quaint and cozy but bustling. We walked through the downtown district as soon as we checked in to visit the shops and have dinner at Wild Bill's (Peyote, not Pecos).

From the balcony of Wild Bill's in downtown Banff.

Sunday morning there was no sleeping in! We left our hotel around 8 to drive out to Lake Louise for the highlight of our trip: a dog-sled tour courtesy of Kingmik Dogsled Tours. With many days above 50 degrees in Pullman last week, I was a little worried that we wouldn't have much snow for our tour. Wrong. There was plenty of snow, including a few fresh inches. And at 6 degrees that morning, I have a feeling it takes snow quite some time to melt in the area. We spent about a half hour just observing the dogs (Alaskan huskies) and all the handlers. The dogs had lots of personality, and were ready to get moving. Tomo served as our musher. He came to the US from Tokyo in the 80s to learn mushing. He was extremely knowledgeable about the dogs and the area of our tour. He was happy to answer our questions, and gave both Greg and I the chance to drive the sled! The tour was amazing. Beautiful. Again...if any of you have the opportunity to do this, don't miss it! Our tour went under the arch that signifies the Great Continental Divide. At that point, all the snow that melted on the British Columbia side ends up in the Pacific Ocean, and a few feet away, the snow that melts on the Alberta side ends up in the Altantic Ocean.

Our arrival on the moutain. The dogs were lined up and being fed when we arrived. There were probably close to 50 dogs lined up. The mushers went through to choose 8 or 9 dogs for their team based on a variety of factors.


Waiting patiently to be "chosen." It reminded me of grade school, waiting and hoping to be chosen for the "good" team in gym class. :)


Whaddayou lookin' at.

Brewski was ready to run! He kept lunging and moving our sled an inch at a time while waiting for the signal. He was the biggest dog on our team and was referred to as a "harness-burner" because of his eagerness.

Much more patient. :)

And we're off!

Our tour turned around at the Great Continental Divide. This is the British Columbia side.

Back on the Alberta side, bundled up.

Our leaders, Damsel on the left of the photo (who had just recently completed a 300-some mile race) and Lyle Lovett on the right side of the photo. He was one of Tomo's top dogs for his willingness to go out on multiple tours.

Big Brewski...one of my favorites. He was the big jock of the team.

Koska. She spent the first half of the trip goofing off, constantly turning around to look behind her and not maintaining a very straight line. She was very comical. Once we turned around to head back and she knew treat time was coming up...she was all business! :)

Another team passing us while we gave the dogs a break.

The scenery was incomparable!

Future mushers? Coincidentally, no real mushers use the word "Mush" according to Tomo. That's just Hollywood! Mushers use a variety of calls to command their team.

Koska looking back during a breather.

Greg preparing to drive!


On the way back we took a small detour through the forest that was the prettiest part of the trip.


Back at the starting point. Waiting for treats!

Damsel and Lyle eagerly awaiting their reward.

Greg gets to distribute the "treats," a softball-size chunk of ground beef!

Tomo, our musher, and Ajax who is completely blind.

After the tour, we drove on out to Lake Louise and the Fairmont Resort. We had seen numerous pictures of the turquoise water of Lake Louise but today...ta-da...it was completely frozen over! There were some people cross country skiing across the lake, kids playing hockey in one corner of the lake, and people ice skating around an ice castle right near the entrance of the resort. Although you can't make it out in these pictures, there were some chunks of blue ice among the glaciers.

Approaching Lake Louise, nestled behind the Fairmont resort.

The lake was completely frozen over. This is an ice-block castle that was built in the ice-skating area. The blocks of ice used were approximately the size of cinderblocks.

Standing on the lake. Notice the blue-tinted ice on the glaciers behind us. I was slightly disappointed that the lake was completely frozen because I was looking forward to seeing the bright blue-green water of a glacial lake.

The Fairmont resort and ice skaters on the lake.

Nancy Kerrigan??

Later that evening back in Banff, we drove out to the Fairmont at Banff Springs, a magnificent resort built in the 1880s by the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The photo galleries inside told the glamorous story of the hotel's early days. This is a must-see if visiting Banff! Unfortunately, it was growing dark quickly while we were there, so we never quite captured the gorgeous view of the Bow Valley from the back balcony. On our way out to the hotel, we drove by 3 elk just going about their business right in the yard in front of some condos! This was definitely the best wildlife-spotting trip we've had so far.

Elk grazing in the front lawn of road-side condos.

My camera was not zoomed in here, I was standing this close.

On the balcony of the Banff Springs resort. A very glamorous hotel with lots of history.

The huge balcony over looks the Bow Valley and the Bow River.

Not the best shot, but this is using the night-shot feature on my camera.

Again, not the greatest photo. This is just one wing of the hotel.

Just before heading home, this is the Bow River (from below the hotel) on Monday morning.

Brrr!

One more interesting picture. This is an "overpass" designed especially for wildlife. All along Canada's Hwy. 1 between Banff and Lake Louise (and other places too) there is a fence that runs along both sides of the road. Every few miles there is an overpass that allows animals to cross the highway safely, as well as some underpasses that are not visible from the road. Maybe W.V. needs some of these for all the deer!


I've left out so many details (and so many pictures!), but the bottom line is go visit the Canadian Rockies! Everything about our trip was enjoyable and I wish we could capture pictures that show just how impressive the scenery is. We also shot some video during our trip, so I will see if we can get some of that posted on here too!

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY GREG!

Red Dress 5K

Feels like spring out here! Sorry for all of you back home that are buried under snow, but we took Dixie for a walk this afternoon and Greg wore shorts! :)

Saturday morning was a little chilly, but I headed over to Moscow to run in the Red Dress 5K. February was heart health month, and all the proceeds from this race benefited the Cardiac Rehab program at the hospital. The advertisement said that entrants were encouraged to wear a red dress. I didn't have one, so I just wore a red t-shirt, thinking it wasn't a big deal. But it was a big deal...I've never seen so many red dresses (and so many men proudly wearing dresses) in my life. Kids, dogs, the marine corps... everybody was in a red dress! Here are a few of the amusing pictures I took on the run.

The best dresses were on the men of the Marines. Thankfully they were wearing shorts underneath, because some of the dresses were a wee bit short! I especially liked the combat boots paired with the dress! There were a few mudholes at the beginning of the course and these guys made it a point to hit every single one.

This man came complete with suit, hat, handbag and jewelry!

There were quite a few dogs in the race, all wearing red!

We ran out past a few sheep farms. The sheep were definitely running scared! (Thankfully we didn't have to run by any bulls...that probably would not have ended well.)

Check out this little guy! There were quite a few kids...most of them gave up on running when we ran past a goat who had his front hooves on the fence rails taking in the excitement. It was pretty amusing, I contemplated stopping to take a picture, but didn't want to be the only grown-up (without a child) who was ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the farm animals. :)

Saturday evening we spent a few minutes catching up with our Latino friends. We used to be the first to arrive at any of the Latino events, as they have all mastered the art of arriving (late) with style. Greg and I were officially "accepted" into the group this time because we were over an hour late for dinner thanks to Greg's work at the lab.

If Greg and Jen are reading this, we hope you're enjoying Ireland, send us some pictures! No race plans for next weekend, so we'll have to find something else interesting to write about for the next blog post. Hope everybody in West Virginia can keep their heads above the snow...just don't send it our way please! :)