Day 8 - Columbian Icefields

We had such a fun-filled and packed day, I was on the move all the way until I went to bed, so I'm writing this post at 6AM from the Calgary Airport. Day 9 is going to be interesting as a result of being at an airport, but we'll get to that later. Back to day 8 - the glacier day.

After I ate a delicious breakfast of homemade oatmeal with brown sugar, we departed Jasper and headed in the direction of Calgary seeing glaciers, bears and elk along the way.

Our first stop was a photo stop at Stetfield Glacier - one of the glaciers along the Columbia Icefield we were eventually going to walk out on. We snapped a few quick photos of the rocky ice and jumped back on the bus. A quick trip down the Icefields Parkway and we were parking at the Athabascea Glacier and prepared to take very large trucks up to a summit to get out and take in first hand. These glaciers are part of the Columbia Icefield that has a main plateau of glacier and then six glacier shoots that stick out like fingers between the peaks. The water the flows from this icefield eventually makes it's way to the Artic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. This is a uniuqe element to this icefield since it's odd to have a tri-watershed.

We hopped into our giant buses that drove down a 18% grade hill and up into the glacier dropping us off at a safe level. We were encouraged to bring water bottles to take a taste of the glacier water when we got off to walk around for 20 minutes. I must say the glacier water was rather refeshing and tastey. I brought it back with me in my toiletry bag, so let's hope it survives the handling of the Calgary, Chicago and Cincinnati airports - otherwise my toothbrush will be doused in glacier water.

We took some fun photos while on the glacier and enjoyed the scenery. I must say, for being in the 60s it was certainly chilly on top of the glacier. I was glad I dress appropriately, but I would have liked to have gloves. My cousin Dana tried to drink directly from the glacier stream for a photo, but was unable to get close enough. A pair of gloves would have helped lower her to the ice a bit better.

We rode back down the glacier and had lunch at the bottom. By far the most un-healty meal I ate on the trip because I was in the mood from some junk food. Grilled cheese, split fries with Uncle Lenox and Aunt Dottie and then a piece of blueberry pie (good, but if you are keeping track - the piece at the Bar U Ranch was better).

After a short journey we made our last stop before arriving in Calgary, which was totally worth it, a great way to end the week and so unbelieveable that pictures barely do it justice - Peyto Lake. The amazing part of this lake was the shade of blue the rock flour projected. it was a small lake situated between mountain peaks and shined like a bright swimming pool. It was the brightest blue we have seen yet and even our tour guide said he hasn't seen it that blue in years. The rock flour produced from glacier movements determine the color, it's sometimes a bit more green.

We took a long sleepy ride into Calgary. Yes, Uncle Lenox did capture a shot of me sleeping on the bus with my mouth open, but I got him back when he fell asleep too. They said I'm officially initiated into family traveling when your photo gets taken asleep! We also saw two black bears at two different points of the driving bringing our bear total to 5 - 4 black bears and 1 grizzly. Beautiful animals.

We checked back into our first hotel in Calgary and had a bit of free time before dinner. I got in a nice phone call with Paul and enjoyed some leisure time with my family. Aunt Dottie found Monopoly at the Hotel, which was the downfall to my hours of sleep. We enjoyed a nice farewell dinner together, where we reminisced about our favorite sites and tales from our trip.

June 15th is Aunt Edwina's birthday, so we had the hotel bring cake complete with a sparkler and presented her with the gift we picked out for her on the trip - Canada, Eh pajamas that we suggested she model for all of us. She enjoyed the pjs and smiled cheerfully as we sang and embaressed her. We were heading back upstairs to get our Monopoly on and one of the gentlemen from our trip joked with Aunt Edwina that he did want to see her model those pjs and to come by his room. Upon realizing what he was saying he started laughing and saying "Ohh geeze- that sounded bad, don't worry my wife's there, my wife's there!!" We just hit the floor laughing, their faces were priceless - both Aunt Edwina's and our fellow traveler.

My family also presented me with an adorable pair of moose socks that features the moose in a pink robe and sunglasses and the feet say "I don't do mornings." After spending 8 days with me, they picked up on my distaste for waking up, but did say I did great getting up everyday at 6:30, even though I opted out of the early morning trips for pie and coffee in Waterton. The socks are great and I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of my family. It was great to spend 8 days with them in Canada.

After dinner, Aunt Dottie, Uncle Lenox, Zeke and myself sat down to play a friendly (aka HIGHLY competitive) game of Monopoly with Aunt Edwina regulating and ensuring fair play. The Kelley's tend to be a little (a lot) competitive as previously displayed every time we play a game whether it be a sport of board game. We were in for a doozie. After Zeke took an early lead picking up the light blue properties and putting down some real estate and Aunt Dottie spent three trips in jail, the tables turned and Zeke was about bankrupt before the game ended. Uncle Lenox was the first out and then Zeke was right behind him. I gave Aunt Dottie a run for her money doing quite alright myself, but she put out some hotels and put me in the dust. We're sorry to anyone we woke up with our howls of laughter everytime Aunt Dottie missed an opportunity to collect because she wasn't paying attentiong to the game and was busy counting her money. Not to mention the big howl she let out the first time someone landed on her red hotel properties. Zeke holds strong that he won a game of Scrabble and then we reminded him the three of us also beat him hands down at canoeing.

We crawled sleepily into bed mere hours before I had to wake up and jump on the 5am shuttle to the airport. It was a great week and a fanstastic time with a great group of travelers. Uncle Lenox is already plotting out three options for next year and I am going to start saving now!