Well we had a wonderful time on our trip. We put about 4500 miles on the car in about 11 days. Sheesh..... The oil change light was screaming when we got home. LOL
We had gone on the Lincoln Highway from Mt. Vernon, IA, to Times Square, NY, this spring, so thought we'd go west this time. We didn't do the whole thing, because it goes to San Francisco, but we did quite a bit of it. We started in Iowa City, after seeing Nathan and Alex and taking them to dinner.
We drove through a lot of the US before heading north to Banff, Alberta, Canada. We actually went into Canada in BC. The Rockies are really beautiful, but the Canadian Rockies are superb! Honestly, everything else pales in comparison. My pictures don't do it justice. We saw quite a bit of Banff and Jasper National Parks, and then came home through Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Regina. We stopped at the huge West Edmonton Mall (billed as the world's largest, but I'll bet Dubai has something bigger. :P), but didn't buy anything except lunch. Yeah, the place is huge, but when you aren't normally a shopper, it was sort of ho-hum. I was surprised to see all of the oil in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but probably because I think of those two provinces as Beef country and Canola country, respectively.
I've posted a few shots here, but the rest are here, password is longaberger:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a165/theshepards/canada0909/
Columbia Ice Fields-the glacier has been retreating, as most of them have.
Lake Louise-the color of the water is caused by the ice scouring minerals as it comes through the mountains and causing the blue color. Some of the streams were nearly milky white because of the minerals in the water.
Banff Springs Hotel in Banff National Park, Alberta. The hotel is one of those really neat Railway Hotels and was really expensive, of course. So we just enjoyed the lobby. :)
One of the most famous mountains in the area as seen from the village of Banff.
Last, but certainly not least.....the World's Largest Ukrainian Easter Egg, in Vegreville, Alta. It was computer designed and built for the Queen and Prince Philip's visit in 1974. You can read more about it here: http://www.tabloidcolumn.com/easter-egg.html
