Canada Part 2

That was getting to be a long post, so I thought I'd break it up. The day after we went to Banff, my cousin Traci and her family took us on another adventure. We went to dinner at the home of some friends of theirs, who live on a little farm outside Lacombe. They had lots of fun animals to play with.


After dinner, we rode "quads" (4-wheelers) a few miles down the road to a gorgeous lake where we were able to canoe around and see even more wildlife. We came really close to two big pelicans, and we saw tons of beavers swimming around in the water. We got out and hiked around at this little cave, and then rode our quads back to the house, where we got to try Saskatoon pie (a type of berry found in Canada).


We also got to hang out with Traci's adorable kids:

Madison


Hailee and Payton

The next day we went to the West Edmonton mall. Alberta happens to have one of the biggest malls in the world, and it's only about an hour away from my aunt's house. It's actually pretty crazy and maybe an interesting commentary on Western consumerism, but somehow they managed to fit hundreds of stores, a waterpark, a full amusement park complete with roller coaster, an ice rink, water/animal shows, and lots more into this mall.




I'm not going to say it wasn't fun! We were able to stop and do a session at the Edmonton Temple on the way back too, which was really nice. It was fun to see one of the smaller temples, and I actually got to meet the temple president!

It was a great trip.

Canada

Yay! Summer vacation! We (I) totally needed this, as it has been one of the least fun summers I can remember, for me at least...work and school kinda burned me out so we'd been waiting to take a trip like this. It was totally worth the 15 hour drive each way (well, 24 hour drive on the way there, but that's another story) for the week we got to spend in Canada. We stayed in Lacombe, Alberta with my aunt and uncle. The drive through Alberta was pretty, it actually rained a little, which brought out the colors of the surrounding farmland beautifully, and provided us with an awesome double rainbow.


Oh yeah, we also passed this:


Our second day there we drove to Banff National Park. This is definitely the biggest national park I've ever been to. It was amazing. The Canadian Rockies were majestic and the water in all the lakes and rivers was bright crystal blue. We found out that the color comes from rock powder that falls from the mountain in the glacier melt and allows blue and green light to be reflected back from the water.



We stopped at Lake Louise (above) and looked around the hotel they have on the grounds. It was called Chateau something (meaning it's really expensive - $600/night minimum), and the grounds were really beautiful.




We then went to the actual town of Banff for lunch and shopping. It's a kind of quaint-looking, touristy, ski-area town, very Park City-esque, only cooler. Later we took a gondola ride up to the top of Sulphur Mountain, and from there hiked over to another peak. Amazing views from the gondola and mountain tops, including a baby bighorn sheep:





We also caught the elk herd that lives at the Banff Springs golf course. We were really close to some of them, which was cool, and they didn't even seem scared. Then we stopped a Bow Falls on our way back to Lacombe.






We can't wait to go back to Canda again and spend more time in the park and in Banff. I think it would take several days to see it all. It was an amazing place!

World Water Week

Today marks the beginning of the 2008 World Water Week. Besides being a fun alliteration to say, World Water Week is an annual meeting in Stockholm, Sweden to present and generate ideas about better use of the resource and environmental concerns. This year there is a special emphasis on water sanitation throughout the world. In light of my last post, and my efforts to be more conscientious of my impact on the environment, I decided that this is something I would definitely like to support! Some of the initiatives being considered at this year's conference include cutting back on the use of bottled water, carbon-offsetting, recycling, and fair trade. I am excited that this group is taking the initiative to help the billions of people in the world who do not have access to adequate sanitation. This is the kind of organization I would like to be involved with in the future (you know, once I'm out of school and I have time for stuff like that).