2 airplane rides
Over 1900 Miles in the car\
6 National Parks
This is how we explored the Canadian Rockies!!!
The cool thing about our trip, is that it is Canada's 150th year birthday this year. We got a Canadian National Parks pass for free because of this.
Our first and last day were nothing, but long travel days. We drove to Las Vegas for our flight to Seattle, where we rented a Dodge Journey and drove across the border to Canada. The next day was better, but still a lot of time in the car. We had planned to do some hikes on our way to Banff, but Rebelstoke National Park and Glacier National Park hikes were closed because of avalanches and bears. We did go to the visitors center, where they had some fun activities for kids, and lots of rock chucks outside.
The avalanche evidence and destruction was really amazing. You could tell this Winter was a big avalanche winter in the Canadian Rockies. The power of the avalanches literally swept away everything in their path, including big pine trees. We saw obvious paths and lots of logs/tree cleanup.
As we got closer to Banff, we were able to go on our first hike to a waterfall. The waterfall hikes were our favorite activities of the whole trip. In fact, every hike we went on, had a waterfall waiting for us. The days we hiked to waterfalls were nicer weather, and it was nice to get out of the car. The kids loved running around.
On this particular hike, we saw a bunch of random turkeys on the way back from he waterfall to the car. It was getting later in the day, and the turkeys were beginning to roost in the trees.
Sunday was Mother's Day, so Josh made dinner, and I got a nap- kind of. After church that day, we went to the first National Park in Canada, where there was a natural hot spring.
We also saw Yolo Falls, which is not a hike. The falls are right by the parking lot. Both Josh and I have seen these falls before with our families back when we came to Canada before we even knew each other.
Monday was a pleasant day. We hiked to another waterfall. (I really should have written the names down of all the waterfalls and lakes we saw). This hike was the most popular with tourists of all the hikes we went on. Josh said when he did this one later in the summer when he came, it was a stream of people going up and and back. It wasn't that bad for us this time, but definitely the busiest.
After the hike, we had a little treat from a hut like stand at the bottom of the trail. We bought homemade banana bread, and later realized that homemade banana bread must be a Canadian treat staple. We ended up buying more at Lake Louise Village when we were there, and got some in our continental breakfast our last morning in Canada. The banana bread was delicious each time we ate it.
Our second hike on Monday included our 4th waterfall. This was a cool hike because we saw everything such as great mountain views, rivers combining, canyons, baby pine trees, and of course the waterfall. It also started snowing on us on the way back to the car. We also saw a memorial of two little girls, which was sad because they must have died at that location in the National Park.
The red chairs that Josh and Avenly are sitting on in the above pictures are placed all around the Canadian National Parks this year in celebration of 150 years. We were glad that we found some, and were able to get some pictures. At the chairs, we met a family from France. It was fun for Josh to talk to them because they spoke a little English and he speaks French.
Tuesday and Wednesday were our coldest days of the trip. These were also our lake days, where we drove to and saw lots of glacier lakes, including Lake Louise, which was still frozen over. We saw some lakes on Thursday in Jasper National Park, as well.
Wednesday we also drove through the ice fields, which included lots of glaciers, to get to Jasper National Park.
After we got past the glaciers, the weather started to warm up. We were able to get out of the car and do two short hikes to Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls and Canyon. Sunwapta was my favorite of all the falls we saw because it had two waterfalls combine into one, and the canyon they fall into is really cool. We did a small side hike in the mossy like trees, and the kids loved climbing on the big rocks.
In Jasper we stayed at a condo like hotel. The village had lots of fun shops and restaurants. Josh found an Indian buffet restaurant, and he loved it. The kids and I, however, probably should have ate somewhere else. ha ha I don't like Indian food, and Payson ate something way too spicy for him; he almost threw up on the table. I went in most of the shops looking for a good deal on t-shirts for the kids. Finally, I found the deal I wanted, and bought three little t-shirts. Zaylee's is too big still because they didn't have any her size that I wanted. At our hotel the first morning we were there, Payson and Avenly were fighting, so I made them do the dishes, and they loved it.
A few miles from Jasper, there is a couple of lakes that both start with P, although, I can't remember their actual names. One of them, has an island, and a big bridge to the island, so you can walk around and enjoy the scenery. We decided to do this, and Payson and Avenly really enjoyed playing next to the water with sticks and rocks. Zaylee enjoyed sleeping in the wrap.
Throughout the whole week we saw lots of wildlife. We saw two black bears, lots of elk, a bald eagle in her nest, two big horn sheep, a golden eagle, a coyote, lots of deer, chipmunks, rock chucks, and other birds
Our last hike was in a different climate because the waterfall was located closer to the coast. I even had a mosquito land on me, and felt somewhat hot after hiking in the sun even though we didn't go far.
We saw a lot of beautiful nature, and spent some very precious time together, but to do this, we were in the car A LOT! Payson and Avenly sat in the third row of our vehicle, Josh drove, and I sat by Zaylee most of the time. That little 2 month old does not like being alone in her car-seat. This is how she feels about it:
The other two kids did awesome. There was limited fighting between the two of them, and they found ways to entertain themselves, including taking selfies with the camera. Payson loved taking pictures of Zaylee, too.
Our trip wouldn't be complete without a few playground stops. The first was in Banff Village, and I didn't get pictures, but on our way to our hotel closer to Seattle than Jasper, we stopped at another park and had lunch. It was a pretty cool park. The last playground was in Seattle pretty close to the airport. Our flight was delayed, so we let the kids play to kill time before we sat in the airport.
That delayed flight was only the beginning of our adventurous evening. We actually planned to drive home from Las Vegas after our flight, but that did not happen. After landing in Vegas, we went to baggage claim to get our luggage, and Avenly got ran over by a tall man and his wheeled bag. She fell down, bonked her head, and peed her pants at the same time. At least she didn't pee on the airplane, and she is okay and did not get a concussion.
Then when we got to the hotel where our car was parked, Payson noticed that one of the symbols on the rim of one of our tires was missing. We checked out the rest of the tires/rims and they were scratched up, as if someone was trying to pry them off. Our tire caps were missing, too. Little did we know at that moment, those were not our tires or our rims, We noticed something felt off once we started driving. Sure enough, something was off. The tires that were on our car were bald, and not the brand we had bought. Someone had taken the time to still our wheels and replace them with old crappy wheels. We didn't trust those tires, and didn't know if they were even put on correctly, so we ended up staying the night in Vegas. We almost didn't have a place to stay unless we wanted to pay a whole lotta money because it was a Saturday night in Vegas, and most hotels were booked full, including the Best Western where our car was parked. Luckily, the Best Western had a room booked with a denied credit card. The hotel clerk tried calling the guy multiple times to see if he was coming. He never answered, so finally at 11 pm, he let us have the room. That was a big blessing, and it was a blessing that we were able to get new tires first thing in the morning.
Josh made it back to the hotel with the new tires just in time for checkout and Sacrament meeting. Then we drove to St. George, had dinner at my parent's house, and drove home.
The whole trip really was awesome until that last travel day, but we are counting our blessings. Things could have been worse- like having our car left on cinder blocks, or having the whole car stolen. It was nice for Josh to have a break from work, which meant I also got a break from constantly holding the baby or doing the dishes.
I made a simple little summary video of our trip. It is not very good because our computer screen is messed up, so I couldn't see what I was doing very well, but it has some cute scenes in it.
