Friday morning, we headed out to Lake Louise, about 60km Northwest of Banff. Lake Louise was beautiful and the Fairmont Hotel there is amazing. But we were surprised at the crowds. We kind of felt like we were at Disney World.
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Banff is a very touristy, little ski village with lots of shops and restaurants. In contrast, Jasper was a fairly quiet town with a much less touristy feel. We liked them both.
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On Wednesday, we packed things up and headed to Banff. On our way we saw many wonderful sights, beginning with a black bear in the woods on the way to Athabasca Falls. Athabasca is a huge, raging waterfall, and we spent at least a half hour there taking pictures and just marveling at it.
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Tuesday, we headed out to the foot of Mt. Edith Cavell. It was a scenic, curvy drive and around each corner we could view Mt. Edith Cavell getting closer and closer, bigger and bigger.
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We woke the next morning to sunshine and clear skies. Doug, our guest house host, had recommended "Bears Paw Bakery" for breakfast on Monday morning. When we found it people were lined up out the door.
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We spent Sunday morning and early afternoon in Calgary, going to church and then to a party/reception for the newlyweds. After church, we first headed to Gord & Annie's home to see their place and admire their new deck/outdoor kitchen.
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We started the day with a great breakfast at Denny's with Brian & Jill. We had a little time before the wedding so we headed over to the Olympic Park which was not far from our hotel. It was hard to imagine the place as a winter Olympics site, as it was very hot and sunny.
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We left South Bend in the early morning hours (Seth drove us to the airport), and flew to Helena, Montana, with one stop in Salt Lake City, Utah. We saved quite a bit on flights and rental car, by flying within the states and then driving to Canada.
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Today was traveling day. We were up at 6:00 am, and after showering and packing were ready to check out by about 8:15. When we went over to the Admin building, we were surprised with one last chance to see Jared, as he was on his way from breakfast to work.
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Today was our last day in the Rockies. We had many things on our “to do” list, as there was just so much we wanted to squeeze in before leaving the area…
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Today we woke up to fog, clouds and overall dreariness. This is the day we had planned for some family hiking, and since the rain was not forecast until noon, we got everyone moving and headed out to the Bear Lake Trailhead. We joined a ranger-led hike with “Ranger Drew”
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Today was a great day in the Rockies. The kids checked out the YMCA day camp where Jared works. Jared actually works only with the local kids, Kindergarten and 1st grade ages. Our kids were in the program for visitors. Chloe was a "Pioneer"…
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Nothing big happened today. We were kinda' looking for a relaxing day, so that's what we had. After breakfast, we sat and talked to Barb, Fred & Stacey for awhile. Then we went over to check out the day camp options for the kids--Jared has been highly recommending it (wonder why??)
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Today is Sunday, so of course the first thing on our agenda (after breakfast) was to go to the campground church at Rocky Mountain National Park where Jared and his cousin Shanna's ministry team from the ACMNP (Association of Christian Ministry in the National Parks) were putting on the worship service.
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We had a leisurely morning today before heading out from Golden toward Laporte (between Fort Collins and Estes Park) where we had reservations for a 2:15 Whitewater Rafting trip. This was our second attempt as a family to try WWR. The first time in Wyoming
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Our day began by meeting up with Linda's sister Barb and her family at PIke's Peak to take the Cog Rail train to the top. The ten of us were all seated together on the train, and we enjoyed seeing all the sights and listening to the conductor's corny jokes and interesting facts on the way up…
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The big event of the day was our reunion with Jared in Estes Park. We hadn't seen him since he left on May 26 (5 weeks ago) for his summer job and in that time has gotten a nice tan, broken his wrist, and grown to LOVE Colorado!
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This morning we got up bright and early so we could leave our hotel between 7:30 and 8:00. We had a 3-hour drive to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, which ended up being even longer due to some road construction by Fort Garland. We finally arrived around 11:00 a.m. and were amazed as soon as we saw the sand dunes off in the distance,
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