Jasper and Banff National Forest July 9-11

Jasper National Park
Banff National Park (Canmore)

Wildlife

(yes, the two boys in the middle are wild-life)

more of Banff and Jasper

This by far was my most favorite part to the trip. It was a long drive to go from Edmonton west through Jasper and then on down to Banff, but it was well worth it. The mountains there were so rugged and majestic. It was incredible! We saw run off from glaciers, tons of wildlife, hiked up to a glacier, and loved viewing all the lakes, rivers, waterfalls, etc. The wildlife we saw - elk, a brown bear, 2 black bears, mountain goats, chipmunks, squirrels, moose, and lots of birds. My favorite part was this area where run off was flowing down swiftly through these rocks. it showed how the water forms the rocks into different shapes. There were also a couple of small waterfalls. It was fantastic. We also attended church in Banff. There were a lot of people there but probably only 10 or 15 of the actual members everyone else was visiting from Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, and us from California. The meetings all had a really special spirit that I was weepy through the whole meeting. Sunday afternoon we took a drive up in the mountains near our hotel in Canmore. We stopped in at the Nordic Training Center (where they held the cross country skiing in the Calgary Olympics and few years back). We then drove up and saw several lakes. It started to rain while we were taking a short hike and lightening was on the horizon so we hurried down the mountain. The storm didn't last very long so we continued our nature drive. it was so beautiful and peaceful. We would love to go and visit this area again and spend more time exploring.

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - July 8

My Family's Home in Edmonton
West Edmonton Mall

On July 8th we headed north of Calgary to Edmonton. This is the city that I was born in! It was really neat to be there and it is a really nice city. We liked it a lot more than Calgary. Our intention was to first find the house that my family lived in when I was born. I only lived there for the first year of my life so I have no real attachments there, but it felt neat to be there. It took us 3 different locations to find the house. First we had the address wrong, then we went to 95th Street, and finally found the house on 95th Avenue. Those GPS devices are handy, but can take you to the wrong place sometimes. Anyway we found it and we were all kind of grumpy by the time we did find it so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. The house was actually pretty close to the hotel we were staying in so we went there right after. It was late afternoon by the time we were settled and we didn't know what to do so we decided to check out the West Edmonton Mall. It is the biggest Mall in the world, I think. It wasn't that great to us because we really don't like shopping too much. It was fun to see the huge skating rink, the water park, indoor animal kingdom, and the amusement park. We let the kids do a couple of things at Galaxyland (the amusement park). We asked them if they wanted to ice skate, but they didn't seem too excited about that. Saved us some money anyways. We ate at the Food Court there for dinner and stayed for a couple of hours. The Mall closed down at 9 pm. We went back to the motel and saw the Edmonton Temple on the way. I had forgotten there was a temple there. It is a small temple but pretty none the less. We would have gone and done some work there if we would have thought about it, but it was too late at this time. It didn't get dark in Canada until around 11 pm so that was weird to us. Anyway we turned in after a busy day and had a great nights sleep. We must have been tired.

Glacier and Calgary Day 3 July 7

Many Glaciers

We are in Canada! (Cardston and Calgary)

On our 3rd day in Glacier we packed up our stuff and headed to the north part of the park called Many Glaciers. There is a nice hotel there and a few cabins. We got their just in time to go along with a tour guide on a hike. We didn't go on the whole hike but just up to a lake that was about 1 1/2 or 2 miles up the trail. The rest of the group hiked up to a glacier. We didn't have time for that. It was a beautiful hike. We went by two lakes. One of the lakes is frequented by bears. There is a little pond next to the lake that they call the Bear's bathtub. Luckily we didn't see one, but then again we kind of wanted to see one, but from a distance. It was a fun hike and the guide was very informative of the area. Now if I could remember actually what she said that would be better. It was a lot about the area and the history and the people who built the hotel, etc. Oh, one thing I do remember is they used one of the lakes to make ice blocks from and then stored them in an ice house that is still standing up there. They used these ice blocks during the summer for the refrigerators in the hotel.

From Many Glaciers we started on our way up to Calgary Canada. We made a short stop in Cardston to see the temple there. We also stopped in a small town that had a candy store and got a treat. We loved some of the signs for towns up there. One was Smashed in Head, Buffalo Jump and another was Step Off or Stand Off or something like that. We had a good chuckle about those signs. I should look them up and see what the story is behind them.

It took us a good 4 hours to get up there. Oh, we also went through the boarder. That was no big deal, we just showed them our pass ports and went on through after answering a few questions. Calgary was gearing up for the big Stampede which was starting in a couple of days. We were going to miss the Parade and everything, but that is okay with us, we don't really like big crowds too much. We took it easy this night and went to dinner and then let the kids swim in the hotel swim pool that said it was heated, but it was quite cold.

Glacier National Park Day 2

Hike to Hidden Lake and other images along the loop

Weeping Wall, and Various other images

Trail of the Cedars, Avalanche Creek, Green Pond

We got up early on July 6th and headed into Glacier National Park to travel the Sunrise Loop. We drove into the park a ways and ran into construction. While waiting in a line of traffic we saw a ram on the mountainside. It was fun to watch him while we talked to the construction lady. We then made it to our first site to hike up to Hidden Lake. The trail was all covered in snow so it was a tough hike. It was fun though. We tromped up the hill and pretended to ski down. At the top we saw two mountain goats. They were within a couple of feet of us. We watched them for awhile and then we made it up to look over the lake. It was still frozen so hard to see.

Next we drove further on the loop and saw Weeping Wall. It was a mountainside that was covered with waterfalls. It was very cool to see. We took pictures from the car and pulled over and took a few too. It was incredible!

As we were driving we saw this river and pond that looked so green. We stopped and walked down to it to take some pictures. Our pictures don't do it justice. It was simply beautiful. An incredible sight to see. Mackay thought if he took some of the water it would be green, but it wasn't. We now have a bottle of mountain water from Glacier National Park.

Further on in the trail was a dense forest of pine trees. We stopped and took another hike up to a lake. I can't remember what it was called but the river we followed was Avalanche Creek. Walking through the tree was great! The hike was about 2 miles so it took us a little while to do. Up at the lake there were 3 waterfalls in the distance feeding into the lake. We also saw a deer on the way down. It wasn't too afraid of people and came fairly close to Justin. It was a beautiful hike and we were glad we did it. There was a lot of people on the trail so we didn't care for how crowded it was. Many of them had on bear bells. I suppose the bells were to scare away bears. We just thought that they sounded like elves, besides we were hoping to see a bear, but not up close. Oh, the trail we went on was called the Trail of the Cedars.

We made it all the way through the park seeing several lakes, rivers, snow covered mountains, and trees. Our last stop of the day was called Goatlick. It was a hill that was made of salt stone that the goats come to often and lick the rock to get the sodium they need. Justin said he could see some goats on the hill, but I couldn't. They blended in too well.

Glacier National Park

Early Monday Morning on July 5th we took off north from Salt Lake City to East Glacier Montana. It was so beautiful up there. So many trees and there was still snow on the mountains. We were so happy to have nice cool weather too. We drove 10 hours and made it. We were so excited to be there that after we ate dinner we went to check out some of the park. On our first day we took a small hike up to a waterfall. It was fantastic. We took the trail all of the way up to the waterfall. It had rained so it was a little muddy and the trail was a little steep so we kept slipping and sliding all over. The Falls were called Running Eagle Falls. It was named after an Indian Lady who was well known in this area. From the bio they had on her she sounded like an incredible person. There were also a lot of wildflowers on the trail. We had to keep Tyler from picking them.

We then drove up to a lake and and walked a little ways around it. It was so nice being in nature. I have always had a dream of having a cabin by a lake. That will probably never happen but being in a place like this makes me wish that it could happen some day.

Turner Family Reunion - July 1-4

From Movies

On the first day of July we set off for a 2 1/2 week adventure. We headed first off to Cedar City Utah where we did a short stop in St. George for a temple visit then met up with Justin's family for the Turner Family Reunion. This year Justin's dad had scheduled for us to have a couple of nights at the Southern Utah State University's cabin just up Cedar Canyon. We missed him at the reunion very much but had a great time with the family. We hiked, talked, ate, played volleyball, and played games. It was great! We were shorted a night because of some miscommunication so we just hung out in Parowan and went to the 4th of July Parade there. It is a small parade and went fast with floats, cars, horses, firetrucks, you name it. It was fun and the kids had fun catching candy.
Saturday we headed up to my families house. My poor mom was feeling under the weather with an infection that attacked her face. She had a very swollen face and had to go in every day to get antibiotics. She took good care of us anyway. We helped her get her peas all shelled and chatted and watched fireworks. My parents also had some bees make a home in their chimney so they were in the process of getting that taken care of too. We were getting dive bombed by bees while shelling them. It was very annoying. Luckily no one was hurt. Their chimney was all blocked off and a box was put on top of the chimney to capture the bees, but some how they were still able to make it in the house. It was crazy. We also were able to have Sunday dinner with most of my family. I miss them, so it was nice to see them all. We missed my sister Erin and her family. Sad for us!