Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, Canada (July 9-18, 2011)

... and yes, we are now back in Canada. We feel weird being back in Canada. Although not quite home yet, our minds are drawn back to work and Montreal. But we have another month or so to go. We visit our son, Thomas, in Calgary, who has been living here on its own for 3 years. Alain has helped him buy a car, his first one, a Jeep Laredo 4x4... He wanted a big car, he is getting it... well, he is the one who will have to pay for gas, insurance, maintenance. Let him have his experience !

Now that Thomas has his car, we think we have probably invaded his space for enough time and we leave after four days. We take the road to Banff National Park. Alain and I have lived in Vancouver before, from June 1988 to April 1992. At that time, we had visited the Canadian Rockies. We must say that we had forgotten how beautiful this part of Canada is. The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking with their summits, glaciers, lakes with different colors (blue, green, white), wild open spaces without any houses on the horizon.

Lake Louise and Glacier in the background in the above picture

Real colour of Lake Morraine above

Paint pot above

 Picnic on the side of the road !

And the wild life is present too...

Our days are so filled up with walking, visiting, riding the motorcycles, that by the time, we come back to the tent, we are too exhausted to write our daily notes. It is not a joke. We find it sometimes difficult to have the discipline to keep up with the blog every day. We are glad that during our trip, we have shared as much as we could and as often as we could. Hopefully it does not get too boring for our followers, as in the United States and in Canada, we are mainly visiting National Parks with many different sceneries. In all cases, we have documented our memories. Alain and I are already talking about reviewing all the pictures. Sometimes, we just loaded them on Picassa without even having the time to really look at them. We keep on meeting wonderful people on the road, sometimes just for 10 minutes and sometimes we end up on the side of the road talking for an hour or more, and sharing our different experiences. There are many travellers nowadays and it is fascinating to meet and talk with them.

Time to go. On the Road to... Vancouver !