The last day that Gail, Bruce and I would be together in Alberta (the next day Gail would fly home to London, and Bruce and I would fly to Regina to meet up with Jenny and Karen, and some of our friends for a Corporate retreat). Today we go to Canmore (5 minutes away from our motel in Deadman's Flats - the Big Horn Motel) to visit a friend of Gail's. After a nice visit, and lots of catching up, we headed off to Banff to do some touristy stuff.
In Banff, we did a bunch of shopping. They had closed off main street to vehicles, I think just so that it wasn't too crowded during such a busy time of the year for them. There were a lot of great shops with fairly reasonable prices and a lot of interesting items for sale. I would love to visit Banff again purely for the shopping that they had!
We were in search of big horn sheep, and so we'd always take the scenic route wherever we went. While heading up a mountain road, we saw a small heard of really cute mountain goats! I was able to get a lot of great photos of them, and even though they weren't big horn sheep, they still made my day!
We decided that we were going to go up to Lake Louise in hopes of seeing some more wildlife. We finally got to the lake, and after riding and climbing up to the beautiful and remote Talus Lake a few days before, Lake Louise didn't appear very impressive. When you have to work so hard to get to a lake that so many people have never seen before, and don't even know about, it makes driving to a lake that is a major tourist attraction just not as special! But, on the way back to Banff, we saw some pretty spectacular wildlife. A black bear was crossing the highway in front of us. I managed to snap a photo or two as this young bear (he looked like he was only a couple years old) loped across the Trans Canada highway! That was a really cool experience!
After a nice supper in Banff, we headed back to the Big Horn Motel to pack. We would be leaving for the airport very early the next morning and needed to get some rest.
Banff was a lot of fun and I think that I would go back someday if I get the chance. Even though we never saw any big horn sheep, I had not been expecting to see a black bear or any mountain goats, so that made up for the big horn sheep who were MIA.
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