Snow in August? Really?

Aug. 13, 14 and 15

Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. We made this our first stay in a hotel, after 9 or 10 nights in the trailer…and what a joint! Built in the 1920s as a climbing chateau, this place sat right on the edge of the lake and was truly stunning! The lake is framed by three or four glaciers, and the Rockies – just unbelievable. We pulled up, parked the trailer, checked in, and Cal declared that he would like to live here. He also declared that he would like to do anything in the world that involved other kids, and off he went to “Art School of the Lake.” The kid hates art, but apparently he needed a break from us even more. We had our first alone time in nearly two weeks.

We had delicious meals involving fondue, bison and peanut butter and jelly; canoed on the startlingly aqua lake, which checked in at 33 degrees (gone was our dream of swimming in every body of water on the trip), and ambled around the Lake Trail. Poor Cal picked up about 40 bug bites (origin of bugs unclear, but very well may have been in the room – disgusting), and spent about 6 hours in the hotel’s pool. Aus and I got him a sitter (Jackie, no love connection, but she let him swim for three hours) and had a lovely date night.



Austin spent Friday morning on the “best run of her life (as you know, these words do not go together in the Margie vernacular)” and ran over 10 miles up a trail called “Plain of Six Glaciers” to Victoria Glacier, Lake Agnes, Mirror Lake and down. I need to mention here that it was snowing about 40% of the run, and about 36 degrees. Unreal. She was sore for four days.

We also spend an afternoon in Banff, the T-Shirt Capital of Alberta and bought Margaret potentially the most meaningful t-shirt of her young life. Friday night we tucked in, had room service and headed out the next morning, headed for Northwest Montana, Glacier National Park and my brother, Steve and his family.