Wordless Wednesday

 

Lake Agnes Teahouse

Something I have pretty much never done before - taken a random day off from work to do something fun!  A friend was celebrating her 50th birthday and wanted to do a hike followed by a lunch with a view.

Lake Louise view from the trail

Lake Agnes lies above Lake Louise (you also pass Mirror Lake on the way up) and you start the hike from the Fairmont Lake Louise. Several other popular hikes start from here, and the parking can be impossible on weekends and/or in summer.  Thus, a weekday before schools let out was the perfect time.We also had the perfect weather, bright and sunny but not too warm.

Lake Agnes. Yes that's ice still in the lake. Yes it's mid-June.

While sitting on a bench at Lake Agnes, soaking in the view, a very cheeky chipmunk scampered onto the bench right next to me ... then into my lap!  I held my breath while mentally telling the chipmunk "please don't bite me"... when I did not immediately put food in its mouth it scampered back off. Whew!

It's a mystery why they call this one "Mirror Lake"

We finished the hike at the Fairmont, with lunch on the patio overlooking the lake. Somehow I took no photos there but be assured it was stunning. The water is still the same turquoise blue that Alex swears is a result of dye. 

Three hikes in one week!  Woooot!

Prairie Mountain

 

As said before, the family vetoes hikes with an incline. So, a little nervous about the possibility of bears, I clutched by bear spray tightly and embarked on one of the most popular hikes in the area: Prairie Mountain. I can see why folks love it - it is only an hour outside of Calgary and 7km round trip. It also covers 700m of elevation, or nearly 2300 feet, of elevation in that time. It is not for the faint of heart.

I tried my best to take many beautiful photos and they all look fake. They also don't nearly capture the view. This happens when all you have is a crappy phone camera because your husband, who wields the fancy (and heavy!) camera, decides not to join.

The summit has a perfect 360 view of mountains and the valley. For some reason my cell phone battery was dying quickly today so I didn't linger at the top past eating lunch. The parking lot for the hike is at the Elbow River so I did pop over there to dip my feet before driving home. Just a bit down the road, I saw a ton of cars pulled over on both sides and assumed there was some hiking trail with an insufficient parking lot. The camper in front of me was trying to maneuver because some of the cars hadn't pulled over all the way. Then I looked to my left and saw this handsome fellow. I pulled over (all the way) and took a couple of quick shots before heading on my merry way home.

Moose and mountains, is there a better way to spend a day?

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Back to Dinosaur

We enjoyed the fall trip to Dinosaur so much we decided we wanted to spend a night or two by the hoodoos. Through determination and perseverance normally only seen when scoring concert tickets, we were able to secure the very last campsite for the dates we wanted.

When Friday rolled around, the weather promised to be erratic. Chances of rain and thunderstorms. We were going to be using our new, amazing, enormous tent and have definitely not gotten down the "set tent up in 5 minutes flat" routine we worked our way towards last summer. So, we decided to postpone until Saturday morning.

Saturday promised to be a beautiful day, but first we had to get out the door!  Camp-car-packing Tetris plus grouchy teens and tweens who would have preferred a weekend on the couch meant tempers ran medium-high. But on the road we got, and after a relatively uneventful drive (although we did see a fox sauntering across a field, as well as many examples of future delicious Alberta steaks enjoying their best lives on pasture) made our way to the camp site.  We all went into default mode with the kids getting their tent up then inflating everyone's mattresses, pitching pillows and sleeping bags into the right places while Terry and I figured out the new tent. The hammer went back and forth as everyone worked to pound the stakes in.  By the time everything was up and staked it was lunch time!

After lunch the kids had the commandment to do some hiking then they can read, play, or whatever else. Alex took off like a rocket, Zoltan decided he'd rather stay with the adults. And exploring we went.  Our goals were to climb hoodoos, take pictures, and - for Terry and me - get enough steps for our different step challenge teams to not be embarrassments.  We each ended the day around 18,000 so I guess we succeeded.  We also played a heated game of animal, vegetable, mineral where each of us managed the stump the other two. Zoltan's mineral was molybdenum, which just goes to show you that there is real education to be found in childrens' literature. 

Over dinner the first night, we were discussing the major exciting features of the new tent and Alex mentioned the large entryway so I supplied the correct word "vestibule" but she didn't hear me correctly and though I said "vegetable" so now there is a "vegetable" half open to the world just outside the sleeping part of our tent.

The second day we were all sleep-deprived because camping is loud and light. We checked out a different section of hoodoos as well as the canoe launch in case we ever wanted to come back for a float.  We cooked hot dogs for lunch and with the value of hindsight cooked food was probably not the best idea for the hottest day ever (around 75 degrees Fahrenheit).  In the afternoon we could barely stay comfortable laying in the shade.  Then Terry had a brilliant idea: the concession stand. Dinosaur Park actually has a concession stand, cafe, and in non-COVID times a whole little museum.  

We wandered over and everyone got various ice creams but I got a Slushie. Totally refreshing!

Feeling much better we lazed about until dinner and s'mores time. Having noticed the night sky the night before, we set the alarm to get up around midnight and spent some time stargazing (at least, those of us who awoke did so).

We saw numerous mule deer - a couple coming close to our campsite. We saw a robin's nest relatively low in a tree, low enough I could see the robin sitting on the eggs - the little head poking just above the edge of the nest. We saw a parent bird make many trips in and out of a hole in the tree by our camp site and when we got close we could hear the "cheep" of baby birds. No prairie dogs, which we have consistently seen in the mountains and never in the prairie.  

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Cake for dinner

 One of the birthday coupons the kids got last year was dessert for dinner.  Zoltan used his on something relatively mundane. Alex, on the other hand, came up with this gem.

She and Zoltan each made cakes.  

 She made the chocolate and graham cracker cakes. Zoltan made a plain white cake.  He made chocolate chiffon frosting. She made marshmallow frosting. It consumed 2 containers of Fluff and still the "marshmallow" flavor got lost in "frosting" flavor. Next time it needs less butter and powdered sugar.

She stacked and frosted the layers.  She decorated the top and sides (Zoltan helped made some of the design decisions).

This thing is both amazing and terrifying. Our slices were about 1/16 each and it was too much. I was impressed how it all came together.  The graham cracker cake is the same recipe our chef friend had used when making Alex's birthday cake 3 years ago in Frankfurt and I doubted that Alex could pull off something as moist and flavorful. I was wrong.

* Note: Terry had nothing to do with these photos

Wordless Wednesday

 

Raising children

 This is what it is like to raise children. 

The Scene: just after lunch, at Zoltan's room

Me:  Zoltan, go downstairs and put away the mac and cheese.

Zoltan: I didn't leave it out.

 Me: Then who did? Nobody else had any.

Zoltan: It's not out.