Banff and Lake Louise

I remember there was a Greek philosopher (don't remember which one), who theorized that he was the only person in the universe, because his awareness was the only reality he know. The function of every other person and thing in the universe was merely to complete his view and awareness of the cosmos. I'm sure I've butchered the essence of his philosophy, but as I understand it, if he were alive today, he would say that the AIDS crisis in Africa exists only if he actually witnesses it, and if he doesn't then it doesn't matter. For some reason I was thinking about this guy a lot today as we experienced another perfect day in Canada. It seemed as though God ordered the universe today, at least the part I was in, merely to please me. That's not as egocentric as it sounds. I just have a God that is powerful enough that, if He wanted to do such a thing, He could. We had early on decided that today would be the day that we visited Banff and Lake Louise, partly because the water in our condo was to be turned off all day (it's still not back on). But the weather was calling for snow all day today and tomorrow, and I wasn't feeling all that well, so we had kind of given up on that. Got up this morning and decided we would go as far as we could, until the Mounties or the weather told us to turn around. We did get some snow, but we also got a lot of sunshine--scenery so wonderful that breathtaking doesn't seem to do it justice. When we entered at the ranger station and asked if there was a chance of chains being needed, she said no, that it hadn't even begun to snow in the park. (Jan and I are phobic about driving in snow, dating back to a couple of mishaps when we were in college.). So as the day unfolded, I realized that when we made our reservations on May 1, God was setting things in motion so that we could have a perfect day on October 7.

When you enter the park, you are greeted by the sight at the top of this blog. It's called the castle, or castle cliffs, for obvious reasons. After about twenty minutes, you enter the town of Banff, a beautiful little alpine-looking city with a downtown pictured below.

It was snowing lightly, temperature was in the low 30s and once we found a restroom we began exploring and searching for a place to eat. We saw a subway, a Tony Roma's and an Old Spaghetti Factory, but we kind of rule out places that we could visit at home. (Hence the fascination with Cracker Barrel when we are out of California)

We finally settled on this place, the St James Gate Old Irish Pub. This must be a replica of one in Ireland, because those are the first pictures that came up when I searched. The interior is pictured below, and the place was just full of "atmosphere". The food was great also, and there was enough that is also serving as dinner tonight. Being an Irish pub, there were Irish sayings all over the walls. This was my favorite: AN IRISH CURSE:

"Lord, may those that love me, love me. And those that don't love me, turn their hearts. And those whose hearts you can't turn, turn their ankles, so I'll know them by their limping!" We ate at a couple of Irish pubs in Boston last summer, so this brought back memories of that great trip. When lunch started I had started to feel a little woozy again, and I told Jan that if I didn't feel better, we could get Lake Louise on the next trip. But after lunch and a trip to the drugstore for some more Advil sinus, I felt much better and we decided to go for it.

So, after saying goodbye to Banff, and realizing that it would be the subject of a much longer visit in the future, we headed back on the trans-Canada highway for Lake Louise. BTW, the roads were fabulous. The roads all the way into and through the park reminded me of the stretch of road from Bishop to Mammoth--not your typical, windy, narrow mountain roads that you experience at, say, Yosemite or Sequoia.

Part of the panorama on the way to Lake Louise is in the picture on the left, called the Ten Peaks. I didn't count them.

This picture is kind of blurry, (actually I accidentally deleted it, but Lake Louise is also in the picture at the bottom) but this is Lake Louise, at the northern end of Banff National Park. While it's blurry, the color of the water is exactly as pictured. Again, it was snowing lightly, just enough to entertain us Californians who never see it where we live. And since we aren't skiers, we usually don't even visit our local mountains when there is snow.

Finally, this is where we decided we want to stay next time we come!! This is the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, and we'll probably be able to afford it if my tax business reaches annual receipts in 6 figures!

What a perfect day it was, and I felt kind of guilty for worrying that it would be anything less.