Alaska, Canada and NYC Day 22

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Up early for an 0730 bag pull. Then onto the coach by 0830. Bit slow out of the blocks this morning, finally get to breakfast at 0800. Walking into the breakfast place and get confronted by Julie from the Alaskan tour. Their tour got into jasper the night before. Stop to chat to her so our time for breakfast reduced....

Get out into he bus and find our seats. Then get of to chat to Julie and Greg - hold up both buses but bugger it..... Away to the Athabasca Falls - really pretty falls very close to the road - we get very close and the power is amazing. Othe trafalgar tour arrives as well, so 3rd time we get to cross paths with the others in half a day. More bears - more pics - this is becoming common place but still exciting when we see them beside the road.

We are travelling the same road we came from Calgary back to Banff. This time our side gets the good views, including the Columbia Icefileds where the glaciers buses were working again. This time there were people walking the glacier with a guide so more activity.

On to lake Louise village for lunch - another beautiful day so we get take away stuff and eat by the river - very pleasant. On again, more bears (oh hum...). In to Yoho national park, and the spiral tunnels - this is where the train line drops down a mountain that was so steep that they kept crashing - brakes wouldn't grip..... So they built the spiral tunnels where the train enters a tunnel, turns 270 degrees and drops enough to not loose traction but gets down in height. The interesting part is that the engine comes out and the rest of the train is still entering the tunnel - like a caterpillar. Something to look for when we are on the Rocky Mountaineer.

Next stop is emerald lake. This lake is bright blue/green and has a lodge that is a bit exclusive. Pretty lake and could imagine the solitude when the tourists have gone - ah the serenity.....

5 minutes down the road to the hidden bridge - a waterfall that has carved the stone into a bridge - again the power of the water. Into Banff and a quick tour through the town and up to the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. Looks like a palace at the top of town, and priced accordingly. What a sight - all stone exterior, with a Bentley, and two other flash cars out the front....

Way out of our league - can you fix that for us Maxine?

Back to our very nice hotel - the Banff Park Lodge - right in the heart of town. Bags delivered and off to our highlight dinner - our choice of 1 of 3 restaurants - we chose italian. Get there and have a table of 11. We sit beside the couple from Niagara Falls on one side and another couple from San diego. Godo night, food much better than we had on the Alaskan special nights. Turns out the couple from San Diego are celebrating their wedding anniversary - 49th.......... Wow - his comment for a long wedded bliss - yes dear......

Get lots of info for our Niagara Falls day and apologies as they will be away otherwise they would have picked us up and done the tour guide bit - nice people. He (Lynn) used to work still the power station on the American side so has good info for us.

Back to the room and Skype Jessica and the kids - all home (Chris as well - still on holiday) so that was really good to catch up with everyone. Charlie asked what sort of animals we had seen then proceeded to growl at us like a bear...... His Skype attention span hasn't changed a lot - 1 or 2 minutes then off to drawing or some other activity then back to tell us something or show us his drawing. Good to see and hear them all.

Off to sleep now - hard work sitting all day and spotting bears... We even got one near the spiral tunnels that only about 6 of us saw - total bear count now up to around 20 - and who said they don't exist in the wild.....

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