Road Trippin - Part 2 - A large Serve of Winter Please

Part 2

Mum and Dad were keen to experience wintery conditions and on this trip to Canada they certainly got what they ordered. The temperature on day two in Lake Louise was a  cold -11c and about 14cm of snow had fallen overnight.  Our first stop on day two of our road trip was to see Lake Louise and Mount Victoria in all their wintery glory. 

There's a chair in there.....

As fortune would have it not long after we arrived the clouds parted and the sun shone gently down on us.  The opportunity to view a frozen waterfall at the end of the lake beckoned us to walk along a snowy trail.  Here the boys collected icicles, trudged through thick mounds of fluffy snow and asked “are we there yet?” more than a few times.  After about an hour or so we did  “get to” the end of the lake only to be disappointed that the frozen waterfall wasn’t there.  That was until we turned around and there it was; a massive body of blueish water frozen in time.  It loomed above us and the urge to climb up the steep hill at its base to get a little bit closer was too difficult to resist.   It was not an easy climb in the least.  It took a lot of physical effort to inch our way up by digging footholds into the snow.  At the top we were afforded not only close up views of the frozen water but tremendous views of the surrounding area.  Climbing to the top was fun but sliding down was even better!  It was like sliding down a very long, very steep, very frozen and very cold slippery slide.  Although fun the desire to do it again was non-existant.  Instead we made our way back to the Chateau for a warm drink and rest. 

Seth hitched a ride for a short time on the back
of another visitor's cross country skis.  

Leaving Calgary

After leaving Lake Louise we drove South to Banff, only stopping for a quick bite to eat then headed out of the Rocky Mountains towards Calgary.  Nifty navigation on my part allowed us to avoid this monstrous city.  





Our destination today was the badland city of Drumheller on the Eastern side of Alberta.  Brendan, Caleb and I visited Drumheller in the summer time during our last exchange in 2004 and it intrigued us so much that we vowed to return at some point. This time around winter gave the landscape a duller hue. However the eroded mudstone hills with their layers of coloured sediment still contrasted magnificently with the white, flat, almost endless plains that bordered the town. 

A random click of my camera and I get this funny
photo of Caleb and Seth in from of
Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller.

Drumheller was cold.  Chillingly cold.  Getting out of the car to take photos of various landmarks like the hoodoos, or Horshoe Canyon required rugging completely up (except for the boys who don't seem to feel the cold anymore!!)

Thankfully the main reason for our visit here apart from the eerie landscape was to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum which was delightfully warm.  This museum is well worth a visit.  It features superb displays featuring life size versions of dinosaurs and fossils.  We even watched as two paleontologists went about their work in a lab.  As with all things scientific Caleb marveled at it all.  He read everything he could and played with all the hands on displays.  Seth too enjoyed the museum and with camera in hand snapped pictures of the things that intrigued him.  Having just finished a unit of work on dinosaurs at school meant that he too got a great deal out of his visit.

Sitting on the World's Largest Dinosaur
in Drumheller

A lot of the roads in Alberta seem to go on
forever and ever.  

We left Drumheller and ascended up onto the flat plains of Alberta in the direction of Edmonton.  All we saw apart from the black bitument of the road and occasional fence line was white snow.  The further north we headed the whiter and colder  it got.  As we entered Edmonton conditions became even more treacherous.  Roads that would normally be clear of snow were covered in about 15cm of the stuff.  Dad as our driver took extra caution with his driving unlike a few Edmonton locals who slid around corners or skidded to a stop just in time. Navigating without a local area map also proved to be difficult but we eventually got to the safety of our accommodation, a good meal and a warm comfortable bed. 

Edmonton Roads