Banff, Lake Louise and $8 Lemonade

Sunday, August 30, Banff National Park, Alberta Canada

Debbie flew up to Calgary late Saturday night. I picked her up and headed back to Banff to stay at the Caribou Lodge. We started the day off with a great breakfast in Banff Town at Melissa's Mis-steak. Can't miss breakfast if you are ever in Banff.

After breakfast, headed out to Lake Louise. Hard to imagine a more beautiful view than the classic one to the left of the turquoise blue water, the mountains and Victoria Glacier in the background. Lots of people out in canoes paddling like crazy because they were $40 an hour. I'm thinking of buying some canoes and heading up there - any interested business partners?





We had planned a leisurely stroll around the lake, but ran across a trailhead at the fair end with a path up to a tea house built in the early 1900s by the railroad to encourage tourism in the area and decided to make the climb.

It wasn't too bad of a climb, but it was a warm sunny day and we didn't have any water, so we were glad to get to the top, because we heard they had good lemonade.



The "good lemonade" turned out to be a small cup of room temperature Crystal Light, since they have no electricity or fresh produce. For $2.75 Canadien we both got a cup and downed them in two sips. We decided we would run out of money before we ran out of thirst, so we tipped and left, taking our $8 paper cups with us.






Luckily, there was a spring fed creek right above the tea house. At first we used our hands to cup the water, but after about three dips in that glacier melt, you couldn't feel your fingers any longer, so then we had the bright idea of using our expensive cups - worked much more effectively.





Another view of the lake on the way back. About this time, I chided Debbie for losing the two paper cups. Not so much that we would need them again, but for the litter factor.

Several minutes later, I realized that I no longer had our camera bag that I had lugged up to the tea house. We remembered that we had stopped to have someone take our picture and both of us had laid down the items we were carrying and then let early onset Alzheimer's kick in and we forgot all about them. Walked back down the trail to try and find our stuff and passed a lady with the same camera bag as I had. Sure enough, she had seen it and was carrying it back to turn it in. You gotta love Canada - in the states our stuff would have already been offered on eBay.

Best view of all from the Glacier Saloon at the Fairmount Chateau Lake Louise. For about $9 per beer, you get to relax and look out over the lake. Don't expect nuts though - the birds there are really nasty so they don't allow nuts on the patio.