Day 52 – Wednesday 8/29/18

Tripometer – 5880 mi

Gas Gauge – 463.001 gal

Location – Lake Louise Campground, Banff National Park, AB, Canada

Lodging – $33 CAD

Cans of OFF – 4

Kelly & Paul’s 20th Anniversary

Again with the 8 o’clock noise ordinances. This morning right at 8am a helicopter buzzed the campground to ensure everyone was awake. We had planned to grab breakfast at a local hikers hostel just down the street from the campground. As Kelly prepped to go to the restaurant Paul had a Disney Princess moment while finishing his coffee and reading his phone at the picnic table. A small bird perhaps the size of a wren landed on Paul’s shoulder ever so briefly before realizing he was actually alive and flew off in a flurry of feathers. Trail magic can sometimes happen in camp!

The hostel restaurant turned out to be a highlight of Lake Louise. We were pleasantly surprised with our best and least expensive hot breakfast in weeks. We asked the two local police officers at the table next to us at breakfast to recommend some restaurants in Lake Louise to celebrate our anniversary. They were pleased to help. We made dinner reservations at the Station Restaurant for that evening.

After breakfast we visited Lake Louise itself. Talk about crowded. Lake Louise is the crown jewel in Banff’s crown. It has a historic hotel on the shores of the lake that costs close to a thousand dollars a night to stay. It’s a beautiful old place, but lends an unpleasant air of exclusivity and pretentiousness to an otherwise completely pristine location. We sat on a bench and admired the view for quite a while as we watched what we assume to be the same helicopter that woke us up this morning ferrying some kind of cargo to a destination way back in the mountains at the back of the lake. The throngs of tourists on the little path around the lake encouraged us to find somewhere else to walk the dog today.

In the afternoon we walked the river trail from our campground down into the little town of Lake Louise to visit a little book store in town and, more importantly to take a little of Ranger’s edge off before we leave him in the car for dinner. The color of the water in most rivers and lakes in the park is the beautiful greenish blue color that you can see in both pictures above. From many placards by roadside and trailside we know this to be the result of rock flour, very fine grain rock powder created when glaciers slowly erode the rocks that they pass across.

Dinner was lovely. The Station Restaurant was built by the Canadian Pacific rail company in 1909 as the rail station for Lake Louise and is still in use today but only for fancy passenger trains on touring trips through the national parks. They have two restored 19th century railway dining cars in the back of the restaurant for special events – we thought that was especially creative.