Looking Back...The Canadian Rockies

I was looking through pictures on my old computer last night and came across some of my favorites that I haven't seen for a while.  They were taken about 6 years ago when we went on a trip to see the Rockies.   I was 20 years old and had never been out of the province of Manitoba.  I was extremely excited, I'd never seen mountains before.  Where I'm from you can look out your window and literally see for miles, long , flat , boring miles.

After a 13 hour drive we reached Calgary, stopped off to get some food and were on our way to Banff.  I remember seeing the first glimpse of the mountains, so far in the distance they seemed small.

  We reached Banff and it was just as beautiful as I'd hoped.  We walked around town and visited the shops, it was so nice to come outside and see the mountains in the background.

We went to the gondolas and ascended up the huge mountain.

This was our view from the top.  Far from miles and miles of long, flat and boring.

As we were up at the top of the mountain looking around a storm was on it's way.  We luckily got back indoors before the downpour came.

That night we stayed in a beautiful log cabin up on the mountain.  It had a fireplace which my husband insisted on using even though it was the middle of summer. :)

The next morning we were off, heading further into the Rockies, we were just going to see where we ended up.  The further we got into the mountains I realized, the ones we were just on were nothing compared to the size of the ones we were driving on the side of.  It was almost like you were driving up in the clouds, they were so close.

As we drove through the mountains there were waterfalls everywhere, they were coming down the sides of the mountains right by the highway from the snow melting off the peaks.

We stopped off to see a few larger ones up close as well.

As we drove over and through the mountains you could see huge forest fires burning on the mountain across from us.  Definitely a sight to see.

We made it all the way to Vancouver to realized that it was august long weekend and there were no hotel rooms available anywhere.  That was pretty disappointing and we ended up having to sleep in the car.  This is the view from our "camping" spot.

On our way back home we stopped back at Calgary again to visit some family and then we were off on our long drive back home.

It was a great trip and I plan on going back someday when the kids are a bit older.  I can't imagine driving that far with a 2 year old and a 1 year old.  I highly suggest it to anyone who hasn't been, it's beautiful.