Lake Louise, Alberta

Happy September everyone!  Hope your summer was wonderful.  My knee continues to talk to me and so I’ve given up on ultimate for this year at least, but am hoping for next year.   In the meantime I’m still doing physio like crazy.  Fortunately I was able to do a lot of hiking and backpacking despite my knee this summer, which was a lot of fun and took me to many beautiful places.  It culminated in the West Coast Trail, but I’ll save that for another post.

First some pictures from a trip back to Alberta.  Dev, Kiran and I managed to sneak away from family engagements to do a quick hike up the Big Beehive at Lake Louise.  Fun facts about Lake Louise:

·         at 1536 m it’s the highest permanent settlement in Canada

·         roughly 2600 mountain goats, 80 grizzlies and 50 black bears call the Lake Louise area home

·         the tea house at Lake Agnes only gets one helicopter supply run a year to bring up all the flour, sugar, propane and other dry goods for the year.

Our goal:

On the way up.  Can’t believe Dev is wearing jeans…

Lake Agnes.  Still lots of snow in mid-June.

Past the snow field and at the top.  Time to pose as the intrepid explorers that we are.

Suddenly a short but nasty hail storm hit, but it left us with a beautiful double-rainbow (better than that ridiculous Youtube video which made the rounds years ago). 

That was it for Lake Louise this year.  Maybe a backpacking trip in the Rockies next year?  Let me know if you are in!

Changing the topic from hiking, Rod and I are doing well in our new rental.  I’ve even made friends with Steve, a beautiful ginger cat down the street. 

Steve: definitely the cutest cat within a 3 block radius.

I also went to the hilarious Avenue Q Broadway musical showing in Vancouver, which I would highly recommend! It’s Sesame-street for adults (caution…some puppet nudity). Its tagline is “Like your life.  Only funnier.  With puppets.”

Other summer activities included rubbing these dogs’ bellies, trying my luck at Rod’s family’s annual ring loss (beginner’s luck and I won!), and enjoying a gorgeous Vancouver evening on the beach with friends for the fireworks (thanks Sarah for the photo). 

 I leave you with one more anecdote left over from moving day a few months back.  Rod and I each sold some stuff on Craigslist.  One guy showed up with a suitcase to pack away the microwave I sold him.  He got the height and length right, but forgot about the depth.  Seeing him stuff it in and strain the zippers was somewhat entertaining.  Even more so though was someone who offered to take Rod’s free couch off his hands:

“Wow what an offer. I am excited to take your possession to a great new home in the Olympic Village.
 I just moved in to a great new bachelor pad that needs to be pimped with the right furnishings, and yours suits my style, looking upon a sunset drinking wine and dining. Oh please call me and you will be just as happy to know it is in good faith to be needed “.