Day 8 - Saturday, August 15

Last night, Lindsay got hypnotized by a guy named Rich Guzzi at a place called Players House of Rock. Luckily for Lindsay, I have no pictures of that seedy function.

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When Lindsay and I saw the "No Unkempt Beards" sign at the Chateau Lake Louise, we headed down the hill and spent Night 7 in a bunglow at Paradise Lodge & Bungalows:

We started Day 8 with a walk around Lake Louise. Canada jokes aside, Lake Louise is one of the most stunning things I've ever seen:


We had several terrifying run-ins with wildlife during our walk. This bird was clearly preparing to attack us:

Further down the path, Lindsay was accosted by this blood thirsty mountain monster:

Nature:

Are you kidding me?:

This is where melt water from Victoria Glacier runs into the lake:

Lindsay nursing her wounds in glacier water:

Victoria Glacier:

As you can see, this sign shook me to my core, even more so than the sign back in South Dakota informing me that the wind chimes were not included in the Crazy Days sale:

Here we are after sprinting away from the bear sign:

We had barely started our drive when we got our next sobering reminder:

As we continued up the road, it became apparent that what the Canadian Rockies really need is a Charming Mountain Lakes Warning:

Bow Glacier (I think):

Athabasca Glacier (I know):

We were able to walk right up to the bottom edge. Pretty amazing:

On the path up to the glacier, there are signs every few hundred feet indicating where it extended in years past. Lindsay took this picture from the 1982 sign; I'm the little black speck in the middle of the picture - I was standing at the 1992 sign:

No matter what your stance on global warming, it's a real bummer that a lot of glaciers are disappearing.

If you exclude our friend Nick's son Lucas and the "wild" mountain goats we saw at Mount Rushmore, this elk was the first large animal we came across during the trip:

Just hanging out, being an elk.

Next were these ambiguous Canadian goat sheep on the edge of Jasper National Park:

After Jasper National Park, we made a quick stop in Hinton, Alberta. Hinton seems to have been hit especially hard by the economic downturn:


From Hinton, we headed north to spend the night in Grande Prairie. Alaska was getting closer:


A quick anecdote about Grande Prairie: we checked into the Canadian Motor Inn and immediately realized that the heat was not working in our room. We explained the situation to the lady at the front desk, and she told us to go to Room 123. When we got into Room 123, we saw a broken thermostat hanging from the wall. Perhaps the lady at the front desk didn't understand our complaint (she was Canadian, and we're American, so we should have anticipated the language barrier). In any event, we headed down the road and stayed the night at the Quality Hotel (as the name suggests, our thermostat worked fine).

Lake Louise, Alberta, to Grande Prairie, Alberta - 403 miles