Banff Ptarmigan Inn Hotel

... we saw lots more elk and we saw a male Mule Deer which was cool because I'd only seen females. The females look a lot like small donkeys - hence the name.

Banff is a beautiful place. I'd like to come back here at a different time of the year, maybe Spring or very early Summer. I don't think I'd like it so much at the height of summer when you would be elbowing people off the pavement just to have room to walk. There are lots of lovely ...

... Circus Circus, The Venetian, Caesers.. you can guess by the names what themes they had! Circus Circus had random circus acts throughout the day with a trapeze and everything inside. The Venetian had gondola rides, and the inside shopping part was painted like it was outside with the sky on the roof (it truly looked like the clouds were moving as well - really weird!) and the shops were made to look like separate buildings.. very cute! I met a lot of random people there ...

... lift), but decided that the Banff Sulphur Mountain Gondola looked better. Then, we drove to Moraine Lake and the Valley of the Ten Peaks. See if you can count the ten peaks in the picture. Be sure and notice the aqua blue color of Moraine Lake. It is fed from a dormant glacier, so it does not get the green color caused by glacial silt or "flour".

It was a long day, but we have now seen the heart of Banff, the Bow River Valley.

... was spent doing laundry as I had somehow already ran out of clean socks. The view from my dorm room is amazing - it looks out onto a snowy landscape and high peaks. And I had the room to myself last night, so I took advantage by reading a book in bed and sleeping for ten uninterupted hours. I didn't have to wake up early this morning because I knew it wouldn't take me all day to visit Lake Louise. I ate breakfast at the same ...

... was left, but from memory, it last read 19:39 and that was a full bottle!! **** ey, woops, and a few other words crept into my head, not stressing one bit about the multitude of possibilites that now lay before me given my new knowledge of how ****** i've yet to become and VERY SOON!!! Not much really was in my control after that, its very patchy and it was only in the morning that I thought that was dumb. I was told that i ditched everyone in the hotel ...

... fell from the air and made the snow either sooty or brown looking. Following on from our glacier experience we motored on and decided to stop for a picnic lunch at Bow Lake, as we had enjoyed it so much last time. The weather was once again hot but we noticed clouds building up over the mountains. We finally reached Baker Creek, outside Lake Louise late afternoon and found it was very similar to ...

... so it is a real shame when they do happen to leave. I said goodbye to Glen this week, who I spent quite a bit of time with when I first arrived, but I hope to meet up with him again somewhere on my travels. Max and I have been trying to plan our trip the USA a bit too over that past month. We leave in about a week and a half and I am getting pretty excited. We have 7 flights booked in total and will be staying with my friends/family over there for most of the ...

... General Manager of the hotel is moving back to one of the other hotels in the group. He is a fantastic manager, one of the best I have had. He is not my direct manager, but still have quite a bit to do with him on a reasonably regular basis. I am sure that we will still see him, but I think that the dynamics of the "office" may change a bit once he has gone and I guess that will depend on his replacement. I will leave it there, should think about getting to bed. xxx

... along of bear encounters and so from our guides and from the biologist Melanie. Then at the third day we went to houwl to the wolves. First Melanie tried it alone then she encoraged us to try as a group! Well no reply from the wolves but it is really terapeutic to let the wolf out of you and give it a go to houwl a good one. Before this we went out on a day ride and two of the gentleman did not join us, they stayed in the camp which was close to a river. so one of them decided to go ...