That Time Katrina Came (part 1)

So. Today is the last day of July... so it's about time I wrote about the time Katrina came to visit in June. Arghh! I'm sorry for the lateness. I have had computer dramas, and have also been busy holidaying (more on that in another month or two...or hopefully sooner!). Okay, let's begin...

Way back at the end of June, Lovely Katrina came to visit! I still can't believe she travelled all this way to hang out for 11 days. We definitely made the most of our 11 days.

Around 8am I fetched her from the airport, within the next few hours she had a fantastic introduction to Vancouver's public transport system as we made our way to Grouse Mountain via train, ferry & bus. We made it just in time for our Ziplining adventure! It was a lot of fun zipping across valleys. The views up there were incredible. Such a great start to our adventure.
The bus dropped us at the Capilano Suspension Bridge on the way back down the mountain. Wow this place is busier in summer! When I went in winter I was the only person on the cliff walk, but at this time of the year wow! There are people by the bus-load arriving constantly! It was pretty though, and fun walking through the tree tops.
We ate poutine for dinner (for you twin) at a place where you can buy a $100 hot dog (if you call 12 hours in advance). We ended the day watching the Bachelorette... back when I was sure Jef with one f was not going to be around much longer.


The next day we met Harold Henry the Hyundai (which you prounounce hun-day over here) who joined us for our road trip! We stopped at White Spot for lunch in Kamloops & got to Valemount by dinner time, clocking up nearly 700kms... which was more than I had driven in the previous 6 months. We B&B'ed it in Valemount. It was a super cute little town, with really wide roads, a giant cup, a really cool sign & surrounded on 4 sides by mountains! I think they had 2 ATMs, but no one had eftpos (mostly because they don't know what 'eftpos' is in Canada, but they also didn't have 'debit' which is the same thing). And they were having a water issue because of the flooding, so we had to drink bottled water.

The B&B owners cooked us up a big English breakfast. Mmmm!
We did alot the next day. Alot Alot Alot.
We started by trying to see Mount Robson, which is apparently really impressive... but it was hiding behind cloud cover, so we took photos in front of the poster on the wall.
We then crossed into Alberta & entered Jasper National Park (warning: this costs money). We found the Maligne Canyon and were awestruck! The canyon is so deep & the water moves so fast. As with most of the things we saw that day, photos don't do it justice! On our way back into town we saw some...animals. We couldn't decide if they were deer or moose... they weren't. They were elk.
After lunch we headed down the Icefields Parkway. I am fairly sure Katrina got sick of me getting excited every time I spotted a mountain. You have not seen mountains until you have been on that road! They are HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE! And beautiful!

We stopped off at the Athabasca Falls. Wow! Again! Wow! The falls move so fast! It's like a mini Niagara Falls, but less touristy & you can get closer to the falls (without paying money I mean). We walked down through the old channel that the river used to use before it carved a new path. Water is so powerful!

We forgot to change our clock forward an hour when we reached Alberta, so when we got to the Columbia Icefields at 3:45 it was actually quarter to five... luckily we weren't too late for a trip onto a glacier! We road in one of those bus things with the big wheels (I forget what they are called) down onto the Athabasca Glacier. It was cold...we didn't dress warm enough for this adventure. It was amazing to be standing on it though! AND I tasted the glacier water... my fingers almost fell off, but I can say I tasted glacier water.


Just as we had given up all hope of seeing anymore wildlife beside the road (we had seen the elk, another elk and some sheep/goats (it's really hard to tell the difference between sheep and goats here)) we spotted a convoy parked on the side of the highway... and there was a little grizzly bear! Sooo cute! I wanted to hug him! After he wandered off we started to drive on, but there were cars pulled over another few hundred metres up the road... yep another bear! It was a black bear this time, with a cute little cub! It was crazy to be so close to bears! Real bears!!

Ok... I need to pause here because I am taking the boys on an adventure in the morning (we're going to Science World AND catching a train from there into the city for lunch...don't tell them though because it's a surprise! At the moment they think we are going to the ballet & then robbing a bank...long story) and I need to sleep... but feel a little bit updated, part 2 coming...sometime! I already have the photos ready to upload!