long day

Finally home after a long day in the car. It all started yesterday....


Steve and the kids wanted to camp out, and there's no way we can fit all 5 of us in any of the tents we have so we decided to camp out in the back yard. Steve and the 2 oldest anyway, Kez and I got to sleep in our own comfy beds! And keeping to the camp-out theme we thought we'd do something "touristy" tomorrow (which is today). We gave the kids the option of going to the beach, or heading to the mountains. Since they've never been to the mountains we got 2 huge enthusiastic responses of "MOUNTAINS!!". It was decided. Around 8:30 (after Steve and I spend some "couple" time watching Penelope - which I highly recommend! James McAvoy is my new hottie!) the 3 of them headed out to the tent. Around 8:50 Callah came in complaining she had a belly ache and wanted to sleep in her own bed. So around 8:55 I went out to the tent to fetch her pillow and I found the 2 boys fast asleep and snoring. So much for excitement!

Anyway back to today. So my idea was to hit the Columbia Icefields. I remember going there years ago and thought it was really cool how they date the glacier. So you can see how much it's melted in the last 100+ yrs. On the map it looked like it would take us 3 hrs at the most. Smooth sailing.

Obviously I was wrong.

We didn't take into account the 3 bear sightings ( and the hourdes of tourists standing in the road taking pictures of said bears), the construction and the super cautious drivers who go around corners doing 40 km/hr in a 90 km/hr zone. That being said we reached the Icefields roughly 5 hours after leaving Wetaskiwin. After a chilly (poor Keziah was really freezing...but I think she really enjoyed it!) hike up the rockface we carefully walked a few feet up the glacier, took some cool photos, walked around the little trail, back the hill down to our van, got back in and headed back home. That took us about an hour. So we stopped here and there along the way back for a few little hikes and pictures. Had supper at Rocky Mtn. House around 8 pm and finally arrived back in Wetaskiwin around 9:45 pm.

So nearly 12 hours on the road for a few short hours of breathtaking beauty. Was it worth it? I definately say so (altho' my bottom may argue). And I will post pictures, but I'm dreadfully tired right now, so they will more likely come tomorrow.

That's it for now, have a good nite!