Friday, June 27

We woke up surrounded by tall pines and snow-capped mountains, and we decided to change our itinerary . We had been planning to spend a week in the Rockies and then descend back to the plain to attend the Calgary Stampede on July 4. Perhaps it was the shock of the Banff supermarket yesterday after the solitude of Route 40, but suddenly we no longer wanted to drive out of our way to encounter all those crowds. So we gave away our rodeo tickets to the nice young people staffing the campground, and we will proceed directly to the Alaska Highway from Jasper next week and be able to drive it at a more leisurely pace.



We then enjoyed a perfectly beautiful day at Lake Louise. Dick had been here before, but I had not. After admiring the lake itself, we hiked up to two others, first Mirror Lake and then Lake Agnes, which boasts a charming teahouse from which to enjoy its magnificent view at an altitude of about 7000 feet. In the evening we capped it all off with a delicious dinner at Chateau Lake Louise, overlooking the lake. I took my final picture of Lake Louise at 10:45 pm, in the beautiful northern-summer twilight.