Last Update

We spent our last night with the RV in Banff. It's a small, quaint mountain village just about an hour and a half outside of Calgary. It's a funny thing when you go on vacation in the mountains. It forces you to overcome that fear of heights that you've had your entire life! Every time I turned around I was WAY higher off of the ground that I really wanted to be! We rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain and had spectacular views of the mountains and the town of Banff. The weather was perfect as you can see from the pictures.

We spent our last day today in Calgary and had a fantastic day. We visited Olympic Park where the 1988 Winter Olympics were held. Not only did we get to see the ski jumps and the grounds but we also got to experience a little action! We started with the luge which was a little cart that we each got to ride down the side of the mountain on a concrete track. Those little things fly down and have some sharp corners...we had a blast! After that Jacob got me to do yet another thing that I never would have done if my kids didn't push me. Jacob and I rode the bobsled on the actual bobsled track from the Olympics with a professional driver! (Emma was too young to do it and Jerry's back never would've handled it. So yet again...great daring adventure that I get talked into!) We were going 90 km/hour which is about 55 mph! It took us just over a minute to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom. It was one of the scariest minutes of my entire life! The G forces were so strong I could barely pick my head up. We were getting knocked around so much my neck was sore. I knew it was only about a minute long so I started counting and reminding myself that I could do anything for one minute! I'm glad I did it but I can say with confidence that I will never do it again! The picture is of us in the Jamaican bobsled from the 1988 Olympics. This is where the Jamaican bobsled team made their Olympic debut. You may remember the movie Cool Runnings (I need to watch it now) about the team and their Olympic debut. Parts of the movie were filmed at this park.

So it's about 11 o'clock and time for me to finish our last minute packing and get to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. I will end by saying that if you ever have the chance to see the Canadian Rockies please take it! This is truly one of the most stunning, beautiful places I have ever seen. We have completely fallen in love with Stephen and Martin (and if course Sheila and Scott!) and it will be so sad to leave them behind. I will post pictures when we get home. Thanks for following along on our adventure!!

Second Update Today

We came back to town for dinner and I have a few minutes, so I have to tell you about our afternoon. We went white water rafting in the Athabasca River. It was so amazing! The water was 43 degrees; thankfully we had wetsuits! What an unbelievable experience! The water in the river is fed from the Columbia Icefield. The water was a glacier only 18 hours before we got in the river! Our guide told us that today was the best day she has seen all summer. There was a lot of rain overnight up by the glacier, so the river was flowing fast!

We had all 8 of us in a raft with one guide. We hit some pretty big waves right from the start. We were soaked almost immediately upon starting! They had someone taking pictures from the shore on the first set of rapids, and he got some great pictures. We bought the flash drive with the pictures but I'll have to wait to upload those as I didn't bring it with me to dinner. The rafting was an hour and a half of excitement! We even saw a mama bear and her cubs on the side of the river! Parts of the river are not accessible from the road; it's sort of a canyon where the river goes through so it's great for wildlife!

We couldn't get a reservation at a campsite for tonight, so we are parking the RVs in the parking lot by the Columbia Icefield. Not as redneck as the Walmart parking lot from our last trip, but still a parking lot! Luckily we filled up our fresh water tank this morning, so we're pretty self sufficient. It's a good thing too, because that lot is about an hour and a half from civilization on either end! I mentioned earlier how I'm trying hard to embrace this camping thing (limited water, public campground showers, tight quarters, etc.) and Jacob said, "You're sleeping on a mattress, in a vehicle with heat, air conditioning, a kitchen and a bathroom. You realize you aren't really camping, right?!" I love that kid! 

Anyway, time to hit the road to our parking lot. Will take us over an hour to get there and with all the large wildlife, we'd like to get on the road before it gets too dark. Will update again when I can. What a trip!!

Only Two More Days With the RV!

So we are back in Jasper for a few minutes today. Yesterday we went a bit further up north and went zip lining! Not your average zip line. This was one of only three places in the world ?so we were told) that you can do it in the super hero flying position! Jacob and I did a tandem jump. For those of you who know me well, you know how far out of my comfort zone that was for me! Way up in the mountains, running down the slope of a building roof and leaping off!! Thought I would throw up, but I did it!! Emma, Stephen, Dawn and David did solo jumps. No fear!!

We have seen some great wildlife! We had elk grazing in our campsite. We saw caribou in the middle of the highway!!!

We rewarded ourselves by visiting a natural hot spring WAY up in the mountains. Water was 104 degrees! We watched the sunset from up there (sun sets around 10:00 up here). It was stunning, just like everything else we have seen!

Raymond and Martha headed home this morning. We were sorry to see them leave but were so happy for the time we had with them! We did a short hike in the Maligne Canyons today and now we are waiting for our 3:30 bus to take us to our white water rafting trip this afternoon. Judging by the water temperatures up here...we are going to freeze our butts off!! Thankfully we have heat in the RV for when we finish! Although I have no hair dryer, because I blew it up the first morning in the RV! Apparently our electric hookup was only 110 volts and my dryer was 125. Oops! Sparks flew and I've been a messy haired, air drying girl all week!

OK, have to run. Will be back in Calgary on Monday at Sheila's and will check back!

Sent from my iPhone

Couple of Pictures

Today we are in the cutest little town called Jasper, way up north! We have a wifi connection so I thought I would post a few pictures from my phone. The lake pictures are at Emerald Lake. This is the one Jerry jumped into! As opposed to Lake O'Hara which little Martin FELL into! While we were watching him!! Oops! Worst babysitters ever! That was at 9:00 in the morning, while Sheila and Scott were hiking the 6 miles to join us. It was a cold morning and Jerry and I stopped for a picture by the lake. The kids were walking on rocks and we heard..uh oh, splash! Then, "Um, Martin just fell in the lake." Poor kid! Long pants, fleece jacket and hiking boots...soaked! Up in the mountains with NOTHING around! We rung out his socks and moved on! What a trooper he was!!

The picture of Jacob is in the Bow River. It was so cold our feet were in pain after only a few seconds. Jerry joked that this water was a glacier about 20 minutes ago!

The last pictures are of a waterfall (forgot the name!) I'm Yoho National Park. Yesterday we went to Columbia Icefields and walked on a glacier! The bus that took us up there was huge! No pictures of that on my phone, I'll post those from home.

Today we may try zip lining and then we're going to some natural hot springs up in the mountains! We're off! Will check back in soon. We are missing everyone back home!

Breathtaking Views!

Okay so I finally have a connection to update! We picked up the RV on Monday and started off on our adventure! I am updating from Jerry's phone so I don't have a ton of pictures right now. He ended up buying a short-term data plan so I can only update from his phone. It turns out that remote campgrounds in the Canadian Rockies don't have a Wi-Fi connection!! I will tell you right off the bat that we don't even have an awning on this RV so no worries!!

Our first stop was a hike at Johnston Canyon. It was a mile and a half up and a mile and a half down with unbelievable waterfall views. We didn't get to our first campground until about 9 o'clock Monday night. It wasn't the best night as we had an electricity connection, but they lost power! We had no water hook up so had to go to the campground showers...in the dark! Once we finally settled down we discovered that we were right next to a train track. Trains came through at midnight and at 4:30 in the morning blowing their whistle! Needless to say we didn't get too much sleep! But in the morning we had a fantastic surprise… Jerry's cousin Raymond and his wife Martha and their two kids came up from Washington state and joined us! We haven't seen them in nine years so it is quite fun to catch up!

We left that campground and made a quick stop at Lake Louise which is the picture I'm posting. It was stunning! We didn't spend too much time there, as we will be back that way at the end of the week. We moved on to another campground in Yoho national Park. On Tuesday we went to Emerald Lake. It was the most beautiful lake I had ever seen! We rented canoes and had a beautiful ride on the lake. Jerry was even brave enough to jump in!! I wish I had the picture of his face on this phone! I can't wait to share it with you... the water was freezing! Of course we then had to have a race across the lake! needless to say with all of the splashing we were all pretty wet when we finished!!

We came back to the campground and all three families had campsites right next to each other. We lit a fire, cooked dinner, made s'mores and had a great night! Emma discovered that she has another girl cousin named Dawn who is 13. They hit it off and were like old friends within minutes!!

We got up early this morning to catch a bus into a remote lake called Lake O'Hara. It was a half hour bus ride. We had to reserve seats on the bus three months ago. They only bring in approximately 40 people a day and that is it. Unfortunately we could only get six seats on the bus so poor Sheila and Scott had to hike the 6 miles up! I thought that Emerald Lake was the prettiest lake I had ever seen until we got to Lake O'Hara! Again I wish I had pictures but they will come later. From Lake O'Hara we hiked for two hours straight up the mountain to another lake called Lake Oesa. The views were absolutely breathtaking!! I've never seen anything so beautiful. We were at an elevation of over 7000 feet...we actually had snow on the edge of the lake we hiked to! I can't wait to share the pictures with you; they are quite amazing! I still cant believe we made it all the way up there! We are wiped out tonight!

We are back at the campground now and tomorrow we are off to the Columbia icefield to walk on a glacier! We are having an amazing time. I will update again as soon as I can!

Picture of Calgary Last Night at Sunset

We Have Arrived

We arrived in Calgary last night. Flights were good (even the tiny plane), but it turns out that an hour is not enough time for a layover on an international flight! We arrived in Toronto at 5:00 and our flight to Calgary was at 6:00. We had to go through Customs, then go claim our luggage, then go re-check our luggage. Just when we thought we were good, we found the security line that we had to go back through! This was at 5:30 and the line had hundreds of people in it, with only 2 agents! We ended up finding an agent to pull us to the front of the line due to our time constraint. Jerry got through the line first and went to the gate to tell them we were there. Emma's bag had to be pulled aside...apparently her headphones were questionable! Long story short, we got through security at 5:52 for our 6:00 flight! Jacob, Emma and I sprinted through the airport, while listening to our names on the loudspeaker "The Oliano family needs to report to gate D36 immediately, the doors are closing on your flight." Aagghh!! We made it (completely out of breath!) with one minute to spare! We were those annoying people that boarded the plane at the VERY last minute that were holding them all up!


Anyway, we arrived in Calgary safely at 8:15 local time (2 hours behind CT) and spent the night at Sheila and Scott's. Today we are spending the day in Calgary and tomorrow we pick up the RV. So far, everything is wonderful!! Will post again soon and hopefully include a picture or two!