10 years and counting (an anniversary trip deja vu)

Thursday July 24th, 2014 was our 10th wedding anniversary. This October will be 17 years that we have been together and we are both 32 years old now. I don't remember exactly when we decided, but pretty early on we were determined to spend our 10th anniversary at the same place we honeymooned. After saving up my points with Southwest Airlines for a few years, last summer we started making reservations and plans to return to Lake Louise and Banff, both in Alberta, Canada.

Our travel agent 10 years ago did a great job trying to make our first choice of Prince Edward Island happen, but we wanted to leave straight from our wedding ceremony, directly to our honeymoon spot, so after some discussion that flights to Prince Edward Island wouldn't be possible so late in the day, our travel agent suggested heading to western Canada in the Canadian Rockies. It sounded nice, so we booked the honeymoon.

We never knew we would fall in love with a place so much, but we did and so we just got back from our 10th anniversary trip and it was only better this time around. I whittled it down to a mere 44 photos...some probably not so great or exciting, but we just wanted to share a little bit of our week.

My parents offered to watch Charlotte and Oliver so we could get away. So after two flights we were safe in Calgary late in the evening and spent the night in the same hotel we did 10 years ago. So cool and so many memories came back to life. We even ordered room service the next morning...guess why? Well we did the same thing 10 years ago of course.

We picked up a car and headed to our first stop, Banff. Yep, leave it to Canadians to end a word with two f's. We got our tickets and headed up the Banff Gondola. It's about a three minute ride up, but once you get up there, you have a 360 view of the surrounding mountains and the cute town of Banff below.

Here is the hub at the top where you get off the gondola. The steps in the bottom left lead you up to a lookout point even higher up.

One of the cute little ground squirrels that inhabit this area of Canada. These guys are super tame and so much fun to watch. Kind of a like a chipmunk, but bigger.

Sometimes the backgrounds look fake, like some cheap backdrop at a JC Penny photo studio, but that's the town of Banff below and the Bow River running alongside. Oh yeah and my beautiful bride!

And my turn!

And a little selfie action.

Here is a wider angle shot so you can see the whole view.

We have this thing about taking pictures of our hands like this when we travel different places. These will be fun to compile and look at over the years. Our hands haven't changed much in 10 years, but it's still fun to see all of the pictures we have like this.

This is the little observation deck that we walked up to get the previous photos above.

And of course after making our way back down the gondola we got a cookie and a drink to share.

After our time in Banff we headed up to Lake Louise. First thing we did when we got out on the lake...

We were upset to see that they had replaced the signs outside. Still nice signs though.

There are some clearer shots later on, but basically there are about 6-10 glaciers that drain into Lake Louise. Picking up minerals and sediments along the way give the lake its distinct greenish color. Just beautiful.

Ran into a lady painting the scene herself. Kind of a picture in picture picture....if that makes sense.

On day two we did the Tea House Challenge. As the west was settled in the late 1800's, the first non native american stumbled upon Lake Louise one day. A series of chalets and places to make camp and rest were built on the lake, where our hotel now sites. The Lake Agnes Tea House was originally built in 1901 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, as a refuge for hikers, and started serving tea in 1905. So one of the to-do's when at Lake Louise is to hike up the two tea houses. Some people do one in a day, which we did last time, but this time around we opted to make the whole loop and visit the other tea house at Lake Louise, the Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House. It's a 14.6 kilometer hike that allowed us to view the area from different elevations and angles. The pictures don't do it justice, but here you go...

As you hike further up the mountain, the greenish color of the lake is really pronounced.

This area is called the beehive. It sits above a smaller lake called Mirror Lake, about 20 minutes before you get to the Lake Agnes Tea House which sits on...you guessed it....Lake Agnes.

A shot from above looking down on our hotel.

Here is Melissa standing beside Lake Agnes.

After the 2 hour hike or so, the tea house was a nice place to stop and rest and grab a snack. We shared some cinnamon tea, a cheese sandwich and chips and salsa. Now that doesn't sound like a big deal, but what you probably don't know is that this place has no electricity. Everything is made over propane stove. Once a year a helicopter drops off heavy items like flour and sugar, but otherwise everything you consume at the tea house was hiked up by the employees of the tea house. They live in a small cabin on site, but hike up and down 2-3 times a week to bring up supplies and take down trash. Pretty amazing place and quite the experience.

From there we continued on the high line trail on our way to the other tea house. Here are a few shots we got along the way.

Managed to work the self timer on the camera and run to meet Melissa on the rocks without falling all in under 10 seconds. We started off pretty early in the morning so we didn't see many people the first half of the day. It was so nice to have this beautiful place just to ourselves.

We were afforded some neat views as we continued on the high line trail. Those little black specks on the lake are canoes.

Here we go again...

We came around a corner and this was my reaction. We posed it again to get the shot, but it was just spectacular.

We found a marmot taking a nice afternoon sun bath here. He didn't care that we were walking by him. He was just enjoying his nap time.

The lake, hotel and different ski runs behind that keep busy during the winter months.

Getting further and further from the lake. We are about 5 miles away from the hotel at this point.

Another one of our ground squirrel friends. He was probably 10 inches away from my lens.

We didn't take many shots at that the other tea house. I think we were too tired to remember, but here is a shot as we came back down towards the hotel.

The third day we were there was a little rainy, but we broke the camera out anyway. This was taken from our room in the hotel.

Another nearby lake that is fed by the glaciers is Lake Moraine. It's a cool spot. Not as big, but just as beautiful.

A shot with the "new signs"

Our last night was the 24th so we went to a fancy dinner at one of the 6 restaurants at the hotel. It was an italian kitchen. I had bison lasagna, because hey, it's Canada and Melissa had an amazing tuna steak dish. They gave us complimentary champagne for our anniversary and took great care of us.