Santa's Parade of Lights

We spent last weekend in Banff for their parade of lights. It was so stunning. We stayed in a gorgeous cabin at one of the lodges in the mountains. There was a bedroom with 2 beds and a lounge with a gorgeous fireplace. Jared slept in one of the beds and thought it was very funny to chat to us at 4am when he realised we were in the room with him.

Saturday night was the Parade of Lights down the main street in Banff. It was very pretty in the snow. It was cold though. We were all dressed warmly though, but we had a good taste of real minus weather. We have decided that we will survive it just and in fact we may even enjoy it ;o) We did feel sorry for Miss Canada who was part of the Parade. She certainly earned her crown, you could see the poor girl was freezing!! Unfortunately the photos never came out of the parade because of the light. I managed to get a few, and next year we will be better prepared with a camera suited for the job.

Sunday morning was breakfast with Santa. Jared did not like the man in red. I managed 1 photo and it is of him making a run for it. He wouldn't even sit on his lap for a minute. We decided not to traumatise him for life and left it at that. Poor Santa said he had had his fair share of screamers over the weekend.

After breakfast we went up the cable car again. It is really so beautiful up there. The view is just amazing. And of course it is different from the last time we were up there because there is now some snow on the ground.

We then decided to take a drive through to Lake Louise. We found an interesting looking side road that indicated it was going to Lake Louise and so we tried that route. WOW!!!! We kept having to stop along the way to take photos because it is just so beautiful. We chose the place and designed and built the house that we would like to retire in one day ha ha ha!!!

You will see a train track in the one photo, that is the route the train runs from here to Vancouver. We have put that on our list of things we want to do.

Here are the photos. Lots of them I know, but it was a weekend of memories to share :o)

Jared wrapped up nice and warm waiting for the parade to start. It was easily -15!

Not the best shot, but an idea of the lights in the main street

The start of the parade

One of the floats

He was off faster than if he'd had an electric shock

Looking down on Banff from the top of the mountain

Standing in front of the SA flag on the mountain. It is marked with Pretoria. The listed direction is heavily disputed ;o)

The view down the mountain taken out of the cable car window. It's HIGH!!!

A very tired but toasty munchkin on the way down the mountain.

These were all taken on the side road to Lake Louise. It is breathtaking!!

You can see the train track in this pic.