Wednesday in Banff

We hung up our ski's for the day and made reservations to go dogsledding. How exciting a new adventure for us all. They picked us up a the lodge at 10am which was nice to be able to sleep in and have a relaxing morning. Darin cooked us all bacon and eggs. Its been so convenient having a full size kitchen in our room. In fact we went out to eat for dinner and it took 2 hours! We kept thinking how much quicker and more relaxing it would be in the room.

Once we were picked up for dog sledding we drove to Canamore which is about 20 minutes away and then we drove further into the mountains. A lot further. We had just gotten 6 inches snow and the roads we were traveling were barely plowed. The temp was nice around 30 so it was very enjoyable outside. Once we arrived we played with the beautiful dogs and got instructions. To our suprise they needed a lot of people to drive the sleds. They had six sleds and they would have a professional at the front in sled one and another at the back in sled 6. Darin, Kate and I would be in sled 3 and Emma was assigned to sled 1 the lead. She and another girl her age took turns tandom driving. Darin drove our sled the whole time while kate and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I had brought both cameras with a telephoto on one and the wide angle on the other. Needless to say I was having the time of my life. It was amzing how excited the dogs were to get to work. When they saw us get into the sleds they knew it was time and all 60 of them started barking and howling. Everything was voice controled. 'Heal up' was the command for lets go. You also were encouraged to tell them good job by saying 'Good puppies'. and Whoa was for stopping. There were no reins just the sled attached to the dogs. when you went up hill the driver needed to get off and run with the dogs to help them and when you went down a hill you needed to ride the break which was at your feet so it didn't run into the dogs. turns you would lean. You also needed to watch for when the dogs needed to go to the bathroom and stop to let them do that. The whole process was amazing and that we could participate in it so quickly and fully. We sledded for about 45 minutes to a lake in the mountains and stopped for driver switching and picture taking. Then we were off again into the snow mountains. When we returned we had a bonfire next to the lake with cookies and apple sider. I was sad to see it end.. what an awesome time.

Once back to the lodge we headed into town for a nice restaurant called The Maple Leaf. It was probably one of the nicest restaurants the girls have been to so it was fun teaching them about proper manners. Thankgoodness for the ipods to settle the wiggles. We were proud of the girls for trying things. There was no kids menu! Emma had maple syrup salmon, kate had King Crab, Darin had elk and i had a mushroom pasta. Kate ended up switching with me as she didn't like the crab.

Our last activity of the day was to go the Upper Hot Springs Pool. It was an outdoor pool thats water was supplied by the underground hot springs. The water in the pool was natural minerals so no chlorine! The temp was about 30 degrees F outside and in the pool it was 101 degrees F. It was so relaxing and we are considering going back tomorrow.

Well that was our non skiing day.. jammed packed but lots of fun. As we were heading back to the lodge we saw some elk and I got a few pictures. Its funny we see deer everywhere in town they are usually on peoples front lawns.

Next on our agenda was to go to the