Happy Fourth and Lake Louise

Wishing everyone a happy Fourth of July and hoping you had a safe and healthy holiday.

We have much to be thankful for in this great country of ours, but also much that needs to be preserved as we look toward a presidential election. Our grandson Adrian is our hope for the future, as are all our children and grandchildren. May God give them wisdom as they mature and take their places in society.

My next installment, and you'll see that I'm no longer putting pictures in the order we visited, is from beautiful Chateau Lake Louise. I had heard about Lake Louise casually, mostly as a prime honeymoon spot. But didn't really know much else about it. As you will see from these pictures, it is a lovely place, built around a glacial lake.

"Lake Louise is fed by glacial runoff from Victoria Glacier. Like many of the lakes in the Rockies the water is either deep green or blue. This is caused by fine sediments called "rock flour" floating in the water. Rock flour is fine powdery rock that has been crushed and ground by a glacier. Lake Louise is a beautiful green color."

The hotel itself is magnificent. It was built at the turn of the 20th century by the Canadian Pacific Railway. There are several "wings" to the hotel, the oldest one, the Painter Wing, dating back to 1913. The original wooden Rattenbury Wing burned down in 1924 and was replaced by the current Barrot Wing. The newest wing is the Mount Temple Wing and features several beautiful stained glass windows. The railway's interest in the hotel was to encourage travelers to utilize the railway heading West.

In 1884 the lake in front of the hotel was named "Louise", some say after the daughter of Lord Mount Temple, the president of the British Medical Association. Others say it was named after Princess Louise, the daughter of Queen Victoria.

The glacier that appears at the apex of these mountains is called Victoria Glacier. It is one of a composite called the Plain of Six Glaciers and the starting point of a popular hiking trail.

Here is Graham standing by a ledge in front of the beautiful view of the lake and glacier.

After lunch Bill and I ventured out with our cameras and caught some keepsake photos by the lake. Now that we're back home in Texas, it's hard to imagine that we were actually sitting next to a frozen lake!

Here's a shot of the lake by herself, and you can see that she's thawing out little by little. Russell said that the late spring and colder temps had prevented many of the lakes from thawing during our time there. Usually by June most of the ice is melted.

Hope you enjoy our visit to this superior first-class five star resort!