The Reed Family: O Canada!

Tuesday we woke up and headed to Canada to stay at the Prince of Wales Hotel. It was one of the "grandest" hotels (and most expensive!) on the website, and we were looking forward to getting out of Glacier National Park for a day and going into Waterton National Park, which is in Alberta, Canada. It was about an hour and a half drive away, but it flew by with all the beautiful scenery.

Of course, we had to go through customs and show our passport, but it wasn't a big deal. Honestly, they didn't even check our car like the US customs did on the way back to the states the next day! Not that we had anything illegal...

This picture below is a little out of order, but this is Cameron Falls, which was located right in the little town of Waterton.

We were pleasantly surprised when we got into Waterton because there was actually a little town. It consisted of only a few streets, but there were several places to eat and it was just really cute! We were glad to not have another meal at a hotel! The funny thing about Waterton was that mule deer basically own that town. They walk around the little town and nothing bothers them, so you have to constantly be on the look out for them. They aren't like the deer here that freak when you see them and take off. They would just walk around and not get spooked at all. And, they were huge! All you hunters out there would have been in heaven because seeing an 8 point was not really a big deal because they were just walking around town!

One of the first stops in Canada was Cameron Lake (it probably is related to Cameron Falls above, but they weren't in the same place). This day was really yucky from the start, so our pictures from Canada aren't the best.

We did a short hike at Cameron Lake and this was the sign that was at the beginning of the trail. We got a little nervous because we weren't planning on doing a hike, so we didn't have our trusty bear spray with us! Nevertheless, we hiked anyway.

The only thing we saw were a bunch of deer. No bears. Darn!

The deer would just walk along the trail with you!

I think the picture below was taken at a stop off while we were driving back from Cameron Lake.

This was the view from the Prince of Wales Hotel.

This was our hotel from afar...

And, here is a close up.

And, this is a picture of the inside. They were having afternoon tea at this point. We did not partake, but it looked like fun!

Before we went to dinner, we decided to go on a bear hunt. Can you tell we really wanted to see one?!?! Well, we drove all around the countryside in Canada, right at dusk, at a time when we thought for sure that we would see one! No such luck. We did get another picture of our hotel though!

The next morning, we were going horseback riding. I was so excited! We were not but a few miles away from the hotel when Joel said, "Mindy, I think we just found our bear." I was SO pumped!!! We had to turn around and go back to where he saw it, which was up on a hill. It was a black bear.

This is when we really needed a zoom lense! Ours just couldn't get it any closer than this. Can you see it???

This is a better picture. We are down on the road jumping up and down and making noises so that it would look at us. Probably not the best thing to do (actually, they tell you NOT to do this!), but hey, we were near the safety of our car!

It was pretty cool! And, it did satisfy my need to see a bear. Been there, done that now!

So, we then went horseback riding and it was a blast. Joel's horse was named Joe, and mine was Comet. Comet did not like to follow directions. On a few occasions, the guide had to come and get me because he wouldn't cooperate. And then other times, he would just take off on me and start running! It's hard to remember to pull the reigns to get him to stop. I just kept yelling "stop!" to him, but that didn't work too well! Ha! Comet also liked to bring in the rear, so we were in the back the majority of the time (and of course Joe liked to be in the front, so I made some new friends while riding in the back!). This ride was different than any other ride that I had been on because we weren't restricted to staying in a straight line. We had to stay with the guide, but we could really do what we wanted to.

Here's a picture at the halfway point.

Let's just say that after almost 3 hours on a horse, our bottoms (and legs, neck, and pretty much everything else!) were hurting pretty bad! I'm sure you get used to it if you ride all the time, but I was still sore 4 days later! Totally worth it though! We got to see more of the valley and plains of Montana on this ride, instead of being in the mountains, so it was a good change of pace and still so beautiful!

After the horseback riding, we had a late lunch and headed back to the states. On our way back, we came across a herd of elk! Again, we really needed a zoom lense on the camera, but there were tons of them!

And last but not least, right before we got to the border, a grizzly walked right out in front of our car! By the time I was able to get the camera out and on, it had almost passed us, but I still got one good shot.