Banff and Jasper National Park were pretty amazing. What shocked us is that each has a town within the National Park, bearing the parks name. Both towns are so very cute and whimsical filled with summer homes and tourist traps...yet also containing year round residents in a beautiful setting. We've decided the theme of this trip is glaciers, as we've seen so many and learned so much about them. We can now identify them, identify valleys created by them...and have a bit of knowledge about the processes pushing glaciers around. We were able to see a glacier at the edge of Jasper, right before entering Banff, that has been watched since the early 1900s, and the terminal moiraine is very visible, and the glacier has noticeably shrunk based on photos. Interesting. Driving down through Banff National Park was fun, and we spent about 40 miles on the trans-Canada highway, which is a double-laned highway straight through the national park which has more traffic on it than in any other park on the continent. In order to combat the destructive tendancies roads have when isolating wildlife on each side, they have come up with a few different methods of allowing wildlife crossings with some broad soil and plant covered overpasses, and some tight, protected underpasses for species that prefer cover. Our campsite in Banff, and the town of Banff was unlike anything either of us expected. First off, it's a town. Sort of like Telluride. With plenty of chain shops and high-end retail like Gucci. But also cute little homes and fun independently run coffee shops and delis. We camped just outside of the town at the Tunnel Mountain Village 1 campsite. The campsite is maybe a five minute drive from town, a twenty minute walk or so. A couple (probably a bit younger than us, we guess they were in their second year or so of college) camped next to us. They were from Ontario and were on their way to a resort town in B.C. for summer jobs. They were making a road trip of it on their way to their jobs. We had breakfast at a fun little deli that was going for a southwest theme. Justin ordered "chorizo" sausage which was in fact just louisiana style hot links. NOT chorizo. they found out we were from AZ and asked us how we liked the food, which was good enough, but we couldn't bring ourselves to inform them that while the sausage was good (according to Justin), it was definitely not chorizo. After breakfast we moseyed around town a bit, popping in and out of some of the shops. We went into a high-end outdoor clothing shop to drool at the Patagonia-type outdoor wear. There were the funniest looking sweaters I have ever seen, and I couldn't help making fun of them. They are the like the sweaters that the rich skiers wear on Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carrey is there trying to woo the rich lady. The sweaters had lots of design on them and looked like wool. Some had the strangest clasps on them in the front, little hooks, just soooo cheesy. We were laughing and picking them up when one of the little sales persons came up to us. A small guy from Montreal. He informed us that those sweaters were made of wool, yet waterproof and windproof. And Justin pointed at the price tag: $400 dollars. Yep, for some of the ugliest sweaters I have EVER seen. Ugly enough to make me stand and laugh at them. But clearly high quality, imported from Norway. But I still don't get it. They were really ugly. The salesperson talking to us informed us that he was working at the shop for the summer, was on his summer holiday from university just outside of Quebec. He and his fellow school mates got out of school a few days late because they had gone on strike earlier in the year. He said student strikes were annual occurrences, usually petitioning fee hikes, and school was let out a few days late every year because of them. We drove south from Banff for the US/Canada border, then to Glacier National Park (the US one, Canada has one too...a ways northwest of the US one). Our intention was to drive through Glacier only to find the Logan Pass (the one we wanted to take) closed. We decided to take a more eastern path instead, heading down to the Great Falls, Montana area. We're staying in a little town about 50 miles outside of Great Falls. We've discovered that where hotels are concerned, you get more for your money the further from metropolitan areas you stay. The rolling endless prairie out here in Montana is so beautiful, especially with all the mountains in the distance. They say the sky is big in AZ but AZ has nothing on the sky up here. We're heading to Yellowstone National Park tomorrow morning for camping two nights! We're both excited, it's been a few years since either of us has been there, although both of us have been with our family. (Mom, Dad and Christa: every time I think of Yellowstone I think of Christa and the Moose (Meese?) incident. hahahahahaha)