Rogers Pass to Banff

Well, here we are in beautiful Banff, Alberta. That's right, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. We are now in Alberta! Take THAT British Columbia!
After our last update we cycled from Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park to Golden. There was a lot of downhilliness, and we had to pass through a bunch of snow sheds. But we all made it out alive.
Once we reached Golden, we stopped in at Dairy Queen for some ice cream, and then to the grocery store to pick-up some food. After that we made our way to the municipal campground where we realized that we had bought cream cheese for our bagels, but did not think about where we could store it to keep it from going bad. Thankfully our campsite was right beside the river, so we put the cream cheese in a zip-lock bag, tied it to a rock, and tossed it in the river. That did the trick.
That night we actually cooked a meal that was NOT made up of rice and beans. Stirfry = delicious. Plus, we had decided to take the next day off before carrying on to Field, BC
Godlen was a quaint little town with enough to do so as to keep us occupied on our day off. Bookstore, coffeeshop, local art gallery, and a 50's diner.
The morning that we left Golden started off a little...well, off.
In an attempt to relight the stove in order to make more oatmeal for breakfast, the girls managed to singe Megan's eyebrows and eyelashes. Don't worry though; she's okay. Following that, Christian, realized that he had put soap in his mug in order to beginning cleaning before he was voluntold to finish off the extra oatmeal.
When we began the actual riding for the day, it started off with rain, but that quickly dissipated. later that day we decided to cut a day out of our trip by not stopping in Field, and continuing on to Baker Creek (about 10km past Lake Louise). There a really bad hill coming out of Field that took a lot out of us, but I think we were all motivated by the fact that not only had cut out that extra day, but that we were also going to be spending out first night in Alberta. In the end, we cycled 101km with 70km of it being uphill.
This was a bittersweet evening, however, as it was the last night the Stephen and Carol would be with us. They were going to ride with us to Banff the next day, have dinner, and then we would part ways.
The morning of our ride to Banff, Stephen drove us all up to lake Louise to walk around. It was kind of a letdown. The lake was frozen over and covered with a layer of snow, making it impossible to see the beautiful jade colour of the water. After that we went back to the lodge, grabbed our bikes, and began the journey to Banff.
On our way there we saw three elk grazing at the side of the road. Despite the number of people staring at them, they seemed quite calm and content. It was at this point that Christian and I (Jeremy) were sent on a mission to bike as fast as we could to Banff in order to make it to the information centre before it closed. We still managed to stop and get a picture of some mountain sheep, however, before completing our task. 10km in 20minutes. I made it there first because Christian strained his knee and had to petal the last 4km with ONE LEG! It's okay though. No longterm damage. His knee is fine now.
Well, that's about all there is to say now. Sorry about the length. We'll try not to let it go so long between updates.

Banff sends its regards!

Jeremy

Oh! Thanks to Christine Dahlen we are staying at Bumper's Inn because it was too cold to camp!!!!!!!