I only wanted to show you all some other beautiful places we went, but first just want to let you know the previous post had Canada’s national anthem worked into it.  After years of listening to it at hockey games, at last! A use.  These are totem poles made by the Japanese sister city to Vancouver.  The park is high above the city and overlooks parts of the bay and downtown Vancouver.  We also walked about  500 yards of the Trans-Canada Trail.  Check!  One more off the bucket list!  This is the Athabasca Glacier.  We visited here in 1977 and rode out to the glacier in the yellow snow machine seen below.  This time we went in this fancy new bus of which there are only 14 in the world.  Thirteen are here in Canada and the 14th is at McMurdo Base in Antarctica!  Ok, so about the glacier. When we were there before, both Mark and I remember it being much bigger.  According to the guides it is receding at the rate of about 16 ft. a year.  What are we doing to our Earth. This is the new Skywalk which tells of the geological, animal, and flora stories of the Icefields Highway.      The old yellow bus. These are two of the beautiful waterfalls we visited.  Johnson Canyon is on the left and Athabasca Falls on the right.        Driving from Jasper to Banff in the rain gave us a chance to watch Mother Nature doing a strip tease.  The rain would come and go, the clouds would raise and lower, and we would be treated to snippets of mountain grandeur.  Every corner would give us a new and more beautiful vista  than the last and we would pass lakes which were like the turquoise beads in Mother Nature’s necklace  Mt.  Rundle, near Banff  looks like someone picked up a piece of the Earth and just left the jagged edge on the other side.  Incredible!  This is a marmot growling at everyone looking down at him.  We were on top of Sulpher Mountain and saw him lurking under the balcony of the lodge. Another view from the top of Mt.

Sulpher.

Discovered this station at the top.  Gives one a pause when thinking about cosmic rays.  Are these space alien cosmic rays?  Are they from a ray gun somewhere in the universe?  Nope!  Cosmic rays are  from deep outer space and are remnants of powerful radiation.  Some protons and neutrons still make it through our atmosphere and apparently  it is important to keep track of  them and their impact on the Earth.