{"id":1737,"date":"2014-09-01T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1737"},"modified":"2014-09-13T16:54:24","modified_gmt":"2014-09-13T20:54:24","slug":"day-4-banff-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1737","title":{"rendered":"Day 4 &#8211; Banff Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The weather today was mostly cloudy and a little cool.\u00a0 We drove around Lake Minnewanka and stopped at a number of viewpoints.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1738\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/20140901_121646.jpg\" alt=\"20140901_121646\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The lake is a popular diving destination, as the water level has been artificially raised a couple of times in history due to the power dams.\u00a0 As a result, the lake level is nearly 100 feet higher than it was a century ago, submerging the original town, offering a lot of interesting sights to divers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1739\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014200.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As we continued around the loop, we stopped for a while at Two Jack Lake, and watched a number of people swimming, canoeing and windsurfing.\u00a0 They apparently were not deterred by the cold temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>In the image below, Nadine contemplates crossing over to the little island.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1740\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014221.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our next stop was Johnson Lake.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1741\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014251.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But don&#8217;t be fooled by the serenity in the picture above with Nadine sitting at the edge of the creek.\u00a0 If you turn 90 degrees to the left, you see an entirely different type of wildlife&#8230; bus tourists!\u00a0 There were about 5 school buses in the parking lot that carried the throng of people shown below, all milling about the shoreline in groups, snapping photos with their iPads.<\/p>\n<p>Time to get back to town!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1742\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014269.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We stopped in to the Banff Park Museum, which was closing as we tried to visit the day before.<\/p>\n<p>I was very impressed with this museum.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not large, but they had a lot of excellent exhibits of the history of the park and its wildlife.\u00a0 Even the history of the museum itself was interesting.\u00a0 I recommend a visit to the Banff Park Museum to anyone who comes to the area.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1743\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014276.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We returned to the hotel to rest for the evening and dinner.\u00a0 Below are some night photos from around the Banff Springs Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Here are Nadine and I on the stairs in the main lobby.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1746\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014322.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Below is a photo of the conference centre part of the hotel, across the driveway from the main building.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1747\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014324.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a picture of the main building, from the side, as taken from the steps of the conference centre.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1748\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014334.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The next image is of the side entrance to the Rundle Lounge.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1749\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014335.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On our final evening in Banff, we went to the Rundle Lounge for late night drinks and snacks.\u00a0 Shown here is the stairway connecting the upper and lower levels of the lounge.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1745\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/wp-content\/pictures\/Alberta2014\/P9014359.jpg\" alt=\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After dessert, we retired to our room for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The weather today was mostly cloudy and a little cool.\u00a0 We drove around Lake Minnewanka and stopped at a number of viewpoints. The lake is a popular diving destination, as the water level has been artificially raised a couple of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/?p=1737\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canadian-rockies-2014","tag-banff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1934,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions\/1934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hodson.ca\/Travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}