Banff Trip & Scavenger Hunt Finds

To celebrate my birthday this year, we took a trip to the Canadian Rockies. (In fact, we left for this pre-planned trip one day after returning home from our unexpected trip to Ohio!) We enjoyed the nine-day trip, which I'm sharing about today along with some more finds for Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt.

Our trip started in Edmonton, which provided the perfect opportunity to meet Ginger!

Ginger and her husband Marvin treated us to brunch at The Highlevel Diner. The food was fabulous (especially the huge cinnamon rolls we took with us for a snack later that day) and we all hit it off immediately. Of course, I already felt like I knew Ginger from her blog, so our time together was like meeting up with old friends we haven't seen in a while, catching up on our lives, and enjoying a great meal.

When my blueberry pancakes arrived, I knew immediately there was no way I could eat such a huge meal . . . so I took it with us and Robbie & I enjoyed it for breakfast another day! Ginger had also brought me a wonderful gift (which you can see on her blog here) and handmade card. Thanks Ginger for a lovely gift & the perfect start to our vacation - it was so much FUN to meet you in person!

After brunch, Robbie and I walked across one of the bridges spanning the Saskatchewan River, taking lots of photos, including this one for #3 - Birds on a Wire. (I'm sure there's a wire inside this light post!)

We spent the rest of our week in Banff in the Canadian Rockies. On the drive to Banff, I captured my second submission for #7 - A Rural Landscape. I'm sure many of you can guess why I like these fields of canola!

This was our sixth trip to Banff (including our first trip when we were married there in December of 2001), and we had FUN eating at our favorite restaurants, browsing the shops on Banff Avenue, hiking (which I'll be sharing more about in an upcoming post), and relaxing in our condo at the Douglas Fir Resort.

I snapped this next photo for #20 - A Bus with a Picture Painted on its Sides right outside our resort.

In fact we spotted quite a few buses on this trip. I especially like the one that was parked outside the Edmonton airport that read "The Every Day Way To Houston."

We had no trouble finding #4 - A Group of Tourists as they were everywhere, especially congregated waiting to cross the streets along Banff Avenue.

It was also easy to find #16 - A Sign in a language other than English because many of the signs (like the one below at the trail head of our first hike) are in English and French.

We had rainy weather one morning, so we decided it was the perfect time to visit the Buffalo Nations Luxon Museum.

I had a bit of FUN sticking my head into this photo (which I'm offering as my second submission for #10 - A Photo Bomb).

We also visited Cascade Gardens, which works for #19 - A Public Garden.

We saw more wildlife on this trip than we ever have, some of it as close as our balcony or alongside the road where we were walking!

This was definitely a FUN summer trip and the perfect way to celebrate my 45th birthday! The best part of it was getting to spend nine uninterrupted days with my sweetheart!

I hope you've all had a chance to travel and have some FUN this summer!