I'm in love.

I, Amy Lynne B, am completely and utterly infatuated with Banff.  There, I said it.  Glad to get that off of my chest.  I know I've been a posting machine lately, but what can I say - when you fall in love you can't wait to share it with the world.

I've spent the last few months feeling a tad frazzled with all of the pressure of work, wedding planning and just the general rat race that is life as a twenty something.  There's nothing like the majesty of Mother Nature to put you back in your place and encourage you to realign your perspective.  I can think of no greater symbol than a mountain to remind you 1) that there are far greater things in this world than you and 2) that quite simply - life goes on.  If you weather the winters, it only makes the summers that much sweeter.  In short, today was EXACTLY what I needed, but then again life has a funny way of doing that.  (That was a lot of waxing philosophical for me, wasn't it?  A sharp contrast to my usual celebrity gossip and reality tv discussion, eh? ;c) )

Being from Texas where we consider the upside of a ditch a significant "peak", I have always been captivated by mountains but haven't seen too terribly many in my lifetime.  Today I got to fully immerse myself in "mountain," and I'm only that much more obsessed with them.  My coworkers, Sam and Liz, and I piled into our super rental Impala and took a mini road trip to Banff.  Please enjoy my photojournalistic attempt at a timeline of our day knowing that the pictures don't begin to do it justice.  (Ryan, please familiarize yourself because we are coming here for an anniversary in the very near furutre).  I apologize for the overflow of pictures - it's just too impossible to pick favorites.

Continuing to try and take pictures of the mountains from parking lots.  This time it was a gas station rather than our work parking lot.  Variety is the spice of life, right?

Entrance to Banff National Park

Our first stop of the day was the Banff Gondola.  It's been in operation since 1959 and it takes you up to the top of Sulphur Mountain, a rougly 7500 ft elevation.  You can get out and walk around and take in the most unbelieveable 360 views of the mountains surrounding Banff as well as the Banff Hot Springs.

View of the Gondolas from the base of the mountain

Liz & Sam

Going up...

View of the trees on the way up

View from the top

More view from the top

Proof that I was indeed on this trip and I did not pull all of these pics from Google images

Even more view from the top.  The Banff hot springs are in the middle.

Sam & Liz on the boardwalk

View from the top walking across the boardwalk.

Go team, go!

Sam & Liz at the top of the boardwalk

I wasn't joking about the 360 part.

The Fairmont Banff Springs from the top of Sulphur Mountain - we ate lunch here

After taking as many pictures as we believed humanly possible, we reluctantly got on the gondola and headed back down.  We decided to head over to the Banff Springs Hotel (The Fairmont, pictured above) for lunch.  We had an incredible brunch buffet (Julie, you'd have been in paradise) in the Grill overlooking the lawn and the mountains.  This place was pretty fancy, so I refrained from taking pictures of my food, but TRUST ME - it was gooooood stuff.  Nothing like a mimosa and a table with a view after a long morning of gondola-ing.

The Banff Springs Hotel- from closer than 7500 feet

The view out the window from our table.  Mom, Dad, Ryan - want to scrap the Bell Tower and move the wedding here?

After our fantastic lunch we piled into the Impala and headed over to Mount Royal to catch our tour bus.  We signed up for a tour that took us to Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.  On a bus of 24 people representing 4 different continents, we found a fellow Houstonian.  Small world.

Taking pictures of mountains from the bus on the way to Lake Louise.  Also pictured: either my thumb or the top of the bus.

Aspen trees and one spruce or pine.  Pardon the bluriness- taking pictures from a moving vehicle is not my forte.

Morants Curve

Team pic at Morant's curve

Our first stop on the tour bus was Lake Louise.  Lake Louise is a glacial lake named for Princess Louise, the daughter of Queen Victoria.  That is about the extent of the history I gleaned from our tour guide regarding it, but once you've seen the pictures you won't really care about the history either. 

This doesn't even begin to convey how gorgeous this was in real life.  The water was green.  Not like Galveston green - but the most beautiful emerald color you've ever seen in your life.

The whole lake was this color.  I wouldn't believe it was real if I hadn't seen it myself.

Lake Louise.  With sunflares.

Slightly more impressed than we are with our work parking lot.

Potential new home?

After not nearly enough time (primarily because it was less than the rest of my life), we piled back on to the bus to head to Lake Moraine.  Our Driver kept insisting that we would find it prettier than Lake Louise.  Obviously, I thought she was on drugs.  Did you look at the pictures above?  

View after getting off the bus at Lake Moraine.  Literally.  You can actually see the bus in the bottom corner.

Hiking up the rock pile to see the best view.  Here our guide is telling us how this lake is prettier than Lake Louise.  I'm still thinking she's on drugs...

...and then I saw this.  Are. You. Kidding. Me?  Most beautiful place I've ever seen.  Lake Moraine is nestled in the Valley of Ten Peaks in the middle of ten (witty naming those mountainers!) snow capped peaks.

Unfortunately the position of the sun when we were there wasn't the greatest for capturing the color of the water and all of the surrounding awesomeness.  Imagine the color you see above framed by the peaks you see here.

Oh hey, there I am!  It was a little windy so pardon the hair situation.

I love it so much.

I could tell my pictures weren't doing it justice, so I took a video.

After this, we got back on the bus and headed back into Banff.  I may or may not have fallen asleep on the bus.  Those of you who have been fortunate enough to see me fall asleep upright know that the bobbling head maneveur and blatant open mouthed pose that go along with me sleeping upright rival the beauty in the pictures above.  Thankfully Liz either didn't notice or chose not to tease me about it.  After we got back to Banff, the three of us piled into the car and headed home.  Aside  from the fact fam and friends (other than Sam and Liz) weren't here to share it, this has been an absolutely perfect day.  If I don't return to Houston on October 15th, please don't send a search party.