Leaving Vancouver, we traveled for two days on the Rocky Mountaineer excursion train across the most impressive Rocky Mountains to Banff National Park. None of us - even Duncan - had ever been closer to the Rockies than a fly-over, so the awesome views out the window were captivating for all of us.
Our traveling companion doesn't look very happy, but we enjoyed her company throughout the trip. It's a good picture of the rest of us and the only one we ended up with of all three of us.
We were not lucky enough to see much wildlife -- no bears or elk or moose. From the train, we saw osprey and eagles, some deer, and a big horned sheep. At one of our stops, this little guy practically posed for us. I thought he was a really fat chipmunk, but learned he is a type of squirrel.
By the end of the second day on the train, we were at the edge of the "Alpine Tundra" -- above the 7,200 ft. treeline. Many mountains reached 10,000+ feet. The color of the rivers changed from dull green to bright aquamarine, indicating they were fed by glacial ice-melt.
Before we visited glaciers, we fortified ourselves with lunch at the Fairmont Chateau at Lake Louise. It is just as elegant as the more well-known Banff Springs Hotel and had this nice view of the gardens (gardens everywhere!), the lake, and the mountains.
A two-hour drive from Lake Louise got us to the Columbia Ice Field at Jasper National Park. Mom is in front of the Athabasca Glacier where the ice is between 270 and 1000 feet thick.
This bus with monster tires actually took us out onto the glacier. They told us the ice under us was as deep as the Empire State Building is high and the riverlets of running water we could see were from melted ice that fell as snow up to 150 years ago.
It was a bit windy, but otherwise a mild day. As you can see, lots of kids out in shorts. 
The next day we did a bit more touring around the Banff area. We had lunch here, at the Banff Springs Hotel, built in the late 1800s to entice the rich and famous to visit using the new transcontinental railroad. In a display of old photographs, we learned that in the late 1920s, the wealthy would arrive with "letters of credit" for $50,000 to cover their 3 - 4 month stay. One photo showed a waiter serving "Lithium bromides" to a group of smiling ladies at the swimming pool. Well, no wonder everyone was happy! 
Everything inside was on such a large scale, it is impossible to depict the grandeur and elegance. I would love to go and stay a week. Let's see, if a 4 month stay cost $50K in the 1920s, a one week stay would have run just over $3,000. In today's dollars, that would be ??? What would you guess?
Of course we admired gardens here, too. Here is a map showing our route for the trip, beginning at Seattle and ending in Calgary.
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