 |
| Banff with the snow capped mountains all around. |
Our neighbor, Canada, is wonderful, in both it’s people and it’s land. And according to the bus driver of our tour, Bill, we are too. More than once I heard him say, how lucky for us to share such beautiful land. And it is true.
I am also lucky to have seen the Grand Canyon a couple of months before the beautiful Rockies in Canada. Both areas are special places on this earth. Our bus tour took us from Vancouver to Kamloops, Jasper, Banff, and Calgary. The bus driver referred to this type of tour as “Rocket Rockies”. He told me that it is designed to just give us a glimpse of what there is to explore. Glimpse is right…more like a drive by shoot, as he would take us into areas and many of the pictures I have were taken out the moving bus window!
Standing on the streets of Banff with the snowcapped mountains rising up at the town’s edge I wanted to just stand in the streets and soak in the view. Being hugged by a sea of snow capped mountains is an experience to dwell in. For the brief time I stood there I wondered what it would be like to wake every day living in this magnificent postcard of beauty.
 |
| Driving around Banff. |
British Columbia, Canada is definitely a place I want to explore on my own sometime in my future. To walk into the piney woods and have it smell like Christmas, to see a caribou herd grazing in the wooded fields, to see the teal green of the glacier waters flow over the eroded rocks of the mountain, to drink glacier water from the top of a glacier…are all just some of things I want to go back to so that I can linger over the experience.
This tour has taught me one special thing. Life is too short to rush through it. I like to wake up to the morning sunrise, and sit out on the front porch to stare at the peach and gold colored sunsets. I like stopping in the garden and appreciate the flowers and watch the bees work on gathering the pollen needed to make the honey. Standing by the rivers edge and watching the strength of the water flow by fills me with peace, gratitude, and a sense of how lucky some of us can be in this world that is not always kind.
This tour has taught me one other thing too. Living alone in this world is only hard when I stay inside of myself. Reaching out, being with people, or moving about in life, can fill me in ways that satisfy my longings. Oh yes, I still have those moments in the silence of the night that I wish I was sharing who I am and what I am doing with the “someone” who loves me, but at those times I must remember that I had it once….for forty-five beautiful years. That is more than some and better than many.
So I will continue to move about in this world and explore the beauty it has to offer, meeting people along the way that will fill me with new and interesting memories, so that in the end I won’t have to say, “I wish I would of done that.”
 |
| Mary, Judy, and Joan, my perfect roommate. |
P.S. I thank the three ladies who were a significant part of this journey. Each has filled me with memories to carry me along in my sweet thoughts. As long as I live you will each all live in my heart. Thank you.
 |
| A small cabin on Lake Louise. |
 |
| Just one of the many waterfalls. |
 |
| Yes, that is snow on the roof. Our Canadian brothers and sisters are a hardy group! |
No comments:
Post a Comment