Winter Wonderland

These were two other considerations for this week's contest.

24 hours in Calgary

After leaving Banff I spent an extra day in Calgary with my dear friend Nicole who recently relocated to the area with my 'former' lab (this is a long story). We didn't have much time and we spent Thursday evening visiting and getting caught up. We slept in on Friday and only had several hours to tour around Calgary before I had to catch my flight back to cold, cold Ottawa (it was much warmer in the west).

We wouldn't see this in Ontario! :)

Some interesting artwork on Stephen Avenue walk.

I love this reflection but couldn't tell you where it is anymore!

Not the most artistic photograph but I have always been a Flames fan (after the Sens of course!!) and I was thrilled to see the infamous Saddledome :)

Banff

What can I say about Banff? It was peaceful, majestic and bright. From the moment I arrived I enjoyed myself. I had very little precious spare time as you know I was there for a conference. I feel I should mention that I thoroughly enjoyed the work-related aspect of being there as well. I learned so much, met some wonderful and highly intelligent researchers/students/financial donors/patients, and left feeling inspired about what I do (and those who know what I've been experiencing in the lab for the last several months will understand how important some inspiration actually is). I spent every free moment running around inside and out with my camera and came home with 400+ photos. Needless to say, I can't post more than a few but if you would like to see a slightly bigger sample of what I took please see my facebook link:

From a distance...

This is what I saw as soon as I walked out of the hotel driveway. Not too shabby!

A view from one of the hotel terraces.

The Bow River in the village of Banff isn't completely frozen yet.

Another spectacular view from the hotel.

I can't help myself when I see gorgeous cloud formations. Banff had so many!

The mountains as seen from under one of the hotel arches.

I took a walk down one of the trails and found some icicles forming along the Bow River.

Everything was frosty!

A replica of the Fairmont Banff Springs made entirely of cereal and candy!

This tree was easily 30 feet high!