Birthday morning...two suprises!! Two books I had been drooling over for a while became mine in the early morning of my 30th year.
Friday at work....push through the day, get my aged bones to 3:06 and into the car. Move East. Then South. Then East.
Jasper.
We arrived in Jasper just after the stroke of 10pm, tossed our clothes in the hotel and ambled our way down the strip towards the Brewery. We spent the evening there, then awoke the next morning to sunlight, coffee, breakfast and left for a snowshoe in the mountains. Saturday night we re-enacted our Brewery sojourn, made our way to the Downstream Pub, then off to the Ded Dog Pub...then walked the whole city looking for food. Nothing to be found, we went back to our hotel room and called it a night. Excellent food (best purchased dinner ever!), amazing beverages, and a whole birthday weekend of fun. Good times, as always, in Jasper.
Afternoon coffee break with our books...
The drive towards Maligne Lake, nearing our trailhead.
ABOVE and BELOW: Munching away on a lunch of carrots, cheese and bread in the forest. Crystal wants me to delete this picture of her....apparently she looks weird but I thik she looks lovely.
View....of.....beauty. Jasper in a frame. This was near the end of the hike/snowshoe. The trail continued through thick brush - a melee of fallen trees, actually, and perfect bear dens so we decided to leave fate alone and call it quits shortly after the lake ahead of here.
Another view along the hike...
Crystal walking ahead...
Stopping along the way to play with the antlers casually left along the trail. Beauty flogging your eyesockets from beyond....monters of the geologic realm sitting, waiting to be climbed. In the summer. Wait until the summer..... 
First Drink of my 30's. 
Apple crumble, and only 29 candles short.
Taking a break from rambling bar talk to learn me some astronomy...late at night....among the drunkards of Alberta.
Crystal drinks so fast the camera cant catch her....
Warming up with sweet, sweet kisses (and steaming hot pizza on its way!) after a rowdy night out. 
Before we headed home we took a little tour of the area, stopping at a nice shale outcrop along the road. I, of course, decided to go play with the rocks. 
Playing.
Co-Pilot at attention.
Co-Pilot and Pilot. I think shw woke up about two hours later...just in time to stop for a muffin and a coffee. Curious timing, that.We also saw, and hung out with for some time, a woodpecker that was quite in to this one tree no matter how much we disturbed it.
