Cardston & Waterton (Part 4)

Wednesday morning, we woke up early and scarfed down some cucumber sandwiches (made with Hutterite cucumbers- the best in the world in my opinion) and started the drive to Waterton! Along the way we made a stop in Cardston to see the Cardston temple. This temple has a similar design to both the Mesa, AZ and Hawaii temples since they were built around the same time. We stopped for a few pictures and chatted briefly with the cute sister missionaries who were serving there. 

{Cardston Temple}

I started getting butterflies as we began to see the mountains that surround Waterton. I had memories of this fairytale land from when I was a kid, but I was excited to take Marty to my favorite spot to visit in Canada. Waterton is the Canadian side of Glacier national park and it shares much of the same glacier-carved beauty. 

{Waterton!}

{Prince of Whales Hotel}

We decided to take a boat tour around Waterton lake, so we bought our tickets early and then went to lunch. 

{Buying boat ride tickets}

We had lunch at a local place called Zum's. I got a yummy salmon burger and Marty got the Zum burger. We sat out on the patio and watched the lake and the people walking by while we ate. 

{Lunch @ Zum's}

We still had some time before our boat ride so we walked down to the beach to snap a few more pictures. 

{Waterton lake}

{Lovely Tour Guides}

The boat ride was about an hour out and an hour back. The scenery was to die for. I couldn't take enough pictures of the mountains, water, and the beautiful blue sky. The lake goes over to the American side of the park- in one of the pictures below you can see the Canadian-American border cut into the side of the mountain. Glacier & Waterton were the world's first international peace park so there is a lot of cross over between the two. Another highlight of the boat tour was that we saw a bear! It was a brown black bear - I was really happy that I got to see the bear from the boat and not any closer.. but I did manage to get some good pictures :)

{Boat Ride}

The bottom pictures were at the turn around point on the American side, "Goat Haunt". 

{Glacier, BEAR, Us :) } 

{Pretty freezing cold water}

{BEAR}

Bottom left is the border between the US & Canada- We thought it was interesting that there was an actual physical border between the two. 

{Gorgeous day}

After the boat tour we stopped at Cameron Falls. I hate to say it, but we got so distracted with the adorable chipmunks that we didn't really notice the falls for the first few minutes we were there.. The chipmunks had been so spoiled by all the tourists that they would run right up to you, one even jumped into my lap in the search for trail mix. When we finally looked up though, we were impressed by the beautiful falls. To me they looks like an "H". We also took the short hike up above the falls to get a better look and steal a quick kiss ;) 

{Cameron Falls}

{Deer who thinks she's a dog}

We saw this deer not too far from the falls sitting in the middle of a camp-ground like it was the most normal thing for a deer to do. 

Next, we headed over to one of my favorite spots in Waterton, the Prince of Whales Hotel. This beauty was built in the 1920s and it has an old fashioned European charm to it. Plus, it has one of the best views of the park since it's set up on a hill. 

{Prince of Whales Hotel}

{View from hotel}

We had such an amazing day at Waterton, I already feel like we need to go back since we only scratched the surface of what you can see and do there… 

After Waterton, we stopped and got the most amazing pralines and cream ice cream and headed back to Raymond where we ate dinner around a bon fire in Judy & Max's back yard. Amazing day!