Oh, Canada! Our home and native land!

Who knew that Canada was so beautiful? The parts of Canada we saw are beautiful almost
beyond description - like it was another country (tee hee). Some observations from our trip last week with my husband and his parents:

• no litter in Canada
  
• no graffiti, even on railroad cars
• no billboards along the roadways
• Calgary was a safe, clean and beautiful city with 1,000,000 residents and we only saw three homeless men
  
• beautiful farms and well kept homes lining the roadway
• no license plates on the front of any of the cars I saw
• beautiful flower baskets and window ledge baskets everywhere
• temperature, mileage distances and speed limits in the metric system. Did you know your car's speedometer also shows kilometers inside the mph?
  
• people drove very close to the speed limit
• I now know that the the phrase "purple mountains majesty" means
• we traveled 2346 miles. My father-in-law kept track like he always does
• instead of seeing all the signage and information in English and Spanish, it was it English and French
  
• the LDS temple in Cardston is very large and different in appearance from other temples. No angel Moroni. The town of Cardston is very, very small. Smaller than Rupert. The members in Calgary currently travel 2 1/2 hours to get to the temple in Cardston or to Edmonton, which is takes about 3 hours travel time. The Canadian saints seem to be very faithful.
• Someone told me the Frank Lloyd Wright helped design the Cardston temple. Check that out, Claire.
  
• I have never seen another lake the same color as Lake Louise. And the rivers and the streams in the area - same color. It must be something in the glacier water coming off the mountains. Calling it turquoise doesn't even do it justice.
  
• Canada is home to the Rocky Mountains. Kind of makes our version of the Rocky Mountains here is Utah look like the Rocky Hills
  
• Canadians say "aboot" instead of "about" and instead of the letter "z" they say the letter "zed"
• There are some stores that are distinctly Canadian, but many of our US chain stores exist in Canada. We ate at a restaurant called Joe Tomato's and it was to die for.
• We stayed one night at the home of our old college friend Gary Tagg and his family. We learned a lot of interesting things about living in Canada from Gary and Glenda. Gary was instrumental in getting us together back in 1978.
  
• Banff, Canada is a happening place. Trendy, hip, and very fashionable. We didn't stay there very long, but it was nice to see it
• Calgary hosted the winter Olympics in 1988. We visited some of the sites where the competitions were held. How many luge runs and huge ski jumps does the world need? Why doesn't the Olympic committee just go back to some of the countries that have all the infrastructure and events built and use it again?
  
• We know less as a country about Canada and Canadians than they know about the United States and US citizens. That is very sad. They are interesting people who live in a very remarkable part of the world. I'm on a quest to learn more Canadian history and geography.
  
• It didn't look like the Canadian boarder police had any problems keeping the people in. No razor wire, high fences, guard dogs or the like.
  
• I'd go back in a heartbeat. What's not to love about Canada? Ok, so it's a little cold in the winter, but AZ is a little hot in the summer. You just cope, and enjoy the weather when's it temperate.