O, Canada!

In August, we took our 4th trip to Alberta to Banff and Jasper National Parks.  The kids beg to go back, and although there are surely many beautiful places within a day's drive of here, we always end up back in Alberta.  And I sing "Alberta Bound" nearly the whole way there.

Some pictures from our trip:

Our first stop is always in Canmore.  It's a cheaper and much less touristy place than Banff town, but only about 10 miles away.

Canmore is surrounded by mountains, and is just beautiful.  There is an Olympic venue there for cross country and biathlon.  It is a public park with miles of paved trails.  We were the cool family and took our scooters with us (they fit much more easily in a car than bikes).  We went twice a day up to the Olympic park and rode our scooters on the trials.  It was a good workout, and so super fun to go down the hills fast.

These photos were taken at Bow Falls.  Cold glacier water from the Bow River and an excellent area for kids to splash and throw rocks.

 Another stop we always make in Banff is to the tram that goes up Sulpher Mountain.  You can see forever up there.  Some people go up, walk to the top and then head back down.  If you ever go, pack a lunch and take the trail that goes down the back of the mountain for a half mile or so.  The best views are there, and the crowd is nowhere to be seen.

After staying in Canmore, we stay in Lake Louise for a night or two.  My favorite place in the world is there--Moraine Lake and The Valley of the Ten Peaks.  Some people stop at Lake Moraine, snap a picture of the blue water and then leave.  The most beautiful spot is up the trail just to the right of the lake shore.

I had never seen this spot on a cloudy day.  At first I was kind of bummed out about the clouds (even though I adore clouds).  But then I realized it was actually quite beautiful to see the ten peaks jumping in and out of clouds all day long on our hike to Eiffel Lake.

 Mark took this picture of me standing at the end of the Valley of the Ten Peaks.

 Zack is a happy hiker.

We met a grizzly bear on our hike that day.  It was huge, and stopped right in our trail for quite a while.

 We stopped at Lake Louise on our last morning to try to see the view, but it was still pretty cloudy.  That didn't stop the swarms of people going there.  It is a crazy mess.

 A new adventure we did this year was a hike at Parker Ridge.  It is halfway between Lake Louise and Jasper, and we have always seen throngs of people hiking up the switchbacks whenever we have driven on the Icefields Parkway.  But we could never figure out what was so spectacular to make the hike worthwhile.  Well, we found out.  Turns out the most spectacular view of Saskatchewan Glacier and river head is just over the hill, surrounded by green mountain meadows and wild phlox and far as you can see.  Plus, a stunning view of Mt. Saskatchewan in the background!

 And look how much fun your kids can have if you stop here!  Sheep horns, and then a death-defying stop at the cliff's edge.  As an added bonus, there are millions of fossils all along the trail and everywhere you look.  Sea fossils on every rock!

 Isn't this so beautiful?

 It's also worth stopping at the base of Athabasca glacier.  There are so many fossils here, and the view of the glacier and the mountain is awesome.

We stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge for the last week of our trip.  It is 50's glam in the most beautiful setting on the shores of Lac Beauvert.  I loved our stay here.  Although the hotel itself could use an update, the pool itself is worth staying for, and the service is spectacular.  The town of Jasper is my favorite with so many great restaurants and shops. 

 We loved staying on the lake. Savvy (our bird nerd) loved the loons.

 S'mores on the lake every night at 8:30 was a bonus!  I think my favorite quote of the trip was Zachary who at one point said, "Why would anyone take their kids to Disneyland?"

On the way home, we stopped at Mt. Robson viewpoint.  I had never seen the top of this beautiful peak.  It's the highest point in the Canadian Rockies, and when we have driven through before, it was obscured by clouds.  It really is a beautiful vista.

Why I fear Ebola

I am heartbroken at the news of a nurse who has contracted the ebola virus.  But I have to say I saw it coming.

I have spent a bit of time in hospitals, for the births of my seven babies, and a few trips to the ER for stitches as those babies grew through childhood, and a few random surgeries for the kids over the years.  The things I observed in my time in hospitals have absolutely frightened me.

I am not a germ-a-phobe, but I do understand the basic principles of microbiology and infection control.  Most of what I have seen in hospitals runs counter to these basic truths of science.

My son had a minor nose surgery last winter, and because of some lingering nausea, we ended up spending the night at the hospital.  Over and over, my son would throw up, a gloved nurse would help him and clean him up, and then go over and type on a keyboard to document the event.  Yep, with the same gloves she used to drop that emesis bag into the trash can.

When I was in the ER six years ago for some sudden and severe abdominal pain, I had a nurse come in, glove up, touch about 20 things in the room, pick up a stool that I am sure had never been wiped down, and then proceed like she was going to get my IV started.  I asked her if she could please change her gloves.  She gave me the crustiest look I have ever seen in my life.  She took off her gloves, left the room, and I didn't see her again.  Apparently, that was unreasonable for a patient to think that gloves that had just touched everything in the room, including the bottom of a stool, should not be the same gloves that open sterilized IV tubing and then puncture my skin with a needle.

Each time I have stayed overnight in a hospital after giving birth, I was stunned as I watched the housekeeping staff come into my room.  They already had gloves on, which they used to open my door.  Then they emptied the trash, opened the dirty linen basket and removed bloody sheets, picked up the mop and "cleaned" the floor with the same water in the bucket used for the room just before mine, then went over to wipe down the toilet and sink area with the same cloth.  All with those original gloves on.  And then the housekeeper was off, pushing the cleaning cart with those same dirty gloves to "clean" another room.

It seems in the healthcare world, gloves are seen only as a barrier to keep the wearer protected from infection.  Yes, that is one major purpose to be sure.  But the bigger part of the picture is that gloves should be used as a disposable barrier for infection control.

To healthcare workers, I ask:  Go ahead and put those gloves on to take care of me but then immediately dispose of the gloves before touching ANYTHING else, including me, the bed, the keyboard, the doorknob, the curtain, or the new sheets you need to put on the bed.  If you have to change your gloves 8 times in 2 minutes, then do that.  Please, throw away your dirty gloves before you touch anything else.  Because although you are protected from the germy stuff, that bedpan you just emptied has contaminated your gloves, and when you touch the bedrails with those gloves on, you have just spread the contamination to the patient's bed.

I guess I am super sensitive to this because of my husband's job.  He is a dentist.  He wears gloves.  A lot of gloves.  How would you like it if you went to the dentist and he left the same gloves on all day? My husband might start a filling on you, and then decide he needs to get a different bit or polishing disc on his handpiece.  Does he leave his gloves on to open the drawers and look for what he needs?  No way!  He takes off his gloves, throws them away, and then finds what he needs, and re-gloves.  Probably at least six times per patient.  It's called basic infection control.

Anyway, I am sure when it comes down to it, we will discover that this poor nurse in Texas did absolutely everything right when caring for the Ebola patient (which is a whole other rant I could go on).  My guess is that is was another co-worker who used dirty gloves to touch something in that room--from the light-switch to the bed to the stack of clean diapers--because it would have been too much of a bother to change gloves one more time. My gut tells me that this poor nurse touched something that should reasonably have been expected to be sterile, and it wasn't.