Banff is one of those places I just seem to keep going back to. Summer 2004, summer 2005, Jan-Aug of 2006 and now summer 2008.

I only ever go for work, I’ve never been to Banff for ‘vacation’. The work is fun, I always meet great people, and the mountain scenery is pretty spectacular too. But one of my favourite things about Banff is the wildlife

You can see why this guy is called a Bighorn Sheep.

I was late for work once (in 2006) because there was an elk on the path up the mountain. My roommate and I had to go around the long way. I got to see another elk while I was out there this time, luckily this time I was in a car. It was standing so still I was starting to think it was a statue!

And then, with zoom!

I bought my camera (a Sony DSC-H3) almost entirely because of the 10x optical zoom. 10x! And even more in the digital range, but I don’t use that too often.

And a gratuitous mountain-at-start-of-sunset picture, just because a Banff post wouldn’t be the same without it:

It looks like a painting, doesn’t it? Sometimes I don’t believe it is real.

And in knitting news, my first Annetrelac sock has a heel! I survived the entrelac! More on that in the next post.

I know, I know, I disappeared again. Work tends to do that. I find it harder to blog (for whatever reason) when I’m away from home. I like routine I suppose.

I didn’t get much knitting done over the summer, but I have since I’ve been home! I finished Cara’s socks:

I only had the one foot left to do, and it went really quickly because Cara has teeny size 5 feet. The pattern is the Embossed Leaves socks from Favorite Socks by Interweave Knits.

The yarn was by All Things Heather; I got it for donating to a cause she was promoting on her blog. I love the colours, they are all my favourites, but also very Cara I think. And a good match for the pattern because we all know that green = leaves.

I immediately started a new pair of socks (naturally)! Another Interweave pattern, this time the Annetrelac Socks.

The yarn I bought off Etsy about a year ago, from Yarn Ahoy. It’s really cool in that the colours fade slowly throughout the skein from light to dark. It took a bit of time to decide whether I wanted dark or light on the feet, but in the end I decided that the cuff should be the light part, the feet dark. Otherwise I think they’d look top-heavy.