Okay, you ask, what is a "coulee"? A coulee is a river valley cut down into otherwise flat plains. Hereabouts, as well as in Montana, the plains rolll on to meet the horizon, mostly without a hill in sight until you near the Rockies. The Rockies are the backbone of North America in the same way the Andes are the backbone of South America (and, incidentally, Antarctica).
Whereas these plains are mostly wheat fields or pasture lands without trees, the coulees are treed and grassy, have a stream or river in the bottom, and unlike the plains, don't have that everlasting empty feeling that is slightly uncomfortable. To our eyes, they are more attractive and the locals treat them as parks, often. Lethbridge City is up on the prairie, people come down to the coulee to picnic and splash in the stream, or fish.
The drive from Lethbridge to Calgary isn't bad, but isn't interesting either. From Calgary to Banff is pretty, and so is the cutoff we use to avoid urban Calgary. We're here for a week, then we go to Jasper a couple of hundred miles north up the Icefields Parkway - a beautiful drive.
Banff is located along the Bow River in a valley among tall gray peaks. There are hot springs, a glorious old "railroad" hotel - The Banff Springs Hotel, and a once quaint little town that has become a tad too bustling for the tastes of us who've been coming here for forty years. Forty plus miles up the TransCanada Highway is Lake Louise, with another grand old hotel and amazing scenery. This is some of the best scenery in North America, believe it.
