Wow! What a busy three days we've had since I last posted. First, we had a great visit with Melissa, our neighbor's daughter back home in Pa., and her husband Logan. What a fine couple they make. That was on Friday, May 23rd. We left there early Saturday morning and headed for the Canadian border, about 55 miles away up I-15.
We had an interesting crossing, considering the 'cargo' we were carrying, but they did not search the motorhome, not that they would have found anything I didn't declare or illegal.
We headed for Calgary, Alberta Province and had a rather uneventful and somewhat boring trip, since the landscaqpe is much the same as North Dakota and Eastern Montana. It got interesting once we got close to Calgary, a city of about a million people. Barb wanted to go downtown to the Tower Centre and go up in the tower. I drove the motorhome to the center of Calgary, found a parking place and headed over to the tower.
The tower is 525 feet high and has a 360 degree view as far as the eye can see. It also has a glass floor, which is a bit unnerving, but we both stepped on it and looked down. It also has a revolving restaurant where we were going to eat, but reservations were needed and we did not care to wait two hours for a table. So we went back to the motorhome and tried to find our way out of the city. After one wrong turn and a few 'around the blocks', we finally were on our way West again heading toward Banff National Park. We planned to spend a couple days touring Banff, and found a campground in the town of Canmore, Alberta, where they were supposed to have wifi. ( more on that later)
About 20 miles outside Canmore, we approached the Canadian Rockies. What a sight! Unlike the Colorado Rockies, which you drive up and over, these you drive through along the Continental Divide on a super highway. I had noticed as we travelled North through Alberta our altitude slowly increased till we were at about 4000 feet entering Canmore around 6:00 pm. We signed up for two nights and were anxious to get on the internet to share our travels. Unfortunately, the wifi was not working and probably would not be fixed till Monday, since this was a Saturday. We were somewhat upset. However, the campground was surrounded by those snow-capped peaks we had been seeing since we left Calgary. Certainly a reason to stay for a couple nights. After setting up camp, I spent the next couple hours downloading and viewing the several hundred pics we had taken on our three cameras just that day. (The pics will be coming as soon as we pick the few out of the many hundreds we have taken since)
Sunday, May 24th, we woke up to more sunshine and an overnight low of 36 degrees. The week before, they had quite a bit of snow, and were glad for the milder weather.
We loaded up the Tracker, after a hearty breakfast, and headed toward Banff and, specifically, Lake Louise, about 50 miles away. It was one of the most spectacular drives we have ever taken. Snow-capped mountain peaks of every shape and size on both sides of the parkway all the way to Lake Louise. We stopped MANY times to take pictures, and just when you think you'd seen it all, around the next bend was another awesome view. It took us several hours to go those 50 miles to Lake Louise.
Words cannot describe the view. Hopefully the pictures do them justice. (BTW, Fred, I LOVE my Olympus....bought a polarizer for it)
Lake Louise is a small mountain lake nestled in between several of those snow-capped peaks, and was still frozen. The weather there was perfect t-shirt and jeans weather.....low 60's and bright sunshine with a few puffy white clouds. Evidence of the previous week's snow was there above 6000 feet, as there were snow banks along the road from the plow......just gorgeous! (BTW, the roads up here are fabulous! Seldom do you run into a stretch remeniscent of good ol' PA.) We also stopped at Moraine Lakeon the way down from Lake Louise. It's much smaller, but still very picturesque. It was also frozen and had much snow around it, which I sank into up to my butt. Fortunately, Barb did not have her camera ready to catch that shot.
We then drove back toward our campground and toured the town of Banff. It is a very neat, pretty and touristy town. Barb was tired, so we did not stop to shop. We got back to the campground and had a very delicious steak dinner and just kicked back. We later enjoyed a glass of homemade wine with our neighbors, Bill and Brenda from Calgary, and traded stories......a very fun and pleasant evening, and the wine was wonderful!
Monday, May 25th again started out cool and sunny. We packed up and left Canmore around 7:30 am and headed up the Icefields Parkway toward Jasper. Another day of spectacular vistas and many stops to take pictures of them. I spotted a large black bear along the highway, but could not stop to get a picture. I saw him disappear into the woods in my rear view mirror. Barb was upset she didn't get to see him. After passing through Jasper, we began to see some wildlife. An elk, a female moose and her little mooseling, and finally a herd of mountain sheep which crossed the road in front of us. Got some GREAT pics of them. The snow-capped mountains finally receded as we pulled into the Hinton-Jasper KOA a couple miles from Hinton.
That brings us up to date. The wifi here is NOT high speed, (it's satellite into Atlanta, Ga) which means we can't use our MagicJack I-phone. Very disappointing. I will be sorting and posting some pics later tonight and tomorrow so you can get an idea of the fantastic sights we've been seeing.
Take care, be safe, and Happy Memorial Day from Canada.
'If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a vet'
Ron & Barb
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