Jasper to Vanderhoof

Thursday, June 10.  As we sat at our breakfast table in the RV this morning eating our breakfast, an elk was eating her breakfast right outside our window.

We watched her for quite a while as she browsed through our area.  We were on the road shortly after 8:00, and -- would you believe, we drove 291 miles today!!!  Pretty awesome for us old folks.  We started out in rain again, about 42 degrees.   The clouds obscured most of the mountain views, including Robson Mountain, which is the tallest peak in British Columbia.  I had issues when we had the view of that one, so I didn't get a picture, but here's some of the clouds.  We have left the spectacular Canadian Rockies, but they were really something to behold.

After a couple hours, and maybe 100 miles, we hit sunshine.  When we stopped for lunch, it was a hot 72 degrees.  We routed out a couple of deer when we pulled off for lunch.  They came back as we were leaving, I guess they hadn't finished their lunch either.

As we moved north, the scenery changed to lower pines in the mountains, and then farmland.  Joe spotted a black bear, but all I saw was a black blur.  However, later on, I spotted a tree with 4 small bears (Dave saw 6), two in the tree and two underneath.  Since we were not in the dinghy, Joe couldn't make one of his patented u-turns, so he didn't get to see them at all.

We did, however, spot our first Canadian moose, just by the treeline by the road.  No picture, we were moving too fast.  But it was exciting to see.  We had been looking for moose for a long time, and we hadn't seen any since those two outside of Coeur d'Alene.

We made it to Prince George right after lunch, so we continued on another 60 miles to Vanderhoof.
Here's a picture coming into Prince George.

We got to our campground shortly after 2:00, and it is a very nice campground.  You never know what you are going to get when you pull in, but this one is very pretty, clean, and nicely set up.  There's always chores to do for all of us, so Marilyn did a little maintenance on Dave this evening.

And here is me, sending an e-mail to Kaylee.  We got to talk to the kids (Tiffany, Cody, Kaylee, John, Bridgette), and Jeff and Brenda, tonight on Skype, so it was good to catch up with everyone after several days of being out of touch.  Hopefully, we can keep in better contact now that we have left the national parks behind.  We are heading toward Prince Rupert tomorrow, don't know if we will make it the whole way or not.  Just imagine that I have a hat on, because bad hair days are regular occurrences.

Jasper, Hot Springs, Wildlife

Wednesday, June 9 -- Today was a great day.  We saw tons of wildlife, beautiful mountains and waterfalls, and even enjoyed the Miette Hot Springs!  The first pix is of the campground woodpile.  You can have fires at some of the camp sites, but it costs $8.00.  However, the wood is free -- you just go pick it up.  Sometimes there are piles of wood at the actual campsites.

We drove around the campground and spotted 4 elk before we headed out for the day.  One of the elk had her baby with her.  The baby is trailing behind, but it is in the picture.  Marilyn saw one who looked like she was ready to birth any day.  We have a better elk pix later, but this is the only elk baby we have seen so far.

We headed for Athabasca Falls first, since we bypassed both falls yesterday.  It was an awesome sight.  The water pouring over it is the same emerald color we keep seeing, although it is mostly white froth.

Cathy, we could have used TCJ instead of TCB for part of my logon--taking care of Joe is pretty much full time.  Onward to the next falls, Sunwapta Falls, still heading south, back toward the ice field.  Another beautiful sight.  This was not as big a falls as the first one, but it had two drops.

Back on the highway, we saw another black bear!!  He was very cooperative, just kept walking right at the treeline along side the road, so Joe just kept backing up to keep up with him.  We got to watch him for several minutes, and you wouldn't want to know how many pictures we took.  But we got a really good picture of him.

We went back into Jasper and stopped at the Visitors Information Center, then headed northeast up Highway 16 to the Hot Springs.  We saw a whole herd of bighorn sheep -- 14 mammas and babies (ewes and lambs, I guess).  We watched them come down this sheer cliff, and we couldn't even see any footholds for them to step to, but down they came.  One stayed on top, maybe as the lookout. 

The weather is constantly changing here, and it rained lightly on us off and on all day.  The clouds move below the mountaintops all the time.  But there are some beautiful mountains, and we are looking at them on every trip.  The views never get old, though.

We saw a deer on the way into the Hot Springs, and another one on the way back out.  They seem the most skittish of the wildlife, so we didn't get a very good picture.

It was 43 degrees when we got to the Hot Springs.  The water in the springs was 103.  It was very relaxing, although it sprinkled on us the entire time.  You can see the steam coming up from the pools.

We had a hamburger on the way back down.  Lunches here, with Joe's 2 beers, run about $35.  We need to eat in the camper more!  Once we got back on the highway, we spotted 4 bighorn rams right beside the road.  They were very cooperative as well, so we got some good pictures of them munching the grass.

Then we came upon a real mess -- 6 of these bighorns in the middle of the road!  They looked like yearlings (for all we know), and I think they were trying to eat the grass in the seam in the middle of the highway.  I was afraid I was going to see bloodshed right there!

Finally, we moved along, trying to get home.  But we made one more stop, when we spotted 3 elk beside the road.  Joe had to make another u-turn to see them well, but they are beautiful animals.

Finally, back at the campground, we took a few pictures since we are pulling out of here tomorrow, heading down Highway 16 to Prince George.  You can see Dave and Mazie's rig next to us, and Collins and Marilyn just beyond them.  This is a very nice park, very wooded.  It has more than 700 campsites, so there is a lot of traffic in and out, but it seems pretty quiet. We hope to make it all the way to Prince George tomorrow, but it's about 230 miles, and that's a bit of a stretch for us old folk.

Jasper & Ice Fields

Tuesday, June 8.  We took a late drive yesterday evening (5:00 p.m.), to see if we could find any wildlife.  Finally we saw a deer, then another one.  These were white tail deer.


There are lots of ground squirrels, prairie dogs, etc. around.  There are some that pop up every time we go into the campground.  Here's one little fellow, we believe he is a Columbia Ground Squirrel.

Then Tuesday morning we took off toward Jasper.  We were on the road shortly after 8:00 a.m., and we saw two deer right beside the wildlife overpass as we headed out of town.  Good to see they are using them, although Canada has fenced off a lot of these roads to force them to cross at these crossovers.  There were lots of clouds, spotty rain off and on this morning.  Some of the clouds looked like they were smoking.

Everything we have seen in Canada is absolutely stunning.  We are so grateful to have the laptop (thank you, Tiffany and Eric and John and Bridgette).  We have probably taken 1000 pictures already, and it is great to be able to check e-mail, pay bills, and last night we even connected with John on Skype, who was in San Antonio.  We called Tiffany too on Skype, but she didn't answer, so we'll try her again.

It's hard to choose between looking at the mountain tops (which are beautiful) and watching the ground for wildlife.  Just as I said this to Joe, a deer popped up on his side, so I guess we continue to try to do both.  The views just from the RV are spectacular.

There was a weeping wall (where water seeps through the rock into waterfalls) and a bridal view falls we saw from the roadside.  Then we stopped at the Columbia Ice Field, and took a tour bus up to actually walk on the glacier.  But we hit a little snow storm up there, so we didn't stay on the ice very long.


It was freezing cold.  Dave didn't even get out of the bus.  He said that is why he lives in Arizona!



Here is another picture of the glacier.  I didn't even know Canada had glaciers until we started planning this trip.

This drive through Utah, Idaho, and now Banff and Jasper National Parks has been more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.  If any of you want to just take a road trip, I would recommend any or all of this so far.  And we still have thousands of miles to go.

We are staying at Jasper Whistler Park tonight.  The weather cleared and we had dinner outside at the picnic table.  I think that is a first for this trip.  Before dinner, the girls all drove into Jasper to check out the laundramats and the visitor center.  While we were gone, the guys saw 4 elk right in the park. This park is a calving ground for elk because they are trying to avoid predators like wolves, bears and cougars that typically stay out of busy people places like campgrounds.  The elk are "habituated," which means they have lost their fear of people.  However, this campground is also a bear habitat, but we haven't seen any of them.  We got the "bear proof" speech when we entered the park though (no food outside, etc.).

Joe and I went back into town after dinner and did our laundry, which was pretty expensive.  The washers (which they consider "triple") were $5.00 per load, and the dryers were 25 cents for 4 minutes, so I think we spent about $26 (Canadian money) on getting our clothes clean.  The rest of the group are going in the morning.  On our way back from town, we saw 2 deer crossing the highway.

Lake Louise

Monday, June 7 -- Today we were finally able to check e-mail and post blog.  Kaylee, thanks for the e-mail.  The first picture is for you -- Bucky now has a friend, named Woolie Bear.  I think you'll like him too.  We are only buying the animals after we see them.  We are looking for a black "gray wolf," but haven't found one yet.  Have just seen the gray ones, and the one we saw was black.
We went to Lake Louise first today.  Marilyn and Collins went in their car today, so I don't have any pix of them.  This lake is very similar to Emerald Lake, but it has a huge resort on it.  It's raining off and on again today.  Yesterday was sunny almost all day, but it started sprinkling again about 7:00 p.m.

Next we went up the mountain to Morraine Lake.  It has glaciers behind it, and it still had ice on it.  It was only 42 degrees up there, a bit chilly!

Of course it had a gift shop.  Here's Grandpa dancing with the bear.

Then the four of us took a gondola ride.  We chose the enclosed car, rather than the open one.

It was really cold at the top, and a weather front moved in while we were there.  This would have been the day for the sock caps and scarves -- which are back in the RV.

We found another Brenda rock on this walk to the Interpretative Center.  Brenda, you have to haul this one down in the gondola, though.

It was a bit of a hike DOWN to the Interpretative Center, which meant it was a heck of a hike back up.  Here's me and Mazie laboring back uphill.  Probably got a little aerobic exercise in.  An interesting tidbit, what we call cattle guards they call Texas gates us here.  Brenda, you probably wouldn't want to drive the RV through them either.

Banff and Canmore

Sunday, June 6.  Today we toured the ski resort/tourist towns of Banff and Canmore, still within the Banff National Park.  Our first excitement was black "gray wolf" walking down on the other lane of the highway.  I didn't get a very good picture, so you have to look for it.

We stopped at the Castle Mountain lookout, which was awesome. 

Then we saw a bighorn sheep close-up.  He was very cooperative, just kept eating right beside the road, with one eye on us.  Joe finally decided those horns looked pretty menacing, so we took off.


In Banff, the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is really spectacular.  Built in the 1800s during the railroad heyday, it is still an awesome sight.  We walked around inside, looked at some of the shops and artwork, and Dave and Mazie and Marilyn and Collins checked out the winery.  As we were walking on the street beside it, there was a lambrogheni (sp?) parked at the curb.  But 3 cars back was a "smart car," so I guess everyone is welcome.  We walked the streets of Banff, had lunch, went into some gift shops (all I bought was a piece of fudge, though), and then headed to Canmore, the site of part of the 1988 Winter Olympics.  It is still a training center for triathelons and some of the winter olympics. Here are a couple pix of the Olympics event.

We saw 3 deer as we headed back to town.  Worn out again, but a good day of sightseeing.