oh...Canada

All right, I’ve been remiss in keeping this up to date for too long, so I’m going to have to focus in order to catch up a bit…

Mt. Robson:

Banff and Canmore:

After leaving the Alaska Highway, we pretty much headed straight into the Jasper/Banff/Canmore area, where we spent a couple days. I’ve heard such superlatives about the area that I was a bit disappointed that when we arrived to what was apparently their warmest weather of the year. This caused some fairly heavy haze that made opportunities for alpine photography somewhat limited. Unfortunately, the hot weather was also the inadvertent cause of blindness for several international tourists, who had the misfortune of viewing my shorts-clad, Alaskan-pale legs. I’ll be including a few photos (none of me in shorts, thankfully), though most of them were taken the morning that we left the area, after some heavy overnight rains had knocked down the haze and the temperature.

Canadian Scenery is Expensive:

Evidently, Canadian scenery in Banff and Jasper is worth $19.60 per day, as that’s what we had to pay to drive through. I’m not sure whether it’s a per peak type deal, or whether the wildlife gets a cut, but they do have several “wildlife overpasses” designed to allow Canada’s woodland creatures safe passage over the highways.

I can’t dispute the beauty of the area, but I was less excited by the “shopping villages” of Jasper and Banff. It reminded me of the cruise ship strip in Juneau, though with a bit more variety. The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel was every bit as impressive as the pictures I’ve seen, and I’d love to return someday for a stay there.

We actually stayed in Canmore, which has aspirations of being Banff, the sequel, but seems more comfortable for us common folk. In contrast to the mediocre experience at the Jasper Brewing Company, the Grizzly Paw Brewpub in Canmore was worth the visit. We went for lunch on a Sunday, and the special was a black bean quesadilla- not your usual pub-grub, but very good just the same. The only downside was the fact that I was surrounded by Philadelphia Eagles fans watching the game :) (including Laura, of course). Interestingly enough, one of those fans had attended Rutgers, so we had to commiserate a bit about their miserable season. The interesting connections we seem to have with the people we’re meeting on the road continues to amaze me.

The RV park we stayed at in Canmore was Meika’s favorite so far, as it was filled with feral bunnies. When I say filled, I mean that per capita, the bunnies ruled. Meika couldn’t figure which one to chase on our walks, and you could smell the smoke coming off the synaptic connections in her brain as she gave herself whiplash trying to watch all of them at once. On the upside, to keep her occupied while we were away from the RV, all we had to do was leave the blinds up on one of the windows, and 4-5 hours later, there she would still be, staring intently.

Calgary:

We then spent a couple days in Calgary, which allowed me to visit the Big Rock Brewery. Think mass-market type beer, so I wasn’t terribly impressed, though it was probably better than a Bud-Mich-Miller (insert the mass market beer you have the greatest disdain for here). Laura got a shopping fix at one of the Calgary malls, thus staving off the withdrawal symptoms that had been building as we traversed the Yukon. Overall, it was a nice break before fleeing the world of the ‘loony’ (I’m referring to the currency unit as opposed to any particular Canadian, although we did meet several candidates). Any place that calls their one-dollar coin a ‘loony’ does have some issues, though.

One other place we visited while in Calgary was the Olympic Park where several of the events from the 1988 Winter Olympics took place. Laura was excited at the idea of the ski jump until she saw how high it was...

Back to the world of the mile per hour:

We then made our sixth border crossing into Montana, and found our way to the Flathead Valley despite our GPS’ (henceforth to be referred to as Jill) best attempts to send us down several of what I can’t even optimistically call cow paths. I know this because the road we were traveling on had free ranging cattle meandering along the shoulders, and even they wouldn’t be caught dead on some of the paths Jill was trying to send us down. A hint to those of you venturing into the world of GPS: Don’t select your vehicle’s icon just on how cool it looks, as Garmin will assume that you chose that monster-truck looking deal because it was in line with your vehicle’s actual capabilities. After Jill’s twentieth attempt at sending us off road, even I began to notice a pattern and made the connection, thus narrowly averting that most embarrassing of circumstances: resorting to reading the instructions.

The following is a view over an area in Montana obviously hard-hit by a recent wildfire, which is essentially the only photograph I took in Montana (more on that next time).

With that, I’ll conclude this addition, with more to come soon.