The Eyes Have It

This morning we had our annual checkup appointments with an optometrist in Oshkosh. We decided to order new glasses, so now we'll have to stick around the area until they come in.

That's a blessing in disguise, since our friends are planning to to to Madison tomorrow and stay a couple of nights. We plan to go along with them, and we hope that we'll be able to visit Bill and Michelle and Sophie and Gryphon.

This afternoon we did our laundry and shopping and got fuel, so we're ready to pack up and head out in the morning. We also visited the main post office a couple of times to pick up our mail, which we had had sent to AirVenture. Unfortunately we couldn't get to the AirVenture post office without buying a wristband, so we had to arrange to have our mail returned to the main post office. The postmaster's secretary, Lynn, was a big help to us.
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Dentist Visit

We had our teeth cleaned this morning by a dentist we picked off the Delta Dental list. He turned out to be a semi-retired 80-year-old with a fund of stories about Oshkosh and about his career. Unfortunately we don't think we got very good cleanings.

After lunch we went to the EAA AirVenture Museum, where we saw lots of airplanes and aviation memorabilia. Most interesting were the replica of the Voyager, which made the only non-stop non-refueled flight around the world, and Space Ship One, which won the X-Prize. (At AirVenture, visitors have a chance to get a reservation for a flight into space.) The museum also features many unusual aircraft designs. For example, the Baby Bird is a very cute, very tiny monoplane.

Space Ship One in Museum

White Knight Two on the Runway

Afterwards we watched the airshow again, with some repeat performances and some new ones. Again the aerobatics were impressive. We were disappointed that the White Knight Two did not take off because of severe weather issues in the neighborhood, though the AirVenture grounds never got anything more than showers.

The Rutan Legacy has a large display at the AirVenture Museum, with displays of Voyager, White Knight One, and Space Ship One, among others. Both Burt and Dick were very much in evidence at the airshow this year.
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Airshow!

We got up early this morning to make sure we had plenty of time at AirVenture 2009 today. We rode our bikes to the main gate and locked them to a fence. Bikes aren't allowed on the grounds, so we walked in and headed for the Warbirds section, where WWI and WWII planes are on display--all owned by individuals. Next we went to the Honda Mainstage to see a presentation by Dick Rutan, who piloted the Voyager, the first plane to fly around the world nonstop without refueling.

This P-51 Mustang was one of the more colorful warbirds on display.

The Predator has no cockpit. Its pilot stays on the ground and flies the aircraft by remote control.

This afternoon we were on the flight line with our friends to watch the afternoon airshow. It was non-stop excitement from the skydiving Liberty Parachuters circling overhead with flags to the aerobatics and the water dropping helicopter, Elvis. Quite a show.

Each day's airshow started with Liberty Parachute Team and their over fifty foot flag.

The helicopter's water drops were impressive.

The wing walker was a big hit.

Red, white and blue were popular colors for the aerobatic planes that performed.

We came home tired but happy. Tomorrow morning we go to get our teeth cleaned, and then we'll head back to AirVenture for another day's activities.
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On to Oshkosh

This morning Ed and Marlyn drove out early to get the new tires installed on their Alpenlite. While they were gone Nanci, Jenske, and Judy set up a hair salon, and everyone got dolled up. We all had to line up to dump on our way out, since we won't have any hookups for the next four days.

Then we met at Mullins Cheese Factory, just around the corner from the Lake DuBay Shores Campground where we stayed. We all sampled the fresh cheese curds and stocked up on Wisconsin cheeses. We've never had cheese curds before, but we had heard that fresh one squeak. These certainly did! They were mild and delicious. Judy ordered some deep fried cheese curds, which everyone got to try.

The trip to Oshkosh took a couple of hours. When we arrived it was around 2:30 and the afternoon air show was underway. We got to see the A380, the largest passenger jet in the world, arrive and fly around as we registered.

Our five rigs headed for the pet area of Camp Scholler, which is the name of a large field used as a camping area during the annual AirVenture. The pet area was full, so we were directed to an overflow area out beyond the dump stations and towards the highway. The volunteer who showed us the way said that there were already 25% more campers than last year, and traditionally Wednesday is a busy day for arrivals. We don't know where they'll put them!

After we parked and set up, everyone got out lawn chairs and sat down to watch the air show. Of course we could only see the planes up in the sky, but the show was impressive. One plane did dives and loops while a woman wing walked (only visible with binoculars)--amazing! Large groups flew in formation, and there was lots of smoke and aerobatics. Marlyn climbed on the roof of their trailer to get a better view.

We all have wristbands for admission to the grounds tomorrow and Thursday. There's so much to do that it will be hard to choose, but Ken has a few things picked out, and of course we plan to be on the flight line for the air show tomorrow afternoon.
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Travel Day

We headed south to Oshkosh today, planning to stop for the night near Wausau. The Evans have new tires for their rig waiting in Wausau and will get them installed in the morning. It made for a long travel day, but we'll have a short trip to Oshkosh tomorrow.

We are staying at Lake DuBay Shores Campground in Mosinee. Our campsites are large and shaded by tall pines. We're in sight of the river, and we walked down to the docks to watch the sunset.

We were camped under the trees.

Sunset from the docks.

After dinner, Mike drove his car over to a pavilion where the owner told us we could square dance. Judy played dance tapes recorded by their favorite Arizona caller, Smokey Snook. We had a grand time and several people said we ought to dance every night.

During our travels today, we saw many farms with barns and silos—this is definitely dairy country—but we didn’t see many cows. Presumably many of them are in the barns.
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North Shore Scenic Drive

We set out this morning with three vehicles headed for Hwy 61, the scenic route along the North Shore of Lake Superior. We rode with Tom and Nanci, and Sweetie went with us. Ed and Marlyn and Bear rode with Wes and Jenske and Peaches, and Mike and Judy were in their car. We stopped briefly at the Lake Superior Maritime Museum, which is operated by the Corps of Engineers. The skyline is dominated by the famous Aerial Lift Bridge.
Along the way we stopped at several overlooks. Then we went to Betty's Pies in Two Harbors, MN, for lunch, including yummy pie. We had cherry berry crunch. Others had bumbleberry (mixture of raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry), blueberry, and six-layer chocolate. Tom had a concoction made in a blender with ice cream, milk, and a whole slice of pie.

Aerial Lift bridge

Betty’s Pies

Then we went on up the shore to the 99 year-old Split Rock Lighthouse, where we watched a film, visited a museum, and then toured the lighthouse and head keeper's house and grounds. Tour guides were dressed in period costume, and put on an entertaining and educational show. We only toured the 99 year-old Split Rock Lighthouse. This lighthouse was only built after 29 ships were damaged during the infamous storm of 1905.

Split Rock Lighthouse

Gooseberry Falls

At the end of this tour, Ken and I split up. He and Sweetie continued with Tom and Nanci; they went back towards camp, stopping at Gooseberry State Park to view the falls. I rode with Mike and Judy and the rest of us continued on up the shore to visit Tettegouche State Park and hiked in to see the High Falls. The group then went back to see Gooseberry Falls, visit another scenic overlook, and then on home, arriving late and tired, but happy with the day's adventures.

High Falls

Wes, Jenske, and Peaches hike down from High Falls.

Ken had fixed coleslaw and a grilled cheese sandwich, and I ate when I got home.
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Duluth

After breakfast Ken walked over to the Walmart to get a haircut. Then we headed out of town, with a stop to see Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Big Blue Ox located at the Bemidji Information Center. Bemidji is built around two lakes. Of course, Minnesota is the Land of 10000 Lakes, so there are lakes everywhere.

Lee with Paul & Babe

Ken was here too!

The drive to Duluth took us through some more interesting countryside, dotted with lakes and rivers, with hillsides covered with trees. The change from endless prairies was quite welcome. We rejoined our friends at Ogston’s Campground in Saginaw, northwest of Duluth, where we are staying a couple of nights.

Ed checking blowout damage to fender (photo by Nanci)

Ogston's--parked on a nice lake

Tom and Nanci arrived just ahead of us (good timing, guys!), and the rest of the group came in later. The reason for their delay was that Ed had a blowout on the street side rear tire on the Alpenlite. Here's Nanci's description: "The explosion took part of the fender skirt but luckily, there was no other damage to the rig. Right after it happened Ed pulled out his cell phone to call Good Sam so that they could come change the tire for them. But fate intervened and they had no cell service. Wes jumped out of his rig and he and Ed changed the tire themselves. Pretty darn good for a couple of retired guys!"

Mike and Judy went out to explore the South Shore, while the rest of us had a happy hour.

Happy hour: Nanci, Tom, Lee, Ken, and Ed

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Back in the USA (Minus Our Fruit)

This morning we left Winnipeg and headed south, crossing the Canadian/US border at Pembina, North Dakota. This must be a popular crossing—we had to wait in line a long time. When we got to the window and handed over our passports, the officer asked if we had bought anything in Canada. We told him about the Calgary Stampede hat, and then he asked if we had any food, like fruit or meat. I said yes, and we were asked to pull over for another officer to inspect us. He confiscated all our citrus fruit and our two apples. We had peeled all the grapefruit, hoping that would suffice, but it didn’t help. We could have kept the apples if they had had tags indicating they were grown in the US. He didn’t bother the strawberries, blueberries, or cantaloupe, fortunately.

It took 45 minutes altogether to clear customs, and then we were on our way to Grand Forks to pick up our mail at General Delivery, but unfortunately they had sent our mail to the nearby Air Force Base post office this morning. Sigh. They agreed to forward it to Oshkosh. We passed an Excel heading west on Hwy. 2, but didn't have time to identify the model. We honked.

Our drive across the prairies was again through lovely canola and lavender fields. The canola fields actually seemed to shine even when it was cloudy.

Canola shining in the fields

Lovely lavender

We went on to Bemidji, Minnesota, to spend our first night in a Walmart parking lot, since we couldn’t find any convenient campgrounds and we needed only a place to sleep before driving to Duluth tomorrow. We parked on the far edge of the lot, where we had a view of a storm pond with cattails. It was much quieter and more pleasant than staying at a truckstop.

Our boondocking site

We had to clean out the burner tube on the hot water heater again. It's been re-setting again.
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Happy Birthday, Wes!

We visited the Royal Canadian Mint this morning, along with Ed and Marlyn and Mike and Judy. The tour was very informative, and we were impressed by the complexity and efficiency of the operation. This mint makes all the circulation coins for Canada, and also makes coins on contract for other countries. Numismatic coins for collectors are made at the mint in Ottowa, using precious metals and multiple strikings to insure depth and clarity of impressions.

Most circulation coins are made of steel which is electroplated with copper or nickel or platinum or other metals, because the more precious metals are too expensive to make coins out of now. On the tour we got to see the process of manufacturing coins, from the coils of steel, through punching out blanks, electroplating, annealing, impressing the head and obverse and rim, and finally packing up for delivery, plus multiple intermediate steps to polish and insure quality control.

In the mint museum, we were invited to lift a gold bar that is on display (well guarded), and found it surprisingly dense and heavy for its size. I’m sure that’s the closest I’ll ever come to that much gold!

Then we all went to the Provincial Legislative Building, a very impressive classical revival structure. We spent the time while waiting for our tour to begin by searching for some of the many fossils embedded in the limestone walls. Our tour guide was well informed and personable, but her English was so heavily French accented that we had to strain to understand her.

The main entry hall of the building is dominated by two huge bronze bison. They were supposed to be lowered through the roof, but with delays from WWI, the roof was completed before the bison arrived. To get the multi-ton beasts in the building without scratching the marble floors, blocks of ice were cut from the river and used as sleds to slide the statues into the building. When we got back to our truck we found a parking ticket on the windshield. Fortunately it was just a warning—we had left the parking receipt wrong side up.

Lee on the way to our tour of the Legislative Building.

One of the heavy bison.

Afterwards we drove to “The Forks,” a waterfront area at the confluence of the Assinoboine and Red Rivers, where we had sandwiches for lunch and then walked around to explore a bit. One photographic exhibit sponsored by the Canadian Cancer Society was really touching and captured our attention. People had been invited to submit photos in some way connected with cancer, along with some narrative explanation. There were hundreds of large poster size photos with text in English and French. Some were of children, some of young adults, some of older folks. Some were proud survivors, some still in treatment, some had succumbed to the disease. One photo that stood out for me was a group of older women with bared breasts and mastectomy scars, all of whom had joined together to crew a dragon boat. One young mother was nursing her daughter with her remaining breast. There were children with brain cancer, young people with bone cancer, older folks with colon cancer, and many with forms of cancer you seldom hear of. The human story of cancer was the focus of interest—not the disease, but the ways people coped with, overcame, and lived with cancer in themselves or their loved ones

In the evening all five couples went on a dinner/dance cruise on the river to celebrate Wes's 73rd birthday. We took two cars of five, and the one I was in got misdirected and barely made it to the boat in time. Once we sat down at our table together, with Wes, the birthday boy, it was a familiar party with our friends. The cruise wasn’t very exciting, but the friendship, fun, and camaraderie were priceless. After dinner we went up to the dancing deck, where a DJ was playing music for an empty room. We requested some line dance music and got the joint jumping! When Ken tried to tip the DJ, he refused, saying that we had made the evening for him.

We all got a kick out of the party hat and all the candles on his cake.

Wes doesn't often sit down when dance music is playing.

Tomorrow we will split up with the rest of the group temporarily. They will go to International Falls while we travel through Grand Forks to pick up our mail.
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Manitoba!

Another new province for us to log! We crossed from Saskatchewan to Manitoba today as we headed across the prairies to Winnipeg. We ran into some rather heavy rain on and off, and the highway was much rougher than yesterday. Still the same farmlands. We did pass an Excel headed west and honked a greeting. Mike and Judy headed out early this morning so that Mike could get in some golf today while Judy visited quilt shops.

We're at Travelers RV Resort on the southwest side of the city. After setting up we all gathered at the Evans for happy hour. We visited briefly with Lou and Judy and Natalie again, since they are also at Travelers, but tomorrow they'll head south.

Nanci describes today's drive: "Continuing east we crossed into the province of Manitoba. Following us into Winnipeg was a summer storm. For a short time we had heavy wind, rain, lightning and thunder. It’s hard to see out of the windshield when your wipers can’t even keep up with the rain. Along our scenic route we encountered some very bumpy roads." Their rear kitchen was so jostled that some cupboard supports gave way.

I talked to Chris tonight. Everything is going fine for their purchase of the duplex. He and Annie were just heading over to Ladd Circle to listen to the musicians. One of Annie's friends showed up, so she ran off to play.
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Saskatchewan Prairies

This morning we were ready to leave at 8:30 a.m., and we walked around to touch base with everyone. Wes and Jenske assured us that we are not alone and if necessary they could come back to get us and we could stay with them. We don’t expect to need to call on their generosity, but it’s great to know we have such good friends. We traveled to Regina, passing fields of wheat, canola, and lavender--and then more fields.

We got to Village RV early and arranged for the vent installation, then unhitched and joined our friends at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Center and Academy. The museum is modern and well designed. We learned about the history of the Mounties, their forensic techniques, and their goal of "Safe Homes, Safe Communities."

The moose-mountie greeted us at the entrance to the museum.

Then we went to the Government House and joined the last tour of the day. The building houses the offices of the contemporary lieutenant governor of the province, and the museum recreates the setting of the original lieutenant governor's home and offices from circa 1900. Our guide was cheerful and informative and pointed out the original pieces that had been salvaged for display (the remainder were period pieces or reproductions).

We had to leave the tour to go pick up Venture, with a brand new refrigerator vent. Then we headed east to our campground at Moosomin and rejoined our friends.

We had to jockey a bit to get into our pull-out space at Fieldstone Campground (a small loop off the road, but blocked for us by a large tree at the entrance), and wait for the rain and hail to abate, but once we were set up, our space was nice--wooded and private. The campground was very dark at night.

We still have to deal with the damaged mounts for our solar panels. Greg Holder of AM Solar recommended that we not try to bend the mounts back, since that would weaken the metal. We will have some issues with trying to get the parts sent out to us, since we won't be staying at a commercial campground next week, but at the Airshow grounds.
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RV = Repair Vehicle

We called Village RV in Regina this morning, and they agreed to replace our refrigerator vent at 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, so we went on to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, today.

On our way out of the Hoodoo RV Resort and Campground, we stopped at one of the two dump stations, both of which had a length of sewer hose permanently attached. Fortunately the bayonet fitting was the right type to hook on to our sewer hose. Ken had to wait for a woman to finish washing dishes at the “Dishwashing Station” (a double sink) before he could hook up to the water to flush our tank, an arrangement which seemed strange to us. Other than that, the campground was very nice, with large sites and very friendly staff.

The trip across the Alberta and Saskatchewan prairies behind Tom and Nanci provided lots of opportunities to view wheat and canola fields and some cattle, but not much else. TransCanada Highway 1 is the way to go for fast but rather boring travel. We’ll have 150 miles to drive to Regina tomorrow, so it will be a short trip to get our repairs.

We called AM Solar to get their advice about how to deal with the bent mounts for our solar panels. They asked us to send digital photos, something we could easily have done on the fly with our Verizon modem, but we’ve been warned not to try to use it in Canada, so we waited until we got to the campground.

We’re staying at Trails Campground in Swift Current. It’s a smaller place, but pleasant enough, except that the group was split up into three and two, with Evans and Johnsons in the back row and Rowes, Simingtons, and us in the front row. The group decided to go on to Whitewood, which is halfway to Winnipeg. It’s two hours past Regina, so we’ll get our repairs done and then probably catch up with them, unless it takes way longer than we currently expect to get the refrigerator vent put in.
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Dinosite

Wes and Jenske gave me a ride to the museum in time for the Dinosite adventure scheduled for 10 a.m. Six of us went, including Ed and Marlyn, Tom, Wes, Mike, and I. Our "science educator" was a graduate student in Museum Studies interning for the summer at the museum. He led us out to the micro-site located in the Dinosaur Provincial Park, adjacent to the museum grounds.

There we "prospected" for small fossils washed down from above. Phil showed us some samples of fossils we might expect to find, including dinosaur rib bone fragments, petrified wood with crystals, turtle shell, crocodile skin, clam shells, and teeth. The members of the group, including several small children, spread out to hunt. I found a couple of fossilized bones, including a small rib fragment and a piece of a vertebra and some petrified wood. Everyone put their finds on a pile, and then we had "show and tell." Phil passed around some of the finds, including tracings of plant material in iron rocks and some fossilized pine cone sections. Afterwards we spread out the fossils for the next group to find.

Next we walked to a partial dinosaur skeleton in situ (meaning lying where the bones were found). The dinosaur, a duckbill herbivore, has been nicknamed Rusty because of the rusty iron rocks where the bones lie. We saw some vertebrae, a toe bone, leg bones, and the pubis, but the skull has not been exposed (or else it is missing).

After the hike I joined Ken in the auditorium to watch a short video called "Pond Scum" about the formation of oil from the compression of microorganisms in the ancient seabed that covered Alberta.

After a picnic lunch, we walked through the remaining exhibits that we hadn't seen yesterday. The museum has abundant fossils from a variety of eras, and they are displayed in dramatic and appealing ways. The highlight is a large room filled with dinosaur skeletons, displayed in lifelike settings with murals of what they might have looked like in life. Just amazing!

On the way home we stopped for diesel and did some shopping at the Dollarama and the Canadian Tire Store (not a tire store, but more like an Ace Hardware plus auto center and garden center. We bought some hollow wall expansion anchors, and when we got home, we used one to re-attach the valance by Ken's chair, which had fallen down again. It fell the first time in April 2008, when it was still under warranty, and was (more or less) reinstalled by Camping World. I think we did a better job, and we hope it will stay up this time. We also checked out a problem with my chair that Ken had noted. It looks like some parts are bent and it's hard to tell if we'll be able to fix it.

We all took our dinners to the Evans' rig to eat. Nanci brought out a bottle of Illinois wine that Dennis and Linda Apple had given them, inviting everyone to try it out so we could tell Dennis and Linda how much we had enjoyed it.

When we walked back to our rig, we decided to check out a problem Ken had noticed on the roof. It turned out that we had bent the mounts on two of the solar panels and ripped the vent cover off the refrigerator, so we'll need to arrange for some repairs. This might have happened when we were parking our rig at Lake Louise. We thought all was well at the time so we didn't climb on the roof to check things out. Meanwhile we taped some plastic loosely over the vent, hoping to keep out the rain (if it rains) but allow the fridge to vent.... "RV" stands for "repair vehicle," we know, but this is a real streak of bad luck.
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Dinosaurs!

Today we headed to Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum, which has more dinosaur skeletons than any other museum—38—and boasts lots of holotypes, the first instance of a species.

As we left the Calgary area, the landscape was pure prairie, with lots of canola and wheat fields as far as the eye could see, but just before we got to Drumheller, we drove down a steep grade into the Red Deer Valley, part of the Canadian Badlands. The landscape changed dramatically, and we were surrounded by large mounds with exposed sandstone layers.

We're planning to spend tomorrow at the museum, but we went over after a late lunch to check things out. An interesting temporary exhibit features Darwin and evolution.

I signed up for a couple of outdoors activities tomorrow, so I'll get to hike out into the Badlands. Ken is more interested in the indoor events and exhibits.

When we returned to the Hoodoo RV Resort and Campground where we are staying, an informal happy hour was in progress at the Evans' site, and of course we joined in.

When we parked our rig, we spotted another Excel two sites over, a 2008/09 model 35TKE Limited, which looked gleaming new. We chatted with the owners, a couple from Airdrie, a small town just north of Calgary. They were in Drumheller just for the weekend.
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Calgary West, Again

To break up a long trip, some of us left Jasper National Park today. Wes and Jenske stayed in Banff; Tom and Nanci and we went on to Calgary West for the night. This is the same campground we were in earlier, so we already knew our way around. We all got some laundry done.

Nanci and I made a trip out to shop and ended up spending a few hours and going from store to store. We discovered The Read Canadian Superstore (evidently a Walmart competitor) and were very impressed by the selection, especially in fresh produce.
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Jasper National Park

We went with Wes and Jenske today to see some of the sights around Jasper. In the morning we went to Mt. Edith Cavell and to Athabasca Falls. Mike and Judy were heading the same way, so we drove together.

The road up to Edith Cavell is very windy, with vehicles over 21 ft. not allowed. We arrived just after 10 a.m. and were able to find parking places easily. Wes and Mike and I took the Glacier Trail, which led to the melt pool at the base of Cavell Glacier, with Angel Glacier overhanging. Wes hiked over to an ice cave at the base of Angel Glacier, while Mike and I took telephoto shots from a safer distance. Meanwhile Ken took lots of photos of the glaciers and scenery and Jenske and Judy chatted.

We went on to Athabasca Falls, just south of Jasper. Viewing the falls is a powerful experience. The water has cut narrow channels through the rock and scoured “potholes.” Some of the channels have been abandoned by the water, so you can walk through them. The falls plunge over the edge in several separate sections, including one where two streams meet at right angles in a turmoil of white water.

We went home for lunch and then set out for the Maligne Canyon Road. First we came to an overlook with a vista of Jasper and the Athabasca River Valley. Next was Medicine Lake, which has no apparent outlet. The outlet is actually an underground river. We drove along the Maligne River to the Maligne Lake, where the road ends. Along the way we saw a black bear and some elk and deer. The caribou have been vanishing from the area, and only eight have been seen there in recent years.

Then we drove back to Jasper and checked out the shops. Jenske saw liver and onions on the menu at one restaurant, the Palisades, and said she just had to eat there. She had liver and bacon and Mike had liver and onions. Ken and I split some Greek chicken. Judy enjoyed her lemon salmon soup. Everyone pronounced the meal delicious, and then we headed back to the campground to meet with the rest of the group to discuss plans for the next few days.

We decided to travel with Rowes and Lou and Judy and Natalie back to Calgary West Campground tomorrow and then on to Drumheller the next day. Wes and Jenske will go only as far as Banff. /Evans and Simingtons will stay another day in Jasper and then drive to Drumheller in one long day.

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Glaciers!

We set out in the morning from Lake Louise Campground headed for Jasper National Park via the Icefield Parkway.

Rowes' Sea Breeze leads the way to Jasper

Marks' Excel on the Icefield Parkway (photo by Nanci Rowe)

As planned, we stopped at the Columbia Icefield, and eight of the group took an excursion on the Brewster Ice Explorer to walk on the Athabasca Glacier. First the shuttle bus took us to a rendezvous at the lateral moraine of the glacier, where we boarded our Ice Explorer for a trip up the glacier. When we arrived at the turnaround point, our driver told us we had 20 minutes to walk on the glacier before boarding for the return trip. We spent the first several minutes getting the driver to take photos of our group.

Brewster Ice Explorer whisked us to the Athabasca Glacier (photo by Nanci Rowe)

Ken and Lee standing on glacial ice

Then we had some time to walk around on the glacier. Looking up we could see two other named glaciers, as well as some small unnamed glaciers. Under our feet was blue glacial ice, hundreds of feet thick. The ice was not pure white or blue as I had expected, but instead sprinkled with black particles, brought to the glacier by the snowflakes which had picked them up in the atmosphere from carbon soot. Some of it actually looked a lot like the slush piled up on the roadsides in Cleveland by snowplows. We had to stay inside a circle of blue cones, for our own safety and to protect the glacier. A fast running stream carried glacial meltwater across the glacier at our feet.

In the evening I joined a group going to check out a trail by a beaver pond. We saw a large beaver making its way from a lodge to the shore, evidently collecting food. Some of the group walked around the Cottonwood Slough and saw three more beavers. Mike and Judy and Wes and Jenske drove towards Patricia Lake and saw a tan colored grizzly bear and some elk. Marlyn, Ed, and I continued on the path around the Slough and along the creek, but after a while, when we hadn’t come to the turning point of the trail, we decided to backtrack and head back to camp.
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Banff

We drove with Tom and Nanci to Banff this morning, via Hwy 1A, the alternative to the Trans Canada Hwy 1, in hopes of seeing some wildlife. The wildlife were all too smart to come out in the rain to pose for pictures, so we went on to Banff. We saw the Bow Falls (on the Bow River).

Bow Falls

Banff Springs Hotel

Next we drove up to the Banff Springs Hotel, an opulent tribute to the Canadian Pacific Railway's designs to lure tourists to this beautiful country. In the courtyard stands a statue of William Cornelius Van Home, who said "Since we can't export the scenery, we will have to import the tourists." His plan appears to have worked quite well, since millions now visit every year. We visited the Hoodoos--strange rock formations. One sign read, "What the heck is a hoodoo?"--just what we were thinking....

What the Heck is a Hoodoo?

Here are the hoodoos

Then we walked around downtown Banff, had lunch and checked out some of the many the tourist shops before stopping at Safeway to stock up on groceries before our trip to Jasper National Park tomorrow.

By the time we headed back towards Lake Louise, the sun was trying to peek out, so Tom took Hwy 1A again. This time we did spot some elk by the roadside--not a difficult feat, since there were several vehicles stopped to view them.

Nanci ready for the trail

Might not see another bear

Boardwalk along Johnston Canyon

We stopped at Johnston Canyon, and Nanci and I hiked in to the lower falls. At least we thought we had reached them, though when I described our day, Ed and Marlyn said we had stopped short and just seen one of the small falls along the way. The hike was still a great experience, with views of the rushing Johnston Creek, which over millennia has created a gorge 62 feet deep and very narrow. Much of the hike is along a catwalk attached to one canyon wall.

It was rather late when we got back to camp. We fixed dinner and Ken put away some of the outside stuff preparatory to moving in the morning.
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Lake Louise

We drove to Lake Louise this morning with Tom and Nanci. A few raindrops were threatening, and it was cloudy, but the lake was spectacular. We couldn't stop taking photos of the lake with glaciers behind and of the Chateau Lake Louise, with and without our friends and us in the picture. We ran into Ed and Marlyn and Wes and Jenske there and went to the Chateau Deli for coffee. Then we walked part way around the lake on the lakeshore path, shooting pictures of the awe-inspiring views as we walked.

Our first look at Lake Louise.

Tom and Nanci rode with us.

The hotel from part way down the lake.

The weather disappointed us. The white snow and glacier areas on the far mountains blended in with the cloud cover.

Jenske and Wes in front of the hotel.

Marlyn and Ed

The hotel is big enough to fit the scale of the natural wonders around it.

Even inside the hotel there were great views of the lake.

Rowes, Marks, Johnsons, and Evans with Bear

As we walked to the parking lot, intending to drive to Moraine Lake, the rain started in earnest and the sky grew completely overcast, so we headed back to the campground, with a stop at the Village shops along the way. Tom treated us to Cornish Pasties--not quite like his grandma used to make, but still warm and delicious.

We decided to stay here for another night and cut our stay in Jasper to two nights--there's so much to do and see here. We hope the weather will give us a break tomorrow. Because we didn't put enough water in the tanks to last four days, I had to carry some in the 5 gallon container. Ken held the funnel while I poured it in the freshwater tank, which worked pretty well.
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