Ice Fields Parkway

 (We have been away from a good cell connection for 4 days, so these next 4 days all get dumped at once)

After a leisurely breakfast. I dump the black and gray tanks and fill the water tank.  We would like to stay another day, but the RV park is full. Driving through downtown Banff it is amazing the amount of tourists and traffic. Stopping at a supermarket to pick up a couple things I spend nearly an hour trying to make a reservation at a park campground in Jasper in two days. The online registration system sucks. When you try to register for a site it lets you enter all the requested information only to kick you out in the end.  Turns out if someone else is registering for the same site and finalizes the process ahead of you it kicks you out.  This happens 3 or 4 times. The system also freezes and hangs.  Extremely annoying.

Very happy to finally get out of Banff.  Our last visit 11 years ago in September was much less hectic.  The place is being loved to death.  Interestingly, we hear very little English or French spoken amongst tourists. The Chinese seem to be the largest group.

I can not get a camping reservation for tonight, so will try one of the first come first served campsites. We find a nice campground just north of Lake Louise with lots of available sites without water or electric, which is what the majority of RVers seem to want.  Not necessary for us, we can go for days, before we need water or a pumpout. We have a generator and lithium batteries that are good for a couple days if we aren’t driving, otherwize the batteries fully charge with a couple hours of driving. We have yet to run the generator this trip. It is recommended to run it once a month to keep it in good working order.  

Fortunately we have been to Lake Louise before, about 10 years ago, because it's not happening this trip. It's $40 to park, but you would have to get there early in the morning to get a spot. You can take a bus up from the town, but need to have a reservation two days in advance. At least 50 years ago, I was able to bike up for free, hopefully you can still do the same today, just not me personally. 

We have a nice quiet night at our campground, except for a little rain.

“Mosquito Campground”,  fortunately did not live up to its name.

Banff

Traveling day to Banff. We have a nice sunny morning, but when we get to Banff it turns cloudy, cool and rainy.  I spend the afternoon at the RV park washing two weeks worth of bugs off the RV. 

We go for a long walk in the light rain and talk with some interesting German tourists in an RV they rented for 3 weeks.

Evening line-up to enter the Campground

Red Rock Canyon

We have breakfast again at the hotel and again get our table for two in front of the window that we had for Tea yesterday.  The downside of being here for two days is we have made multiple trips to the RV to pick up “this and that”.  Now I have to make a couple trips to return everything to the RV.

in 2017 there was a lightning-started forest fire that started northwest of the lake here. All the trees on that side of the lake are dead.  The fire eventually burned 87,000 acres half of it outside the park.  Forest and grassland burned. Fire fighting personnel from across Canada came to the park.  They saved the Town of Waterton and the Prince Of Wales Hotel. Fire crews started a back fire before the main fire advanced to the town causing an updraft that countered the wind driven fire and reduced fuel for the advancing front of the main fire.

On the recommendation of one of our waitresses we leave to visit Red Rock Canyon about ½ hour away in the park.  This valley was also devastated by the fire. The hike we took was previously a well shaded forest path, now a very sunny walk among the forest of dead trees.  The new growth is only about 3 feet high at this point.

Red Rock Canyon

 

A scary looking animal and a bear

Once we get cell coverage leaving the park I make a Harvest Host reservation at High River Brew Pub.  It's in an industrial park in High River, odd place for a brew pub, but not so much for a brewery.  As luck would have it they are hosting a party for another startup brewery that has contracted them to make their beer.  We get invited to a pizza party, which solves our problem, that this Brewery does not have a food menu. We have a fun time with a bunch of very unique characters. Make the characters in the show “Cheers” seem rather boring.

Prince of Wales Hotel

I get up early and have to Great Room mostly to myself. I watch an Elk walk pass the front of the building. Linda joins me a little later and we have breakfast at the restaurant. After breakfast we go for a long walk into town. 

 It is still early in the summer season, so not a lot of people and cars. The RV park is about 80% full.

 Late afternoon we have “Tea” at the “Prince of Wales” a rather decadent variety of “sandwiches”, pastries, breads, etc. We split a dinner in the Pub later in the evening.

Morning view

Elk on morning stroll

Main Lobby

Tea time

Night fall on the Town of Waterton

Warterton Lakes

Caryn & Linda,  happy to be UVM retirees

We leave fairly early to head to Waterton Lakes in Alberta, Canada.  I have a one night reservation at the “Prince of Wales” hotel. I could only get a reservation for Thursday night. Have a beautiful sunny day driving through the mountains and back out in the plains through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, before we head westward back into the mountains around Waterton Park.

We check into the hotel and ask if they have gotten any openings for the following night.  After a few minutes they are able to give us a second night without moving rooms.  We get to park next to the hotel in the Bus/RV parking area. We are the only vehicle left there overnight.

Normally it is very windy here, but today there is almost no wind. They have no outside chairs because of the frequent winds.  The tall windows in the Great Room and restaurants have small plastic boxes attached to the windows so they don’t rattle quite so loudly when they have the gusty winds.

We have an excellent dinner at the restaurant at the hotel. Lots of people hanging out in the Great Room enjoying the view down the Lake. The sun doesn’t disappear from the tallest peaks until 9:45pm 

Great Room

Sunset

Kalispell

There were 8 RV’s overnight at Cracker Barrel.  We split breakfast at CB, before we head out. Stop at a couple RV places to see if we could find replacement parts to our bike rack. No luck.  We stop at REI, lots of bike racks for cars, but none for RV’s. We do pick up a Luci Light, solar light which we have many of, but forget them back home in Vermont.

We are heading to Kalspell, north of Flathead Lake to visit an old friend from UVM of Linda’s, Caryn Gronvold who grew up in the area and retired there. Karen also house sat our house the first time we sailed to the Bahamas for the winter.

We have an enjoyable evening catching up with her and we “Boondock” in her driveway for the night. Karen makes us a wonderful dinner.

Missoula

 June 18 Missoula

Scott is staying an extra day at a friend's home in Red Lodge, because it is supposed to rain today. So it is our opportunity to catch up with him. Scott was going to ride over Bear Tooth Pass, but it is closed for the next couple days. He will probably head south to Cody and then into Yellowstone from there, a much safer alternative to Bear Tooth Pass.  It was bad enough just driving a vehicle up it. We pick up Scott at his friends around 9:00am and head to breakfast at Marli’s in the historic Pollard Hotel on main street.

We have a wonderful breakfast and conversation. Discover all the places we have in common from our younger years. Scott was my GP for years and I thought he was 20 years younger than me and would be my GP for many more years. It was always easy to see if the Doctor was in, looking down the hallway to see his latest touring bike, outside his office. He rode his bike to work everyday, summer and winter, unless the weather was real bad.  I always felt a little guilty driving a car to my yearly physical, which was about ⅓ the distance he biked every day.

After a leisurely breakfast we bring Scott back and get to check out his super custom touring bike. This bike is an 18 speed without a chain, chain wheel or derailleur.  It is belt drive with internal gearing.  It disassembles to fit into a suitcase as checked luggage on airplanes. I can remember 40 years ago I could take the pedals off, turn the handle bars and put it into an airline supplied plastic bag. At arrival I would pick the bike up off the luggage carrousel and be pedaling off 10 minutes later.

We don’t hit the road until noontime and stop at the visitors center to get road information.

Super bike

Scott’s friend home

Sign on main street in Red Lodge

Finally on the road, showers on and off all afternoon.

Since we left late we drive until 7:00 PM and park at Cracker Barrel for the night. CB has  designated RV parking spots out back of most their restaurants. We split a dinner, and still don’t quite eat it all.