Banff, Tunnel Mountain CG, July 23

I guess he has the right of way

Travelling the Parkway to Banff

Town of Banff, July23

I drove down the parkway today and loved every minute of it.

Tonight I am camped at Tunnel Mountain in the no services area, Village 1 it’s called for $27.40 per night. It’s an extra $6.00 to have  a fire so I skipped that. And it’s a good thing too, because as soon as I stepped outside mosquitoes were landing on all areas of bare skin. I met my neighbour, and we each stood there slapping and scratching as we chatted. He said don’t worry these are just the babies, the big ones come out at dusk. They must have followed me from Crimson Lake.

I will stay here for a couple more days and then head south to cross the border into the US and meet up with my travelling Michigan friends, Gaila and Dick at Swiftcurrent Campground at Many Glacier. It’s a bit of a challenge finding campgrounds because some of them are still shut down with flood damage or at least they have a limited number of sites available. 

Two O’clock Creek Provincial Park Campground – July 21st

It’s 10:20 pm, Sunday, and still light out.  I am sitting outside by my campfire, site 19, with mountains all around me. Today I packed up and left Crimson Lake. But first I talked to some of the other campers about the hail storm last night. Many of them had broken ceiling vents, and some had their expensive awnings torn and broken.  One guy said a hail ball broke through the ceiling vent and landed on his bunk bed. And he said there were dents in trucks, especially the Fords and Toyotas, they had suffered the worst, but us GMCs  he said were ok. I haven’t checked the roof of my trailer, because I don’t have a ladder, but there are at least 4 dents the size of a toonie in the back wall of my trailer and lots of little dents in the front.

I packed up and said goodbye and then headed west toward the Rockies. 93 km west of Rocky Mountain House I stopped in at Nordegg. It’s a small town that used to thrive when they mined for coal, but that all stopped after the railways started using diesel. Now there’s a motel with a gas station, ($1.22 per litre) a couple of food vans, the coal museum, and its cafe which makes great pie and serves Seattle’s Best Coffee. There is no place to park or turn an RV so I just drove on the field /lawn and hoped when  I headed out, it would be ok.

My plan was to stay at the provincial Two O’clock Creek Campground in the Kootenay Plains Ecological Reserve. It’s a beautiful drive especially by Abraham Lake. I found a good campsite and headed out for a walk right away. I asked two different people if there were bears around and they said oh yes, it’s bear country and they are all around. So I didn’t go off in the bush too far! It’s very open here, huge meadows with beautiful grasses and wild flowers, a ridge that people use for a climbing wall, and mountains all around.

Everything seemed perfect until I turned on the water pump, and there was no noise, and no water. I reached up to turn on a light, but no light. And the fridge packed with all my new groceries was not working either. I plugged in the truck to see if I could get the battery charged a little bit, but there was no juice coming through.  Maybe the lightning from last night may have cooked my electrical system. Sheeit.  Here I was with fresh groceries, all ready to go hiking and stay in this beautiful place = so much for the best laid plans. It looks like the best option is to turn around and head out first thing in the morning, back to Rocky Mountain House. It’s getting dark now, and I can hear drums being beat in the distance. It could get pretty chilly up here tonight. At least my sheets have dried out.

A very fun suspension bridge!

Last night at Crimson Lake - A T-Storm and a Moose

Thunderstorm at Crimson Lake – and a  Moose

It’s best to leave a place at an exciting moment, and my last night at Crimson Lake was just that.

But even earlier that day when Baloo and I were walking to the lake to take its daily measure I saw a huge fake moose in the main day use parking lot. I thought that was pretty cool on the part of Parks Alberta as today was a national celebration of parks across Canada,and lots of fun activities were planned such as sand sculptures, geocaching, and a scavenger hunt, all topped off with a big chocolate cake. But back to the fake moose, as we drew closer Baloo went ballistic, and that woke up the big boy, who started and then with a big shake of its antlers in our direction, it took off for the woods. I wonder how close I would have got if Baloo hadn’t started to bark?

It was a fun day and there were lots of junior girl forest rangers to help out, they have a pretty neat job for the summer, staying in camps and helping out on park projects. I talked to their leader and she told me that she had biked along from Alaska to San Francisco, with no money, just to see how that would work out. She camped on the side of the road in the forest, and sometimes she met people who offered her meals and a place to crash, and on occasion she stopped in a town and worked for cash. But her main source of food was outside of grocery stores because she said they chuck out so much stuff as soon as the date is expired, but the food is still completely edible. Wow, what courage! And on another trip she walked 300 km in the desert in Israel. And she wants to go back and walk some more.

My favourite family were back for the weekend, and they won the sand sculpture, they created the life cycle of a frog, sculpting the four stages. One of the 3 girls found me on the beach. "Janice" she said, and reaching up, gently took my hand and led me to their sculpture.  There are four kids, they are bilingual, and love being out in the forest and camping.  They are so respectful and yet a ton of fun. I will certainly miss them.

So, the cake was done, the party was over, and then came the dark sky. It looked and felt really strange to me so after a moment of indecision, I pulled down my awning.  I stepped inside the trailer, and the door banged behind me as a big wind came rushing through the trees. It got really dark and then hail began banging on the roof and walls of my trailer. I pulled my ceiling vents down and then sat and tried not to be scared. The hail sounded like golf balls being hit against my trailer. When it hit the vents I was sure the glass was cracking. I couldn’t figure out an escape route so I got out my cycling helmet and put that on. I looked in the mirror and thought boy does that look stupid, but it sure felt better, and I was keeping it on.   After 10 minutes or so, the hail stopped, and the rain came down in buckets. My fire was barely smoking, and the ground was all flooded so I decided to go to bed. The rain had come through onto the foot of my bed, and it was really wet, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Volunteer Host at Crimson Lake Provincial Campground June 26

So I have switched allegiance - from BC to Alberta, and from the national parks to the provincial parks. Crimson Lake is a couple of hours on the west side - equidistant from Edmonton and Calgary. It's located about 15 minutes NW of the small town of Rocky Mountain House.The lake has a boat launch and a terrific 10km trail around the lake which you can walk or bike. Also,there are other trails through the forests of spruce, pine, and shivering aspen - lovely. There's only one teeny problem - millions of voraciously hungry mosquitoes - that chase me as if I am a special treat. I have learned to walk really fast because I found out that they can fly at 2.4km per hour. And I never stop, unless I do the calculation - take photo of a flower, have a drink of water - is it worth 5 to 6 bites? So you can do the math for these photos.

 Today, I got out my new giant sized bottle of bug deterrent and vigorously sprayed my legs and arms, and then spread on a layer of sunscreen on my neck and face, and thus fully armoured with a thick layer of chemicals of who knows what, I headed out with confidence to meet the kids. The mosquitoes were lying in wait outside the door and attacked me in a grey whining cloud. I lost all decorum and scrambled onto my bike and set off down the road hell bent for leather. I never looked back because I was sure the little bastards were tracking me like a grey funnel cloud,ready to descend as soon as I stopped.

Every little kid today had a can of bug spray with them and I watched with amazement as they cheerfully sprayed it in a thick mist all over their bodies including their heads, only narrowly missing their faces. But it evidently wasn’t enough because there was a steady swatting and scratching that went on throughout the interpretation program. I wonder if the mosquitoes here have learned to adapt to the poison Deet, perhaps it's now just an early warning of a ripe human nearby.

Before I came to Alberta, I had read in a pamphlet that mosquitoes attack most heavily around dawn and dusk, and so I figured that left a lot of hours during the day and evening for hanging around outside, but now that I am here, I have come to understand that the dawn bite lasts until noon, and right after that the dusk bite begins, and that keeps on going until you are ready for bed. And if you have left a screen open for even a moment, then you can look forward to the dusk bite lasting until dawn.

Anyway the school program was fun today; one frog, two beautiful swallowtail butterflies, and a multitude of bugs were captured with great gusto. We only ended up with one butterfly for the group sharing though because as we were trying to put the 2^nd one in to the bug box, the first one flew out. I looked up, and six inches away was the sweaty face and sad shocked eyes of an 8 year old boy, I am sure he will never forgive me.

I found the most interesting moment to be when the park ranger pulled a leach caught from the lake out of the water tub,and as he began to talk about it, it proceeded to stick so fast to his hand that he had difficulty shaking it off.  He gave it a big pull, and the slimy black thing stretched and stretched until it finally let go. Leaches in the lake, mosquitoes by the millions, and that leaves me with, oh my gosh, 70 days to go… 

I have located the library in town, the swimming pool, and the grocery store so all is good. I have also visited the pharmacist to find out what is more potent for mosquito bites - after bite products or hydrocortisone - his vote - hydrocortizone. So be it.

The other thing of note around here is the thunderstorms -T-storms - with an early warning from the CBC they arrive in the late afternoon or evening of each hot day. The wind picks up, down goes my awning and antenna, off goes my electronic gear, and then down comes the rain and or hail. It makes a terrific noise hammering on my thin fiberglass roof. At first, Baloo would bark loudly and fiercely at the thunder, but now he just lies down and gives a big sigh. We are getting acclimatized to this wonky place.

Funny looking cows...

Crimson Lake

This one was worth the bites!

Host Site

Baloo doing yoga

Beautiful trails - have to remember Bear and Bug spray!

Banff Parkway to Crimson Lake June 15, 2013

I left Golden this morning at 9:30am and right at the start there was a steep high road out of the town and then some 40 kilometers of curves after that with not too many passing lanes. I travelled alongside the, Kicking Horse River, and the first stop of the day was in Field at Parks Canada information centre. There was a black bear browsing in the grass on the other side of the busy highway, and a bunch of us stood watching until a Parks lady came out of the office and yelled at us all to move back to the parking lot. Good grief...all of us little kids obeyed...

At Lake Louise I dropped in to the information center to find out the best place from which to see Lake Louise. The bored clerk told me to take a right and then head up the mountain so I did. There was a sign saying there was no parking for large RVs but seem as mine is so small and the guy said it was ok to head up, I kept going. The parking lot was full when I got there, vehicles circling like cranky cowboys around cattle - no space whatsoever, and this was June. I can't imagine what it is like once summer really starts. So I headed back down and left town - I was feeling tired, it was hot, and I had quite a few kilometers still to drive - so no, I didn't get to see that beautiful lake. Perhaps I am the only person in the world who drove there and didn't get to see it. Next time.

The view along the parkway drive from Lake Louise North on #93 up until Highway #11 was beautiful - immense jagged mountains with glaciers, sunshine, clouds, wind, and rain - I never knew what was coming next and I loved it. Sometimes I even felt a shiver of anticipation of what I would see around the next bend.

Great place to stop in for this view at Num-Ti-Jah Lodge

Baloo at Abraham Lake

I stopped and made coffee here at this pullout on Lake Abraham in the Kootenay Plains area to keep awake, 205 km from Golden to here, still 127 km to go to Crimson Lake. It takes me a long time to drive anywhere, I stop at so many veiewpoints - but that's what it's all about...

Surrey to Kamloops Day 1, then on to Golden Day 2

Willllllllll you please hurry up? I am so ready to go...

I am going as fast as I can!

Fort Langley - will it ever stop raining? My shoes are turning into mushrooms

Fraser Valley, Mountains ahead and blue sky, on to the #5 connector to Merritt just past Hope

 Merritt - nice to see this BC hot spot so green in spring

Leaving Kamloops on highway #1 after getting the wheel bearings greased up - I would have had to wait 2 weeks to have it done in the Surrey area, here, all done in one day. I stayed for free behind the Kamloops Costco - I didn't know the loading dock was right down the way a bit - and that trucks arrive all night - beep, beep,, beeeeeeeeeep!

The only place around, good for a cool drink and an opportunity to stop and cross the highway and then a bridge to see the  SouthThompson River.

Sicamous - all the hot spots in town - and it's sunny

 A logging truck in trouble, being off-loaded by another one

Rain, sun, rain, sun

Revelstoke

Downtown Revelstoke

Revelstoke - You don't want to miss this bakery - yum!

Roger's Pass

The path into this area was closed

So chilly up here that I wish I had gloves

Golden Municipal Campground right on the river - across from the train tracks. Big Ass Betty? Perhaps I should name my trailer?

Mountains all around Golden