Rain clouds that kept our view at a minimum in Banff

June 16:     Banff National Park is a place I have always wanted to visit. The pictures I have seen are so impressive and the way the town of Banff sits down at the base of the surrounding mountains makes it a unique town. On our way from Calgary to Banff on Monday, we began to wonder if we would even be able to see those spectacular mountains. It was raining and the clouds hung extremely low, hiding the views we were so anxious to get a peek at. After getting settled at our spot in Tunnel Mountain Village II Campground, we decided to go check out Banff. There is a bus that comes right to the campground, so we hopped on it and took a ride to town with our full rain gear on. We had a great time checking out some of the stores and getting a warm cup of coffee. Banff has a lot of tourist shops and specialty stores that make it pretty typical for tourist towns, but the main street is so pretty with the store fronts and flowers sharing a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. You can even get a carriage ride around town with a handsome horse and driver.

Bow River Falls

June 17:     Tuesday was another day of rain with even more low-hung clouds. We knew there were fantastic mountains all around us, but we sure couldn't tell it with what seemed like fog covering our views. We checked out the temperature this morning and it was 40 degrees! We decided the rain wasn't going to stop us from enjoying where we were, so we got in the truck and headed out to investigate a few places indoors. We started out at Cave & Basin to see the sulfur pools. Not sure why we thought we wanted to smell sulfur! It was interesting to see the pools though. Next we road over to Bow River Falls and took a hike along the Bow River where the water rushes over falls and down into a fast flowing river. By this time it had stopped raining, which made the day seem a bit brighter.

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

There is a hotel near the falls called Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel that looks like a castle. Rich & I thought it would be quite the place to stay. We walked around the inside public areas and the grounds. We felt a little out of place, but I told Rich to just walk around like we had a room there! It was beautiful – oh, and expensive.  

We did get some good pictures of some elk with their babies. It's always exciting to see that kind of wild life. Tomorrow we will head up to Lake Louise and on to Jasper.

June 18:     The highway stretching from Banff to Jasper, which 

includes the Icefields Parkway, has to be one of the most awe-inspiring drives we have ever experienced. A camera cannot capture the beauty of these mountains. It just makes me realize what a miracle our eyes really are. The weather was perfect with the skies being the sunniest blue and the clouds the kind I like to paint. We kept our eyes open to spot any type of animal along the way. When you saw a couple of vehicles stopped it usually meant an animal sighting. Rich, at one point, decided to pull over to get a can of pop out of the trailer. We were there just a short time when about six other cars pulled into the turn out where we were stopped. They were all searching for the animal sighting they thought we had stopped for. We sat in the truck having a pretty good laugh. One lady asked what we had seen. Rich told her he had just stopped for a can of pop. She started laughing too and said that this was a good social experiment!

Our next stop on Wednesday was to Lake Louise. It is as beautiful as we were told it would be, with views of Victoria Glacier for its background. We really enjoyed the stop there. We tried to see Moraine Lake, but due to so many visitors and lack of parking for rigs like ours, we had to continue on without seeing it. Wednesday night we stayed at Mosquito Creek Campground. Who in their right mind would want to stay at a place called Mosquito Creek!!! It really was a great campground right next to a river that was a rapids rather than a quiet stream. 



June 19:     Thursday was an interesting day filled with more majestic views and the experience of walking out on the new Glacier Skywalk that just opened in May 2014. It follows a cliff-edge walkway with a glass-floored platform 918 ft. over glacier-formed valleys and rushing waterfalls. I wasn't sure about just glass under my feet, but it truly wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. 

We arrived in Jasper later in the afternoon to stay at  Whistlers Campground and were treated to a visit right in the campground by some elk, which included about 10 cows and 4 calves. Seeing the wildlife is frosting on the cake for this trip.

     Rich said this doe elk was giving him the eye.  

         In fact, Rich said, "I think she likes me!

Peyto Lake along 
the Columbian Icefields Parkway

Indian Paint Brush Flower

Lichen growing near water fall

Some of the beauty of nature.

Mountain goats licking the minerals along the highway

Maligne Canyon

June 20 & 21: We had a good stay in Jasper with an extra day of checking out the town and touring around to a couple of different places. One was Athabasca Falls, which was great, and the other was a drive to see Maligne Canyon. Both were so worth the time to take to see them.  



Today it was 65 degrees and very pleasant.  We are now in Prince George, British Columbia.  We are going to take a couple of days and stay here.  Tomorrow we are going to go to Prince George Chr. Ref. Church to give our greetings to them from Allendale Chr. Ref. Church.  It will be good to have a day to rest.

Happy Father's Day! Hope you fathers had a special day. We have been in Calgary since Wednesday. This is quite an amazing city to be in. The hills and the valleys are unbelievable. You can see for a long way when you're up on the hills. The amount of houses on the hills is something to see. We are visiting our Nephew Tim and family. They have been wonderful hosts for this uncle and aunt. They took us downtown Calgary on Saturday to see it up close. It is a beautiful place. The city is so clean and some of the buildings are really unique. We loved going to Prince's Island Park and spending some time watching the ducks and geese with their babies. Such a nice place in the middle of the city. We also got to check out where Calgary Stampede is held. Last year, three weeks before the Stampede, the town was hit with a flood that covered much of the town and all over the area where the Stampede is held. Calgary did a super hero's job of cleaning up the damage of the flood and still had the Stampede activities. We had a great time seeing this area and actually driving into the middle of the arena where the chuckwagon race is held! Couldn't do that around July 7!   

Feeding the geese on Prince's Island

 We stayed in a very nice campground by Cochran, Alberta, called Bow Riversedge just outside of Calgary along the Bow River. The kids loved playing on the playground and we enjoyed a nice walk along the river. The Bow River flows through the middle of Calgary and it is this river that flooded the area last year.  

  We are on our way tomorrow to travel up to Banff. We are hoping that the weather is a bit better than today. It has been cold and rainy today with the forecast prediction for tomorrow and Tuesday being cloudy with showers and around 50 degrees F. Not the best for site seeing, but we'll enjoy it the best we can.

June 10:

Today was a very laid back day. Again, we had 60-ish weather, and now late afternoon it is on/off raining. We don't mind the rain since we have done most everything we can in the area and the rain is needed here. We did check out an old ranger station that was built in 1913. The history of it is interesting and the people who lived in it must have had lots of stories to tell living back there 100 years ago with a young growing family. I took some pictures of the wild flowers around the ranger station.  Now we are getting ready to head up to Calgary on Wednesday. We made sure we ate all the things that we can't take over the border. I am stuffed!! We'll be staying in Calgary for five days to visit our nephew and niece and kids and checking out the big town of Calgary. Should be a lot of fun. 

J\

                                            

We just discovered how to do a selfy!!

June 9:

It's our granddaughter Katie's 9^th birthday today. “Happy Birthday sweet Katie”. We love you. Today we decided to go to the west side of Glacier Park to take a drive on the Road to the Sun road. It is open for 16 miles, so we thought it would be fun to see that part of the park. It was a great ride over to West Glacier. We even stopped for coffee and a huckleberry bear claw (yummy) in East Glacier. The bears around here love the huckleberries, too. I'm glad they will share the berries! Lake McDonald is a large lake at the West Glacier entrance. It is a delightful spot to spend some time. There is a lodge there that was built back on June 14, 1914 that is still open today. It is an amazing place with massive cedar logs and a large stone fireplace. People traveled there 100 years ago a lot different than we travel today. I'd rather travel the way we do now, but it sounds interesting to take the railway and then by stage to get to the lodge. On our way back to the campground, we checked out Two Medicine area. We took a walking trail to Running Eagle Falls. I love falls, so it was very enjoyable to take a hike with such a sight at the end. Looking forward to many more places in the next few weeks to see other impressive waterfalls.

Running Eagle Falls by

 Two Medicine in Glacier N.P.

Lake McDonald by West Glacier in Glacier N.P.

June 8:

Today is Sunday and we are sitting here with God's stunning creation surrounding us. We are grateful for safe travels this week and for good health to enjoy each day. We went to visit the area called Many Glacier this afternoon. It is known as the heart of the park. It has so many places that are worth a snapshot or a video. It was hard not to keep clicking the camera. While going through the area, we saw a couple of bears, a group of mountain sheep and a moose and her two babies. We enjoyed beautiful sunny 65-70 degree weather during the day, but when we first woke up this morning, there was frost on the picnic table. So glad we are not camping in a tent. It was an inspiring day. 

Going in by Many Glacier 

Mother moose with two babies close by 

Mountain sheep posing for us

Rich taking a rest while taking
 a hike by Grinnell Glacier

June 7:

We arrived at Glacier National Park this afternoon. It was so beautiful as we were coming from the east to see the mountains appear and exciting to know we were going to be spending four days exploring some of the places that hold so many stories of the people who lived here and the history of how these mountains were carved out by the many glaciers that came from the ice age. We are camping at St. Mary's Campground right in Glacier N.P. We, at first, were sad to see so much of the mountain sides showing the devastation of past forest fires. The fire most noticeable to us as we drove in was from 2008. After awhile we could look past what the fire had left and see the beauty of the snow on the mountains and the lake and rivers flowing through them. As we were driving into our campsite, we were met by a lady who was trying to take a picture of a ground squirrel just opposite of our campsite. Her name is Karla, and we have become fast friends along with her husband Larry. Friends like them are so fun to get acquainted with and it makes these kind of trips unforgettable. Safe travels Larry & Karla! We are ready to get exploring tomorrow.

Rich & I with our first views of Glacier N.P.

Driving into Glacier National Par

We are in "Big Sky" Montana, and that is no stretch of the truth! We could see for miles while we were cruising down Hwy 2. There are hardly any towns from Glasgow to Havre, but there sure are stretches of land that go on as far as the eye can see. We are staying at Evergreen Campground just four miles south of Havre. We really didn't have much excitement today other than some construction just before Havre that really prepared us for what kind of roads we may find in Canada and Alaska!   There are some very large Indian reservations here in Montana. There is a reservation called the Rocky Boy's just outside of Havre for the Chippewa-Cree Indians. We could see some pretty good sized hills in the area of the reservation called Bear Paw Mountains. We are anxious to see the bigger mountains at Glacier Park where we will be tomorrow. We heard on the news tonight that Road to the Sun through Glacier Park is still not open due to the heavy snow this winter and the cooler spring that has made it difficult to get the road open. Not sure if we'll get to go on the road; probably not. The report stated that it would probably not be open until June 20. Oh well, we'll still get to see the beauty of the mountains, and I'm sure we will find much to enjoy.  I'm not sure that we will get to post much on the blog for the next few days due to Wifi availability. We'll post again when we can. Have a good weekend!

     

Bear Paw Mountains by Rocky Boy's Reservation 
for the Chippewa-Cree Indians

Fence by a rest stop that I thought was neat.
We saw a lot of fences along Hwy 2, but this one caught my eye.

Our morning started out by going on an excursion to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was something we decided to take time to do even though we wondered if we should keep trekking down the road so that we can get to Glacier National Park on Saturday.

 We were so glad we took the time to visit the park. It was a glorious sunny 71-degree day with a nice breeze. The loop we could drive was about 37 miles, which took us about 2 hours to do.  The park is so interesting with all the different colors of sand and stone. Of course, what was really neat were the different animals we saw.

 First off, we were greeted by a bison almost at the entrance to the loop. On our way out, the bison was still standing around the area. I told Rich I think it got paid to stand there to spark excitement for the visitors. He was terrific!


 Farther into the park, we got to see many wild horses, lots of prairie dogs, an elk at quite a distance and a mule deer. It was well worth the ride and time spent there.




 In the early afternoon, we headed down the road towards our route back on Hwy. 2.  We drove over miles and miles of prairies with hundreds of cows and fields that we weren't sure as to what had been planted in them. Some may say it's a bit of a boring ride, but I found it to be beautiful with the different shades of greens and browns. Maybe that's the artist in me!  We are staying tonight in Glasgow, MT, at Shady Rest RV Park. We have been told so often by so many that to go through Williston, North Dakota, is a very dangerous place to drive through or even stop because of all the oil drilling going on in that area. It just isn't a safe place both from the oil field truck drivers and the crime that has been created. We saw a lot of vehicles from the oil drilling companies and miles of trains hauling oil cars heading to and from the wells.  We feel safe where we are and just feel listening to the people's advise is a wise thing to do.  We look forward to a good rest tonight and in the morning traveling on to Havre, MT, or further. We'll try to check in again tomorrow.

June 4:


We had a long day of traveling down the road today. We were advised by the people who owned the campground in Bemidji to not keep going on Hwy 2 through North Dakota because of all the trucks and oil field workers that crowd the area from Minot, ND, all the way through the east part of Montana. We decided to head down to I-94 by Fargo and travel that route. We are not sorry we did even though it added a few extra miles to our trip. Traveling through North Dakota on I-94 has been very interesting. There were miles of flat country side that changed to fields that had random "hills" like someone dumped a pile of dirt from the sky. There were rolling hills with black Angus cows grazing over the country side, and then coming around a bend in the road just outside of Medora to discover Theodore Roosevelt National Park with the amazing views of the North Dakota Badlands with the Painted Canyons.


 We couldn't believe the difference in just a of couple miles how the landscape changed. We are camping at Red Tail Campground with some views of buttes that we don't see in Michigan. It's a unique place to spend some time. Another day of sunshine for us, but in the distance to the south we could watch a very intense thunderstorm that we were glad we missed. We look forward to tomorrow and enjoying God's handiwork.

Badlands Painted Canyon

Our stay at Walmart in Chippewa Falls, WI, was a great stop. It was another sunny day with the temp being about 67 when we started out for the day. We stopped at a McDonald's to take advantage of their free wifi so we could post to our blog. We headed up to Duluth, MN, and got on Hwy 2. The ride on Hwy. 2 reminded us so much of going through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was a nice trip without much traffic. We traveled though Minnesota and understand why they call it the land of a thousand lakes! We are staying tonight in Bemidji, MN, at the Royal Oaks Campground. We even got to meet with Paul Bunyan and his blue ox in town tonight. We also enjoyed the community fire at the campground where we got to meet a couple from Idaho who are doing full-time camping. Maybe by the time we are finished with our trip we'll feel like full-time campers too! We are going to enjoy a good nights sleep with the weather being somewhat on the cool side, which will make for good sleeping. Goodnight friends!

Mary hanging out with Paul Bunyan & his Blue Ox

June 2:  After leaving Allendale at 5:20 am, we stopped for a wonderful breakfast at Micky D's! Well, at least it filled our hollow spot and got us to Ludington right at 7:30, where we got on the Badger and enjoyed a great 4-hour trip over to Wisconsin. It was a bit windy and the weather prediction wasn't sunny, but we were determined that the weather wasn't going to make a difference on our first day of our trip.

 The Badger headed out right at 8:30 and we were out on the deck to enjoy the wind in our hair and look out on beautiful Lake Michigan. That lasted about five minutes out on the water, because it became so foggy we couldn't even see the wake the boat was churning up. That lasted all the way over to Wisconsin. We still weren't going to let it bother us. We went inside and got a little more breakfast and then joined a group who were playing bingo to pass the time. We had so much fun and Rich even won a couple “great” prizes for getting bingo. Actually, the Badger isn't noted for its terrific prizes! We met some great fellow travelers and had fun sharing a few stories with each other. When we arrived on the shores of Manitowoc, we were in the middle of a thunderstorm with pouring rain. We tried out our new rain proof jackets and are happy to say they did their job.

 We are now sitting in our “campground” for the night called Wally World just north of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. We weren’t so sure about staying here for the night, but decided we should give it a try. I think we are adjusting to our surroundings and just may have a good night's rest. Tomorrow we will head for Duluth, MN. It's been a good day.

~5:20 a.m. Monday June 2, 2014~

     Well, we are off to Alaska. We left at 5:20 a.m. while it was still dark to head for Ludington where we will hop on the Badger (car ferry) to cross Lake Michigan. As Rich says, our trip won't actually start until we are off the Badger.

This is our "Roll Call Alaska" forum sign.
If anyone from the RV.NET  forum sees us, they will know who we are.