4000 miles in a 1997 car

Optimism vs. stupidity

It's been a good car... few problems and nothing serious. And we get really good mileage. But, it is 14 years old. I guess we'll find out whether or not this is a good idea.

The end points of the trip are clear. We go from Minneapolis to Banff/Lake Louise, and then to Eugene, OR before returning to Minneapolis... more or less like this.

    

  The details will work themselves out along the way, I hope.

 

On the road again...

or maybe not.

We're scheduled to leave tomorrow morning, and drive to Fargo. We'll have dinner with an old friend/supervisor/colleague of mine and spend the night.Then it's off through the wilds of North Dakota and up into Canada.

Yesterday, however, as we were driving out to St. Michael for a party (Happy Birthday, Matt!), we realized that the air conditioner was acting very, very anaemic. Not a good idea, we thought, to plan on driving across the Great Plains, in the summer, with a malfunctioning air conditioner. We've done it before, of course, in the old days... but we were much younger and hardier then.

So, tomorrow morning, rather than packing up the car and leaving town for a leisurely drive to Fargo, I'll be on the phone trying to get the car in to have the air conditioner recharged.

This is not an auspicious start.

soggy, soggy North Dakota

Thanks to Southeast Auto, we made it out of town on Monday with a functioning air conditioner... very fortunate as it was in the 90s much of the way to Fargo. We had a nice dinner at the Olive Garden (not my favorite but decent) with some friends, went to look at my old condo and at the river, and were out of town again by 9:00 the next morning.

Tonight, we're in Weyburn, Saskatchuan... after driving through miles and miles of rain, flooding, and more rain. The Souris River, which starts someplace in Canada and flows down toward Jamestown, has overflown its banks in many places, resulting in numerous evacuations. And it's maybe 57 degrees outside. There's been some evacuation around Minot, which may get worse.

Tomorrow, it's off to Calgary and points west.

Ya gotta stick to your plan

and we are. Last night, we camped in Tillebrook Provincial Park, where it rained... and rained, and rained. We talked to 2 guys who were there on  a motorcycle trip, and quite phlegmatic about the weather. They've apparently traveled all over the US and Canada for the last who knows how many years... could have been a lot as the younger one is 72. We also heard about another provincial park, Dinosaur, which we may check out today before we head to Calgary.

Wait! Wait! This isn't Calgary!

I don't know how it happened... we headed off to Dinosaur Provincial Park and decided to spend the night there. It's an interesting place, like the South Dakota Badlands. It's also the site of some of the largest dinosaur bone beds in North America (as one might expect, from the name).

The weather was beautiful, and we did some hiking to see the hoodoos, fossil exhibits, and so forth. We also came across a small stream with mud banks where the Cliff (Barn?) Swallows were gathering mud to make their nests. They were quite energetic about it, too.

A nice couple from the area told us about a great museum, the Royal Tyrrell Museum  in Drumheller, not too far north of the Dinosaur Park so we decided to swing up there before Calgary. We agreed that it was pretty awesome, what with all the largest this dinosaur and the most complete that dinosaur. Well worth the trip, certainly.

That's when the problems started... we got to looking at the map. Calgary was about 2 hours away, but so was Edmonton. We thought tht it might be cool to go to Edmonton instead, and then swing west and down through the Jaspar, Lake Louise, and Banff areas.

We spent that night in the Rotary Park in Stettler, Alberta, along with a group of geriatric bikers... mostly women,  as far as I could tell. When we drove in to register, the manager said just to pitch the tent around behind the trees at the end and not to bother to pay... she said, "I'll pretend I didn't see you come through." So, we camped for free that night. And it's just as well because food is very expensive in Canada! I had salmon that night, followed by cheescake.

And now we're in Edmonton, at the Day's Inn. We spent the afternoon buying batteries, watching the Gay Pride Parade, and visiting the Royal Alberta Museum, which had a wonderful exhibit on the Aborigines of Canada. They included a lot of information on their mistreatment by the government and so forth. Len really liked the mineral exhibit, too.

Tonight we're going to try to find some jazz and then head west tomorrow, for more camping and (I hope) dry weather.

Edmonton

Edmonton seems like a nice city. We never did find any jazz, but ate at a good (tho somewhat bland) Thai restaurant (owned by a Laotian couple) before walking down to the legislative buildings, where there are fountains and reflective pools which people actually wade in... enthusiastically and legally. From there, we managed to find the river and walked several miles along the bank before heading back to our hotel through some nice residential neighborhoods. The next day, we checked out Winston Churchill Square, supposedly the center of city life, which was totally empty except for some cleaning people.

 Bus tickets in Edmonton cost $2.65 and are good for only 1.5 hours. There are no senior discounts. Vinyl siding seems to be big. There are lots of immigrants, from all sorts of countries... Columbia, Mexico, Kenya, Ethiopia, etc., etc. I developed an unfortunately tendency to refer to Edmonton as Edinburgh, which confused several people.

  And on to Jasper.

Jasper

The car is fine. We are fine. Jasper was way more than fine, but the weather was not being very helpful. On the drive to there from Edmonton, we drove through sun, clouds, rain, more sun, more clouds, more rain, and still more sun. We were able to get the tent set up in between showers, however, so at least our stuff was dry. The campsite was nice, despite the usual cheek-by-jowl site placement of large provincial parks. The bigger issue was the dueling radios, at Len puts it. I finally went over to the neighbors at 11:30 and told them to turn their radio off. They were quite apologetic; I was not receptive. The second night was very quiet... different neighbors.

 One of the attractions in the Jasper area is Maligne Canyon, which features 6 bridges that one can hike to with only moderate effort and a couple of hours. It's well worth it... the river gorge is very deep and narrow, with the river rushing through below. Maligne Lake is also beautiful, ringed as it is with the classic snow-capped mountains. There's a nice lodge at the lake, where we had lunch... pricy but tasty. Don't bother with the chocolate chip cookies, however.

 On the road to the lake, we came across a small flock of bighorn sheep grazing on the wayside. They seemed completely indifferent to the small crowd of excited tourists, all competing to take pictures. On the way back, we saw a little flock of mountain goats in the same spot, being observed by a different group of excited tourists. Again the animals were pretty indifferent to us, but two of them did start licking our tires for some unknown reason. We also saw an elk.

 2 nights in Jasper, and on to Lake Louise.

Jasper to Lake Louise

The drive to Jasper was pretty, as was Jasper itself. The drive to Lake Louise, however, was amazing... or awesome, or magnificent, or whatever superlatives you care to use. The mountains don't seem to be as high as the American Rockies (most around 10,000 feet) but they are definitely rugged and all snow-capped at this time of the year.

 The drive started with a visit to Athabasca Falls... like most of the falls we've seen, it's not especially high nor very wide but the sheer torrent of water pouring through is incredible. It sounds like a tornado coming, you can feel the earth tremble, and the mist rises to fog your glasses. The water has cut a deep channel down through the rocks, and the scour pots line the walls where the river has polished the rocks in its rush... really beautiful.

 Next was Athabasca Glacier. I have to say that this was a disappointment. I've seen glaciers in Alaska and expected the classic face, with ice in shades of blue. This was not like that; rather, it only had a toe, which just looked like tongue of snow/ice creeping down the mountain. The only interesting part was the markers, which showed how the glacier had moved back over the years. It seems to be moving back faster and faster, btw.

 Mistaya Canyon, otoh, was more interesting. It's another one of those examples of a torrential river cutting down through the layers of rock (karst, in this case) and leaving a deep, very narrow, and twisty gorge, with lots of scour pots left from years of wear.

 A little farther along the road were Bow Lake and Bow Glacier. The lake is just another “pristine mountain tarn” as Len says... this one mostly frozen. And Crowfoot Glacier, the next stop, was interesting only in that the 3 pronged glacier initially named after the shape of a crow's foot is now down to one toe, due to melting over the last years.

 And finally we checked into the campsite at Lake Louise, and found the tent section is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the bears out and that it was supposed to hit 0 (Centigrade) that night... brrrr!

Lake Louise

Since we got into Lake Louise fairly early, we spent the afternoon exploring. There's really no town (one person we talked to referred to it as a hamlet) but there are some lovely areas around it. Lake Louise, which is where the highly decadent Chateau Lake Louise (some $450 per night) is located, is very pretty... surrounded by the required snow-capped mountains and all that. Moraine Lake was maybe more interesting, though less attractive. It's called that for an obvious reason... the lake was formed by a huge pile of rubble pushed up a a glacier at some distant point in the past. The water is supplied by the some 30 feet of snow that falls in the area every winter.

We did manage to find a decent restaurant for dinner, although I don't think that the Canadians will ever learn to do pasta (pronounced pass-ta). We were told that they sleep late in the area, that nothing opens for breakfast until 9:00 or 9:30! I found that very odd... while it doesn't get dark until 11:00 or so, it's light again around 5:00. Fortunately, we found a little coffee place with good muffins and were saved from starvation.

 I was very grateful to have the coffee in the morning because, while it didn’t get down quite to 0, it did get really cold and and it was not a very comfortable night. The frequent trains didn't help, either. At least it didn't rain, or snow. And no bears got through the fence.

to Banff

I've already used awesome, amazing, and magnificent so I'm not sure what adjectives to use to describe the drive to Banff. The road itself winds between the requisite mountains, with waterfalls visible in the distance, and lovely views around every curve.

 But then there's Johnston Canyon. It's a long, narrow and often deep canyon, again carved by a rushing river, which winds up into the mountains so that it's quite a steep climb up from the lower falls to the upper falls. Along the way, there are 5 additional falls (making 7 all together) and one walks along catwalks attached to the canyon wall, hanging out over the river at some points. At the end, the upper falls... a high fall of water which divides into narrow strands as it falls. The walls of this part of the canyon are multicolored, due to the minerals in the water.

 We also saw several of the animal bridges, which are built over the roads to allow the animals to cross safely. They're covered with trees and bushes, and are apparently well-used... there are motion-sensitive cameras, so the park people know who is using the bridges and when. Good idea, I think.

Banff

No more camping, at least for awhile... it'd been cold right along and then it started raining heavily. So, we checked into the King Edward Hotel (maybe the cheapest in town), named after Edward, the martyr king of England. It was fine, however, and I appreciated having my own bathroom and not having to worry about packing up a wet tent in the morning.

 Banff is very, I don't know... quaint? It doesn't feel entirely real, more as if it's been created for the tourist trade (as it largely has been). There are lots of cute little (and very expensive) shops filled with objet d'arts representing various aspects of the Canadian mountains... plus, lots of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and other touristy stuff. There are also lots and lots of restaurants, one of which advertizing pancakes for something like $17.00! Instead, we had fish and chips at an Irish pub, which was a bit noisy as the Stanley cup was on TV (of course).

 We decided to drive down though Kootenay Provincial Park – then who knows?