Journey’s End

Partly cloudy and rain – lows in the 60’s and highs in the 80’s

The last segment of the trip went without a hitch. We were in and out of rain throughout the day. The traffic on the segment from Crawfordsville to Indianapolis on I74 got heavier as we traveled further east. Once we transitioned to I70 at Indianapolis, we found all of the trucks that we had not seen in three weeks. We also encountered a lot of road construction. They are in the process of making I70 three lanes, which means that they have it shut down to one lane so they can do the construction.

Trucks nearly choked off I70 between Indianapolis and Columbus. They were traveling almost bumper to bumper in the right lane, which left no room for cars to pass and then get back to the right. That meant that drivers just drove in the left lane until they felt the pressure of someone riding on their bumper at 70 mph. All in all, it was sort of a stressful drive – nothing like some of the mountain driving we’ve done recently, however!

As we neared Columbus, we talked about how fortunate we were to be able to make the trip and experience the things that we did. We drove almost 6,000 miles and we would do it again tomorrow, if it could be like this trip. We saw some incredible sights, met some wonderful people, and learned a lot of things about this great country we call home. It made us think about what our next adventure might be. Maybe we’ll visit the national parks in the southwest. Who knows?

We have 100’s of photos to process and post. The most reasonable thing to do, it seems to me, would be to post selected photos on the day they were taken along with the description of what was happening that day. We plan to post all the edited down photos in the next few days. We hope that you have enjoyed sharing this trip with us.

Photos have been posted for June 2nd to 23rd. That completes all of the trip photos. Use the calendar at the right to locate specific dates. The Photo Albums are listed at the bottom of each post.

Please email us, if you have any questions or comments.

Flooded Midwest

Cloudy and rain – lows in the 60’s and highs in the 70’s.

As we headed east through Iowa, it was an overcast day with showers off and on. There were large electronic road signs informing drivers that I80 was open across Iowa. We were glad for the news, but it made us wonder how long the road had been closed and what things had been like. We passed by fields that had been cultivated and planted that were now just a sea of mud. There were, however, miles of knee high corn blowing in the breeze. The major impact of the flooding in Iowa must have been away from I80, as we saw very little evidence of problems in our travels.

Both of us are still not feeling back to normal yet. We stopped for lunch at a Perkins restaurant and had a bowl of chicken noodle soup, always a favorite when you’re not feeling up to par. The fact that we are losing time as we travel east through the mountain and  central time zones probably doesn’t help either.

An observation that we have made as we have traveled through the various states and Canada, is that road signs are poorly done or at least poorly coordinated with maps. For example, you will be on Interstate 80 and the road ahead splits 3 ways; the only problem is that NONE of the three roads mentions I80. I guess you just have to know! The interactive GPS system was extremely helpful, far better and more consistent than any of the maps that we got from AAA. It knew that segments of roads had different names and/or route numbers where the map assumed that you knew that Jefferson was really Route 39.

As we crossed over the Mississippi going from Iowa to Illinois, the river and surrounding areas were full to overflowing. Many of the fields along the Interstate were flooded with no sign that the water was going down any time soon.

We had planned to stop in eastern Illinois at Danville for the night. However, the flooding in the area had caused families, railroad workers, and Red Cross volunteers to take all of the available rooms in the area. We ended up having to drive another 50 miles east and one time zone to find a hotel near Crawfordsville, IN.

The White River Badlands

Clear skies in the AM rain in the PM – lows in the 40’s and highs in the 80’s.

The plan for today is to tour the Badlands National Park by taking Route 240, which is a 40 mile loop road through the park going from Wall and reconnecting with I90 about 20 miles to the east. Like roads in most of the other national parks, the road only allows you to see a small portion of the 244,300 acres of the park.

The Badlands in southwest South Dakota are located about an hour east of Rapid City and south of Wall, SD on I90. They were named by the French trappers who explored the west in the early 1800’s and called the area a “bad land to cross.” The Badlands are among the best places on earth to study and understand the effects of erosion. For approximately 30 million years, mud, sand, and gravel were laid down in many layers. About one to four million years ago erosion began to outpace the deposits, leaving colorful spires resembling castles, and a landscape that looks from another world. It is currently eroding by wind and water at the rate of about an inch a year. Experts estimate that within 500,000 years, it will be flat.

The landscape is both beautiful and surreal. It is like nothing we’ve seen before. Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Yes, I say the aspects of the Dakota Badlands have more spiritual quality to impart to the mind of America than anything else in it made by man’s God.”

This area was once a portion of a giant salt water sea that covered much of the region we know as the Great Plains. Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from western Iowa to western Wyoming, this sea teemed with life. In today’s Badlands the bottom of that sea appears as a 2,000 foot thick, grayish-black sedimentary rock called the Pierre (pronounced “peer”) shale. This layer is an incredibly rich source of fossils; for centuries, animals sank to the bottom of the sea when they died and over a long course of time became fossils. Within the park, the fossilized remains of a variety of animals have been found.

Upheaval and volcanic activity pushed the sea floor up, and as the water was drained away, it left behind broad, marshy plains. About 25 million years ago, miniature three-toed horses, camels, saber-toothed cats, and other prehistoric animals roamed the area. When they died, many were buried by river sediments or just sank into the marshlands. Periodically, white volcanic ash covered the soil, hot winds blew across the plateaus and the terrain continued evolving.

The Badlands have vibrant colors caused by mineral deposits. The layers containing tinges of oxidized manganese have a purple cast. Iron oxide in small quantities produced the orange and tan layers. The volcanic ash, dropped by westerly winds from the Rockies, produced the white layers. In places where the ash fell and mixed with silt and clay in the streams, it produced the dirty grey layers.

A variety of creatures roam this area. They include: prairie dogs, porcupines, mice, cottontails and jackrabbits, bull snakes, racers, prairie rattlers, antelope, deer, eagles, and coyotes. In the late 1800’s the bison and bighorn sheep were hunted to near extinction in this area. To revive the look of that time, the National Park Service has reintroduced these animals to the park.

We talked with a ranger at the visitor’s center and learned that we were very fortunate to be here at this time. They have had a drought for the last ten years that was broken this year. Normally, they get 16 inches of participation a year, and this year they received 6 inches of rain in May alone. Therefore, everything is lush and green, which is quite unusual for the Badlands. We hope that the photos can show the subtle color variations in the layers within the formations. It is mind boggling to realize that a layer could have taken millions of years to form. The landscape looks like solid rock, but when we were out taking photos, if felt like you were walking on thick rubber mats, sort of spongy.

After leaving the Badlands, we headed east on our way back to Columbus. It rained most of the way off and on. We stopped for the night in North Sioux City, SD, just two exits north of Sioux City, IA. The only reason for this collection of two hotels, a gas station, and a McDonalds are the six or so casinos that are conveniently located for the Iowans who need to come the short distance to South Dakota and donate their money. Tomorrow, we continue eastward through the flood ravaged Midwest.

Photo Album

• Badlands

Chiseled In Stone

Clear blue skies – lows in the 60’s highs in the 80’s.

The town of Custer was named after General Custer because he and his army explored and surveyed this area. It is a very nice, small town where the people are genuinely open and friendly. We talked with several of the locals, and they treated us like family. Main Street looks like something out of Mayberry RFD where they still park their cars diagonally in front of the stores. Better yet, the parking is free!

There are a couple of observations that I keep forgetting to mention. First is the length of the trains; they seem to go on forever and the cargo containers are stacked two high. One train that we saw yesterday must have been at least two miles long with three engines in the front and two in the back. Another thing that we became aware of is the number of seasonal workers that are employed in the tourism industry, both in the parks and in the tourist trap towns. We talked with a few of them and learned that they call themselves work campers. They travel in RVs and work for the season in one part of the country, and then they move on to the next seasonal location. One couple explained that they were both retired and don’t need to work, but they love the travel and meeting new people; the pay allows them to travel for free. You can check it out at www.workamper.com or www.workersonwheels.com

As we left the town of Custer and drove Custer State Park (the second largest state park in the lower 48 states), we came across a herd of bison, several groups of pronghorn antelope, several deer, and a group of begging burros. All of this happened before we got on the Iron Mountain Road. This is arguably one of the narrowest, curviest, and tortuous routes in the US. At one point I swear I saw my own taillights! The road has three one lane tunnels where it is a challenge to see who goes first. It is made more interesting because the approach on one side does not allow you to see the other side. So, you honk, go, and hope for the best. There are also three pig tail bridges, which means that you come out of a curve, go across a narrow, short bridge, and make a hard turn to the right and down going under the bridge. One of the design features of the tunnels is that as you enter the tunnel, you see Mount Rushmore in the distance framed by the tunnel’s sides.

Arriving at the Mount Rushmore site is different from any of the other parks or national monuments that we have visited. There is no admission fee, but there is a $10 fee for the parking garage. It is a beautiful facility, very modern and very commercial. Some folks who had been there years ago, said that they preferred the more rustic environment of the past. A ranger that we talked with said that the parking garage has more than doubled the number of visitors that can be accommodated. In addition, the ability to move large numbers of people quickly off the road has prevented the two mile long traffic jams that used to take place where cars would overheat and breakdown in the summer heat.

Rushmore is as impressive as you would expect it to be. The artistry and detail of the carvings are inspiring. In 1923, Doane Robinson of the South Dakota Historical Society had a vision of a massive mountain memorial carved from stone so large it would put South Dakota on the map. He wanted to have western figures such as Chief Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody, Lewis and Clark, and legendary Sioux warriors. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was engaged to do the work. When he arrived in September, 1924 he informed Robinson that his life’s work would not be spent immortalizing regional heroes. Four great presidential figures were selected for the carving. Borglum started site searching and his party climbed Harney Peak; at 7,242 feet, this is the highest point between the Rockies and the Swiss Alps. The vista inspired Borglum. The work was started August 10, 1927 and the 60 year old spent the remaining 14 years of his life to leave a monument unlike any other. After his death, Borglum’s son, Lincoln, spent seven months refining the monument. On October 31, 1941 the work was stopped leaving Mount Rushmore as we know it today.

We hiked around the base of the monument and took a trail marked “Strenuous.” They weren’t kidding; there must have been a thousand steps up and down to navigate the front of the mountain. It did offer some spectacular views of the carving that you can’t see any other way. The trail also took us by the artist’s studio. In the studio, we were surprised to learn that the carving as it is today is not what was planned. The original model for the carving was a three-quarter view of the four presidents. You would have seen them to their waists with hands and arms showing. For example, Lincoln was holding his left lapel with his left hand. After our hike, we were ready for lunch and the cafeteria at the visitor’s center provided good food at a reasonable price.

The next stop on today’s agenda was Rapid City, SD. It is on I90 on our return route, and we have heard about it for years from our friend Norman, who was stationed nearby when he was in the Strategic Air Command. Rapid City is like Custer in that it is a small town with diagonal parking on Main Street. The only difference is that Main Street is one way going east and Saint Joseph is one way going west.

East of Rapid City is Ellsworth Air Force Base, at Box Elder, SD. Just outside the main gate is the South Dakota Air and Space Museum. We particularly enjoyed seeing the two dozen or so retired aircraft that surround the building. They are well maintained and each has a sign describing it in detail.

Our stopping point for today is Wall, SD of Wall Drug Store fame. They will give anyone signs and bumper stickers, and those have appeared anywhere in the world from the sides of double-decker buses in London to remote villages in Africa; not to mention, the ones plastered from one end of the US to the other. After checking in to our hotel, we looked for a place to have dinner, and to our surprise, everyone said to eat at Wall Drugs. Dinner was quite good, and the complex of buildings that comprise the “Drug Store” was an evening’s entertainment.

Tomorrow, we tour the Badlands National Park. Route 240 makes a forty mile, very scenic loop through the park with many overlooks and photo opportunities.

Photo Albums

• Custer State Park / Mount Rushmore
• Rapid City
• Ellsworth AFB
• Wall Drugs

The Black Hills

Clear blue sky – lows in the 60’s and highs in the 70’s.

When we booked our room in Deadwood, we did not realize that we were staying in a casino. Of course, it would be difficult to stay in anything other than a casino since everyplace in town is one. As we registered at the hotel, we noticed all the gaming machines on all sides of the front desk. In fact, in order to get to our room, we had to go through the casino. In order to get to the restaurant, we had to go through the casino. You get the idea. The town of Deadwood reminds me of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” If you recall the part of the movie when Jimmy Stewart said that he wished that he had never been born and his guardian angel let him see what the town of Bedford Falls would be like if he had never lived. It was a terrible town with bars on every corner, gambling everywhere, and lots of people of questionable moral character. Well, that’s Deadwood. The state of South Dakota legalized gambling in 1989, and since then, every building in town has gambling and booze except the bank, the court house, and city hall. It really is like the hit HBO series “Deadwood”; only the people take showers now. Well, at least most of them.

As we traveled around today, there were hundreds of motorcyclists. We talked to a few and learned that there are many different clubs from around the country, all having their own separate events. For example, one group that we met was doing their sixth annual “Gold Rush Run” around the Black Hills. Another group was having the equivalent of a scavenger hunt, only for information. They had to answer a series of questions that could only be answered by going to the various points of interest around the area and reading the signs or getting the information from the visitor’s center.

We headed south from Deadwood on our way to Custer, SD. Our first stop along the way was Lead (pronounced Leed), which was the location of the Homestake Gold Mine. They owned everything in this small town. In 2001, Homestake abandoned the mine and donated it to the state of South Dakota. We talked to Laura at the visitor’s center (every location has a visitor’s center) and she told us that they are going to reopen the mine as a research facility. She was quite excited about the prospect of the mine being in operation once again.

Just a little south of Lead, we stopped at Pactola Reservoir. It’s a beautiful lake surrounded by interesting rock formations and enjoyed by hikers, boaters, and fishermen. Of course, it also supplies water to the Black Hills region. It is famous because the dam burst on June 9, 1972, which flooded Rapid City, SD. It collapsed after heavy rain with the resulting flash flood sweeping away homes below the dam in the flood plain area and killing 230.

The next stop along the way was the Crazy Horse Memorial. It is a private effort, not associated with or supported by any level of government. Korczak Ziolkowski, a self-taught sculptor, who did work on Mount Rushmore, was selected by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear on June 3, 1948 to carve Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse was a famed Lakota warrior and leader who played a key role in the 1876 defeat of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana. He died a year later after being stabbed in Nebraska in the back by a soldier during a truce. The Crazy Horse Memorial is the world’s largest mountain carving. To give you an idea of scale, the head of Crazy Horse is 9 stories tall and all of Mount Rushmore would fit inside just the head of Crazy Horse. When finished, it will be three dimensional like a 563 foot high statue, unlike Mount Rushmore, which is carved on the face of the mountain. The work has taken over 60 years and since his death, is being done by 7 of the adult children of Korczek. It is an incredible undertaking and a true labor of love. It is well worth the visit.

We arrived at Custer State Park and decided to take the Wildlife Loop Road, which makes a large U shaped path through the southern part of the park. The scenery was beautiful, but the wildlife was not abundant. We did see a few bison, pronghorn antelope, deer, and even one of the famous begging burros of Custer Park. They will stand in the road, stop your car, and then beg for a snack.

After completing the Wildlife Loop, we headed up the famous Needles Highway. The tall pointed rock formations along this very twisting, narrow road give it its name. The drive has to be slow and deliberate, and there are many places along the way to stop and take photos. There are three one lane tunnels that are 9 feet wide and 10 feet high. We were watching to ensure that we were not going to scrape the mirrors on the sides! The scenery is spectacular, and is a great reward for making the effort of this drive.

On the way back to Custer, and our hotel, we stopped at Sylvan Lake; it’s a small, but very scenic lake with many rock outcroppings around its shore. There was a wedding in progress, and just as it finished a very light shower sprinkled the participants. They seemed oblivious, however.

Dinner was very light as both of us still aren’t totally back up to speed. Tomorrow, we will go back into Custer State Park and take the Iron Mountain Road up to Mount Rushmore. This is another twisting, narrow road with narrow, one-lane tunnels, but we are told the views are spectacular.

Photo Albums

• Deadwood
• Lead / Homestake Gold Mine
• Pactola Lake
• Rushmore Forest Products
• Crazy Horse Monument
• Custer State Park

Into the Old West

Clear to partly cloudy to rain – lows in the 50’s and highs in the 70’s.

As we approached Billings, MT yesterday, the landscape changed from relatively flat prairie to gently rolling hills. Today we traveled further southeast through more rolling hills and cattle ranches.

Our first stop of the day was at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which is located about 65 miles east of Billings on the Crow Indian Reservation at Crow Agency, MT in the Little Bighorn Valley. The monument commemorates one of America’s most significant and famous battles, the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Here on June 25 and 26, 1876, two divergent cultures clashed in a life or death struggle.

Four hundred years of struggle between Euro-Americans and Native Americans culminated on this ground. Like a handful of battles in American history, the defeat of 12 companies of Seventh Cavalry by Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors rose beyond its military significance to the level of myth. Thousands of books, magazine articles, performances in film and theater, paintings, and other artistic expressions have memorialized “Custer’s Last Stand.”

After viewing the maps, drawings, and diagrams in the visitor’s center, we walked on Last Stand Hill, and we could almost visualize the battle as it took place 132 years ago almost the same day of the year. The two day battle took place over a fairly large area, about 3 miles by 6 miles. It was a total defeat of the 7^th Calvary; no one was left to tell the story except the Indians. Researchers and historians have been able to recreate the battle based on Indian accounts, artifacts, and what was found when General Terry arrived with the reinforcements that Custer had requested, but not waited for.

We crossed back into Wyoming on I90 around Sheridan. Sheridan is located in north central Wyoming, just south of the Montana border, on Interstate 90, and midway between Yellowstone National Park and the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stopped for lunch here and then continued on to our next stop, Devils Tower.

Devils Tower, a large rock tower or monolithic igneous intrusion or volcanic neck, was America’s first national monument. It rises dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding terrain and the summit is 5,112 feet (1,558 m) above sea level. It is located about 30 miles north of I90 between Moorcroft and Sundance, WY just west of the South Dakota border.

Geologists agree that Devils Tower was formed by the intrusion of igneous material. What they cannot agree upon is how, exactly, that process took place. Geologists Carpenter and Russell studied Devils Tower in the late 1800s and came to the conclusion that the Tower was indeed formed by an igneous intrusion. In other words, molten rock was forced up through layers of sedimentary rock. Later geologists searched for further explanations. Several geologists believe the molten rock comprising the Tower might not have surfaced, but that the sedimentary rock has been worn away by wind and water erosion leaving the tower. Other researchers are convinced the tower is all that remains of what once was a large explosive volcano.

While we were hiking around the base of Devils Tower, it started to get very dark and we could see rain off to the south and west. We talked with a ranger and he told us that there were predictions of very high winds, around 60 miles per hour. After hearing that news, we decided to get back on the road and head for Deadwood, SD. When we were about 10 miles from town, Lin started to feel ill. She believes that she may have a little touch of food poisoning or that something in our lunch did not agree with her. We decided to skip dinner and hope to feel better tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow, depending on the weather, is to explore the town of Deadwood and then visit the Crazy Horse Memorial. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear officially started Crazy Horse Memorial June 3, 1948. The Memorial’s mission is to honor the culture, tradition, and living heritage of North American Indians. Later in the day, we plan to tour Custer State Park.

Photo Albums

• Little Bighorn Battlefield
• Devil’s Tower

Run For the Border

Clear blue skies – with temperatures in the 60s.

This is another heads down, driving day as we travel from Banff to Billings, Montana. We really hate to say goodbye to the Rockies; we have thoroughly enjoyed our last 2.5 weeks there. We really have a sense of the overwhelming power they hold over people who come back year after year to relax, bike, hike or ski.

A couple of observations, they don’t know what brewed decaf coffee is in Canada. If you ask for decaf, you get an orange packet of Sanka and a cup of hot water. Doing laundry on the road seems pricey; it costs $2 per load to wash and $3 per load to dry.

The drive was uneventful. Our biggest delays were in Calgary and Lethbridge. The triptik was not clear and traffic was slow. We wondered how they ever hosted the Winter Olympics, as there are no limited access expressways and no city bypass. Going through US customs was also an adventure. We arrived about noon and were in a line with 10 cars in front of us and about the same behind. With only one lane open, they took there time with each car. It seemed endless. As we cleared customs, there were about 30 northbound trucks in line. We were lucky.

A Montana Highway Department practice is to place a white cross where there has been a traffic fatality. It was quite sobering to see the number of white crosses along the road. In one location, there were 9 crosses on a single pole. On the Blackfeet reservation, an eye-opener were the signs saying, “Stop Meth”. It is our understanding that drugs and alcohol are a significant problem among those on the reservation.

The most direct route to Billings is Route 89 (87, 191, 3). It’s the same road, it just keeps changing numbers. When we talked to a local about it, he called it the Golden Valley. If you have ever driven this road, you will understand the derivation of the words, ‘amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty’. Along the same route were huge wind turbine farms. At one location, there had to be over 100 of them. There are three blades per turbine with each blade the size of a tractor trailer.

Tomorrow, we plan to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and the Devil’s Tower on our way to Deadwood, SD.

No Photo Album Today . . .

Lake Louise

Overcast with patches of sun – lows in the 40’s and highs in the 60’s.

No visit to the Canadian Rockies would be complete without stopping in to see Lake Louise and the surrounding area. That is our goal for today since we did not have time for it yesterday. It is about 40 miles North of Banff.

This morning, we slept in a little as we have been moving at a fairly rapid pace and needed the rest. The chilly weather and dryness have caused Bill to have a cold. We stopped yesterday in Jasper to get some cough medicine. It is called Buckley’s Mixture and tastes like a combination of Vicks VapoRub and ammonia. Ugh!

Last week our meals were included in the tour, so having to pay for each meal has brought us back to reality. Breakfast runs around $15 while lunch is $20-30 and dinner is between $50 and $60. We aren’t talking fine dining here, just plain ordinary food. It is possible that the prices are due to the tourist nature of Banff, that we are in Canada, or food is just expensive. We also noticed in several restaurants, signs that say that they will not accept US currency due to receiving counterfeit bills. So, we have had to rely on our debit and credit cards.

We have had to get gas in Canada on multiple occasions. Depending on the location of the station, the price has varied from $1.34 per liter to $1.39 per liter. A fill up of 43 liters cost $60 Canadian. In a conversation with a man from the UK, he commented on how cheap the gas is. In the UK, they pay $2.60 per liter of which, 80% is taxes. To us, gas at over $5.00 a gallon is still expensive.

As we exited the highway toward Lake Louise, we turned the wrong way and ended up at the information center for the gondola ride. We were surprised to see four, Disney World size parking lots. When we inquired, we learned that in winter, skiers fill all the lots and park down the road. The snow in Banff is called champagne powder because of its light fluffy texture.

As we have mentioned many times, the number of foreign tourists in Canada seems greater than in the US. The preponderance is Asians followed by French and British. We met two servers today from Australia that moved to Banff for the skiing. The most notable trait is the number of smokers. At one of our stops, a tour bus let out its riders, and everyone lit up. That is contrasted to our Yellowstone tour where only one person smoked.

Once we arrived at Lake Louise, we found a huge parking lot used only by Lake Louise tourists. Lake Louise is the most famous and most photographed glacial lake in the Canadian Rockies. Although the day was cloudy, nothing could detract from the beautiful aqua blue color of the water. The water did not seem as clear as the lakes we saw yesterday. In fact, we think that some of the lakes along the Icefields Parkway were prettier.

Adjacent to the lake, is the world famous Chateau Lake Louise. Prior to booking our accommodations in Banff, we inquired about the rates at the Chateau. At room rates starting at $750 per night, we decided that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

Just down the road from Lake Louise are Moraine Lake and the Valley of the Ten Peaks. An image of the lake and the mountains surrounding it used to appear on the back of the Canadian $20 bill. Moraine Lake is small, however we preferred it to Lake Louise as it was less commercialized, had fewer tourists, and was a more natural setting.

Following our lake tours, we were going to take pictures of the town of Lake Louise only to find that there was no town. Except for a small strip mall, hotels, and condominiums, Lake Louise is a promise waiting to happen.

We ended our day taking pictures of the town of Banff. Architecturally it appears to be patterned after a city in the Alps. The buildings are new, less than 50 years old. There are restaurants of every cuisine and ethnicity and shops with cute names like “Duck Duck Moose” and the “Bare Moose.” Banff has many shops that are only seen in posh resorts like Reno, Oslo, etc. It was really fun to walk around and window shop. Many of the signs in the windows were in both English and Japanese.

Tomorrow we watch the Canadian Rockies fade away in the rear view mirror as we head toward Billings, MT on our way to Rapid City and Mount Rushmore. Hopefully, we will soon be able to put away our winter jackets.

Photo Albums

• Lake Louise
• Moraine Lake
• Banff

Icefields Parkway – Banff to Jasper

Along Icefields Parkway

Sunny with some clouds – lows in the 40’s and highs in the 60’s

Craig, our guide at Yellowstone, recommended the drive from Banff to Jasper via the Icefields Parkway. Without his recommendation, we may have missed this incredible drive along mountains, clear lakes, waterfalls, rivers, streams, and glaciers. It has been set aside as a scenic drive that bans large trucks. Unlike the roads in the US National Parks, it is well maintained, with large shoulders, good signage, and many comfort stations along the way.

The weather was perfect for the trip with clear blue skies and white puffy clouds. The mountain heights are equal to those in Rocky Mountain National Park, from around 8,067 feet to 12,303 feet. These heights place them in the alpine and subalpine classification. In a conversation with a man from the UK, he mentioned that the mountains of the Canadian Rockies remind him very much of the Alps.

At one of our picture opportunity stops at Crowfoot Glacier we ran into a professional film crew shooting high definition video for a travel project. At each stop, it seems more beautiful than the last.

The alpine class mountains are covered in ice and snow. In the mountains from Banff to Jasper, there are more than ten ice fields, each with glaciers. The most famous is the Columbia Ice Field. Its fame comes from its size and accessibility. The visitor’s center was mobbed with tourists from no less than 50 busses plus cars and RVs. The glacier ice, which is 1,200 feet thick, can be visited by taking a specially equipped, giant all terrain vehicle. We learned that visiting and drinking the water from the glacier is one of the top ten must do things for the Japanese tourists because of its physical and spiritual benefits. This may explain the predominance of Asian visitors encountered at the visitor’s center.

Although we had seen photos of the aqua blue water of Lake Louise, we did not expect every stream, river, and lake to be brilliant colors from emerald green to sky blue. The colors are a spectacular sight and appear to be man made. However, it is caused by high concentrations of sediment, called glacial flour. Like the colors seen in the Grand Canyon, our hope is that the photographs will be able to capture it accurately.

Wildlife along the roadside was not in abundance as in Yellowstone, but we were rewarded with sightings of two black bears, two mountain goats with two kids, and a bighorn sheep with a lamb. We couldn’t ask for more.

We started our journey at 9:00 am and returned at 7:00 pm. It was a great trip, and the sights so beautiful there are insufficient adjectives to describe what we saw. On the whole, the weather was perfect, although we did hit rain and heavy overcast at the summit of the road near the Columbia Ice Fields.

One thing that amazes us is the number of bike riders, the pedal kind, that we saw riding up the steep mountain roads. This was made more challenging by the occasional pouring rain, wind and cold temperature we encountered. All of the riders look very fit and trim.

We took 100’s of photos. However, they can only be a catalyst to our memories. Nothing can capture the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings you experience when presented with so much beauty and grandeur.

On the way to Jasper, we were remembering a conversation we had with a park ranger. He was relating some of the dumb questions that he gets day to day. For example, he was asked where they keep all of the cages that they use to put the animals away at night. He was also asked when a deer turns into a moose. Sounds like a pilot for a new TV show.

The town of Jasper, like Banff, is inside the park. It is literally a one street town. On one side of the road, there are shops, restaurants, and a gas station or two, and on the other side of the road is the Canadian National Rail station. Jasper makes Banff, a 12 street town, look like LA.

Tomorrow, we plan to visit Lake Louise and some of the other attractions in the area. We hope that the weather will cooperate.

Photo Album

• Banff to Jasper along the Icefields Parkway

Alberta Bound

Sunny and clear skies – lows in the 40’s and highs in the 70’s

Our adventure to Glacier National Park is over, and now we head off to our neighbor to the north. It is another day with clear blue skies and warmer temperatures. We have noticed that the snow on the mountains has diminished over the last two days; maybe spring has finally come to the Rockies.

On the way from the hotel out to Route 89 at Babb, we kept an eye out for the grizzly that we saw last night. He showed up on queue, but was young and quick, and he did not wait around for pictures. It was a thrill to see him just the same.

Just to the north, adjacent to Glacier, is Canada’s counterpart, Waterton Lakes National Park. Waterton is much like Grand Teton National Park in that you drive along side the mountains. There are two roads in the park that go through the mountains. The one to the southwest is the Akamina Parkway, which is stretch in the definition of parkway. It is a 16 km long narrow, winding drive through the mountains that ends at Cameron Lake. The other road, Red Rock Parkway, goes to the northwest and takes you through forests and meadows to Red Rock Canyon. It illustrates where the prairie meets the mountains. Both roads are well maintained and the views they offer were beautiful and well worth the effort.

As we were returning from Cameron Lake, we saw a grizzly that had come out of the woods close to the road. He was oblivious to the tourists who had stopped along the road to take pictures. We did get a couple of photos as he moved from one side of the road to the other to continue munching on plants.

After a quick lunch at Zum’s Eatery in Waterton, we headed off to Banff via Calgary on Route 2. The trip to Banff was reminiscent of the trip across Montana, huge farms with either cattle or wheat as far as the eye can see. As we drove north, the prairie stretched endlessly to the east and to the mountains in the west.

Unfortunately we drove through Calgary during rush hour, and we had to put up with traffic for the first time in two weeks. The Calgary Stampede starts July 3, and the town is already decked out with banners and flags on each utility pole for this huge celebration.

Heading northwest from Calgary, we followed Route 1 to Banff. As we approached the town of Banff, we were surprised to learn that the town is actually inside Banff National Park. The parks in Canada do not have the lifetime senior pass concept, and we had to pay $9.80 per day per person. We were spoiled by the US Park Service Senior Pass at $10 for life. The fee the Canadians charged was still a real bargain, given the incredible beauty and condition of the parks.

Banff is a small, trendy town that caters to the winter ski clientele. There are many restaurants, bars, sport equipment shops, art galleries, and the ever popular souvenir shops. It is smaller than Jackson, WY, but is more cosmopolitan. There are visitors here from all over the world. On the street, you hear German, British English, French, Japanese, Korean, and many others that we did not recognize. Oddly, there was very little Spanish. There was only a sprinkling of Americans among the primarily Asian crowd.

Tomorrow, we plan to take the scenic drive from Banff to Jasper via the Icefields Parkway. The Parkway, which is totally within the parks, travels 230 km through Banff National Park and Jasper National Park.

Photo Album

• Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada