Wednesday evening

We are sitting on a big balcony of a small motel outside of Chase BC, overlooking beautiful lake Shushwap, surrounded by beautiful mountains, and the sun is just about to set in a sky full of fluffy clouds, and we have just finished our pizza, and are relaxing with a glass of wine and the MacBook. What a life! Maybe we will never go home. It's been a perfect day, we made many little stops to admire trains, waterfalls, stopped for snacks and deserts. The drive from Lake Louise to here has been very scenic. Tomorrow we'll make it home I suppose, even though we have the car until Friday 5pm. It is quite warm, hot here today. It was only two days ago that one could see one's breath, around freezing, and today it was at least 24C. The pizza lady said, from winter to summer in 2 days.

Tuesday evening - Loopy train

We went to Kicking Horse Pass to see the trains come and go in the spiral tunnels... It was so cool. We saw one train going down, and it had to wait for another train going up, so we saw both. The pictures show the upbound train going into the lower opening and just beginning to come out of the upper opening. Then, a little later, totally crossing over itself.

This is frozen Moraine Lake (left). These (right) are frozen Moraine Lake as we saw it. Naughty clouds obscured the rugged peaks, and kept the colors greay

Catching up -- Banff

On the way to Lake Louise, we stopped and hiked up to a waterfall. Yes, Charles and Diane, new hips and all, hiked there. And here are the pictures to prove it. When you get to the falls, you cross a bridge and go through a little tunnel and take a picture. Then your camera gets all full of spray and the next pictures you take are very strange.

Finally... back on line.

The nifty condo that Charles and Diane got in Canmore is very nice, but -- no WiFi. So eventful days have come and gone without posts being posted and blog being blogged. We went first to Lake Louise. Unfortunately, it is too early. We thought, with all the "heat wave" and the excessive snow melt (which caused the mudslide that blocked our road), that the ice would be gone -- NOT. The whole lake is frozen over, except for a tiny bit on the edge. And there is worse to come -- the road to Moraine Lake is still closed by snow, so we can't go there at all. It is a big blow, a major setback. But we will weather the storm. Charles & Diane's anniversary was yesterday, and our extra special friend, Bill Jones, paid for a nice anniversary dinner at the world-famous FAIRMONT CHATEAU LAKE LOUISE. It was a most memorable dinner, with a special dessert plate and champaign.

Connection made

We finally met up with Charles and Diane at the Calgary airport, just as planned. But there were (mis)adventures along the way. We could not go on our planned route on the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Calgary, because there was a big mudslide (due mainly to excessive spring snow-melt) and the road was closed for an indeterminate number of days. After waiting as long as possible for better news, we back-tracked 100 km to take an alternate route that added over 400 more km to our trip. However, the alternate route took us through Jasper National Park, which was well worth the extra gas money and driving time. We were rather in a rush, so I had to take most of the photos through the (dirty) windshield. Here are some of them, even some that are "not good enough". If you click on the map in Sunday's post, you can see the two routes, the straight one and the big loop up north to Jasper and back down. We are now in the Days Inn at the Calgary Airport, and tomorrow we drive (back) to Canmore to move into the condo where we stay a week, while exploring Banff National Park. The weather has been good, so far. Rain on the road yesterday, in places, but didn't bother us. Nice and cool.

On the road again....

Tripping away. We left Victoria at 7am this morning, took the 9 o'clock ferry to Tsawwassen, and here we are on the mainland. There was a rodeo and a big fair and other things going on, people everywhere. We drove right past Hope and Kamloops and ended up in a B&B in Salmon Arm -- see pics. The other picture is of the last spike driven in the Canadian trans-continental railway. I got up at 6 am instead of my usual 9 am so I'm too sleepy to write more.

More about Banff

Got some nifty pics of Banff National Park.  

The first 2 are Lake Louise.  The one on the previous post is Lake Moraine. 

There is a webcam here, looking out over the town of Banff (upper right photo).  

We will be driving from Victoria (lower left of map where it says "Saanich") to Calgary, which would be a bit farther than driving from Salt Lake City over the Rockies to Denver.  

Then we back-track to Canmore, Alberta, where we stay for a week in the condo.  We will take day trips to Lake Louise, Banff town, and all the "must-sees".  

Click on the map to enlarge it.  Click here for video.

We return late on the 30th.

Planning a trip...

We are in the throes of planning a trip to Banff National Park, with Chuck & Diane. We will leave on the 16, driving in a rental car to Calgary, spending 2 nights on the road. In Calgary we obtain a hotel and meet Charles & Diane's flight from CA. The next day we all drive to Canmore (pop. 10,275) where the Fitz's have a condo for a week. We use the week to explore the Park and the Lake Louise area. We will return to Victoria late on May 30. Photo: Lake Moraine, near Lake Louise