Category: travels

It is still smoky in Kamloops in the morning. We ask at the desk and they say that the roads are open to Whistler. As we hit the highway there is a disturbing sign saying that the entrance to 99 from 97 is closed. That is the way we are going. Then there are no more signs so we take our chances and continue on. As it turns out we are allowed to proceed but only with a pilot car through the recently burned area.

I do not take any pictures until we are clear of the smoke. Everything is really hazy. Finally we get beyond the smoke area and we head to have some lunch in one of few towns that are on our route, Lillooet. Since we had such an abysmal experience trying local food yesterday we decide to go with generic fast food at A & W. One thing I can say about Canadians they are nice, polite, and helpful. (Maybe three things!) We tell the woman behind the counter what we want and she figures out how we can get it. Having an old time-y root beer is the frosting on the cake.

The scenery on our rather long drive today is spectacular. There’s mountains, more turquoise lakes and rivers, and fast running creeks. We stop every once in a while to take pictures.

Finally after almost six hours we are getting closer to Whistler. The mountains are taller now and some are still snow covered.

After stopping for some iced coffee with about 30 minutes to go we reach Whistler. It is really busy! It seems that some big downhill mountain bike racing event is going on. We check into the Four Seasons Resort and are pleased with our room. It has room for sitting, blogging, and sleeping!

After a while of relaxing we opt not to eat at the fancy fine dining restaurant and opt for the bar where they have a smaller (and cheaper) menu. We order a charcouterie and cheese board and it is really good. Most of the sausages are made with duck or elk. One is flavored with juniper berries. It’s enough for dinner.

Tomorrow we will take the gondola up the mountain and then the peak to peak gondola to go near the top of Blackcomb Mountan. I am hoping I will not be freaked out by the heights.

After spending an inordinate amount of time finding gas and somewhere for breakfast, we were finally on the road around 10:30 AM. This was supposed to be an early departure day since we wanted to go past Banff and see Lake Louise and Moraine Lake today. However, we’ve decided to push them off until tomorrow so that we can view them with fewer people early in the morning.

We have been on the prairie since Idaho and I am excited that today will feature terrain. It is a hazy morning so we do not see the Canadian Rocky Mountains until we get quite close and, wow, are they impressive – craggy limestone piercing the sky. I take some pictures from the car as we approach.

We are staying at the Moose Hotel. We check in early and they upgrade us to a suite, sweet! They have a moose statue out front.

We walk to the local IGA and get some snacks that will take the place of lunch and some bagels and cream cheese for breakfast tomorrow and settle in to watch the Federer/Zverev match. Somewhere during the match Federer must have hurt his back or something because in the second set he is hardly trying. He loses. Boo.

It’s raining so we decide to stay in and relax. We are getting up early tomorrow so we need our energy. Later we go downstairs and eat at the hotel restaurant, Pacini, and have an okay meal. John has lasagna and I have penne primavera. They have this weird grill arrangement where you toast your own bread. Afterwards we come back to the room and I am now fighting with the internet to try to get my pictures uploaded but at this point it doesn’t look good.

Early Monday AM. – most people must still be asleep because I am able to upload the pictures.

 

 

We have based ourselves just northwest of Calgary which gives us flexibility in our sightseeing. Today we range about 130 kilometers to the northeast to learn about dinosaurs, mining, and the old Canadian West.

Yesterday I bought an app which gives us a tour of the area. We drive, we enjoy. We do not have to do anything. Our tour guide is synced with our GPS and just comes on with info when we need it. Seems to me my Trip-Tickle was supposed to work like this.

Here is what we are guided to –

When we get to Drumheller we are directed to the Visitor’s Centre where we also see the world’s biggest dinosaur.

 

From there we head out on the hoodoo trail. The places we go to either have s connection to mining or geology. Our first stop is at a suspension footbridge over the Red Deer River. This was used by miners who lived across the river from the mines.

Just like a Bryce Canyon NP there are hoodoos except that the colors tend to be the muted browns and cream of the surrounding countryside. We take a walk among the hoodoos.

Then we drive along to the Atlas Coal Mine which is now a state historic site. It has a wooden tipple (coal sorter) and for $10 each we could go have a closer look but we decided we’ve seen enough coal mines during previous trips (which is why we know what a tipple is).

 

On the way back toward Drumheller we stop at the almost Ghost Town, Wayne. The only things in the town supposedly inhabited are the Rosedeer Hotel land the Last Chance Saloon. We walk through the saloon and the lobby of the hotel but find no ghosts so we continue on our way in search of lunch back in town.

We understand that Tim Horton’s is the iconic lunch place in Canada. We’ve seen them everywhere. Much like poutine we have managed to avoid it so far but, seriously, it cannot be as bad as poutine (sounds). We thought it would be sort of like Denny’s but it is not. It is more like McDonald’s without hamburgers and fries. You order at a counter and pick up your food. I have a BLT on a untoasted French roll. John had a cold cut sandwich. The sandwiches are accompanied by soggy potato wedges. We won’t be going back.

 

After lunch it is our plan to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology. It seems half of Canada has the same plan so we decide to do the second half of our audio tour and come back later. This is the Dinosaur Loop but there was nothing about dinosaurs in the tour. First we went to Horsethief Canyon where, guess what, horse thieves used to hide their stolen horses, rebrand them, and then try to sell them. It is an overlook. We take some pictures.\

Then we take a ferry (which the narrator keeps calling a fairy, annoyingly) that holds thirteen cars across the Red Deer River. The ferry is pulled across by a cable. It is named the Bleriot Ferry. The guy who it is named after is the brother of the more famous Bleriot who was the first person to fly solo across the English Channel. John remarked that he was wondering if they were related. I was more, “Bleriot, who?”

Our last stop is at the Orkney Viewpoint which is quite scenic and overlooks the canyon with the prairie stretching out beyond it.

We take another shot at the Tyrell Museum but there are no parking spaces. We give up and head back to the hotel where we watch some tennis and eat some dinner. Tomorrow we head to Banff. I am looking forward to terrain!

 

No post yesterday because we did nothing post worthy. We drove to Calgary and then watched tennis for the rest of the day. We needed a little vacation from our vacation. But here we are in Calgary and it is time to get going!

Two nights ago we were talking with our server in Lethbridge and she was originally from Calgary.  She loves Calgary so much that she has an outline of the skyline of Calgary tattooed on the inside of her arm. That’s is true love.

Today we go to Calgary’s Heritage Park HIstorical Village where we can experience yesterday today.

One of the first things we see is another moose! Jonathan has a picture of an actual moose that he met on a trail. But now we have two faux moose and John pictures.

There are a lot of turn of the 20th century buildings here. Also a train and a paddle steamer. We plan on looking at some of the buildings, taking a train ride, and a boat ride, and watching a woodworking demonstration. First up the boat ride.

A little while later after viewing the many train engines and cars that they have in their museum we board the train for two circuits around the park.

After walking around for more than three hours in the heat we decide to call it a day. We cannot wait to get back and take showers. For dinner we decide to just go down to the restaurant here and watch the tennis matches while we have dinner.

Busy day today that ended up with a trip to the local ballpark. Everything in Great Falls revolves around the Falls and the Lewis and Clark Expedition so today we went for a look at the greatest of the five Falls which were almost the stumbling block of the expedition. Unfortunately the dams on the Missouri have really changed their appearance. Good for many reasons but sad nonetheless.

Some work is being done at the top of the Ryan dam at Great Falls and the entire flow is coming out of one pipe.

Getting to this point to see the Ryan dam is an adventure. It is about nine miles from Great Falls down a little road through fields of shorn wheat. We wind down the canyon of the river and park. We are the only people here. The best sight for the dam is across a foot bridge to an island.  I am game until part way across the bridge starts to sway. John assures me that all is well and we continue across- not my favorite thing to do.

Next stop, the Giant Springs State Park where we will see the fish hatchery, the world’s shortest river and the giant springs.

The fish hatchery is breeding trout. We see an exhibition all about breeding and transporting the fish and some 6 week old rainbow trout.

Outside there is a viewing pond with adult trout. You can feed them for a nickel which the fish really like. They hang around wherever there are people looking for a free lunch.

Finally we look at the smallest river. It is about 800 yards long and has all the attributes of a river, a source, a current, a mouth etc. The source of the river are the springs which begin in the Belt Mountains about 50 miles away  and travel underground until it finds some cracks in the limestone and burbles up next to the Missouri River at the rate of 150,000,000 gallons a day and then flows into the Missouri.

Finally we return to the Clark and Lewis Interpretive Center and work our way through the exhibits of their entire journey. Really interesting!

After a lunch which involved a lot of standing in line for a salad in an aluminum foil container at Cafe Rio, we spend the rest of the afternoon doing laundry before heading out to the baseball game between the Great Falls Voyagers and the Ogden Raptors.

The baseball game is between two teams in the Rookie, short season category. The Voyagers are a White Sox farm team and the Raptors, the Dodgers. At first it seems sparsely attended.

The game has lots of errors, especially wild pitches. We leave after the 6th inning with the Voyagers ahead 15 to 7. Eventually they won 15 to 10. It was not a pitcher’s duel but quite fun and good beer!

I put my foot down last night and said that I would not eat the horrible hotel breakfast on Sunday. Rather we should head up the road and stop somewhere to get breakfast. Mistake, big mistake. As you head out of Idaho Falls there is nothing, no food, no gas, no lodging, nothing. We travel on and on without even a convenience store. I was like Dorothy saying to Toto, ” We’re not in California anymore.”

Finally in Dubois, ID right before the Montana border we find a sign that indicates that there is a gas/convenience store. We and most of our fellow travelers get off the road. We choose pre-made English muffins with sausage, egg and cheese. As I eat around the cold edges of the sausage I wonder if I am going to pay for this later?

A cute aside –  we have been traveling along with some older Harley bikers since we were in Idaho Falls. They have stopped at Dubois as well. As soon as they get some food their party of five crowd around someone’s phone and do a video chat with one of their wives. “Yes, we are all fine. We had a good time last night but needed to get to bed early. We are heading up to Canada today. We’ll be careful. Do you have all the other spouses to forward our news to?” Tough guys!

We cross the Continental Divide at the border between Idaho and Montana. John is driving now. We put on a podcast of the History of the English Language. I will be asleep soon. Before nodding off though, I catch an interesting exit sign.

I snooze through the podcast. We stop for gas in Butte, MT and change drivers. Now that I am revived I drive the rest of the way to Great Falls. We get in around 1 PM and stop at Jimmy John’s for a sandwich. Then we head to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

We go in and watch a movie called the Confluence of Time and Courage about the plight of the expedition as it hit all the falls of the Missouri River and what they had to do to get around them. There was a model of the men taking the boats out of the water to portage them to the next navigable spot. Apparently this was a make it or break it moment along their trail to the Pacific Ocean.

Uh oh, I am not feeling at all well. The spicy Thai food and the awful egg/sausage muffin have caught up to me. We must go check into the hotel! We make it to the hotel on time and I will need some lying down time. We will not be able to do all the things I had planned for the afternoon.

Luckily I am better for dinner (of course) and we go to a place called Artisan Fire Pizza and it is really good. Most of the reviews on Yelp have bemoaned the awful dining scene in Great Falls but have said that this place is an exception. We share a pizza and a salad and even a dessert. Guess I am okay.

If there are two things that Idaho Falls has it is giant U.S. flags and waterfalls. I think there must be a contest among the car, truck, and RV dealerships to find the biggest flag. The hotels are no slouches either. I cannot even estimate what the dimensions are.

Our day is supposed to begin with a spirited game of tennis but when we get up we find that the temperature is 47F. We are not prepared for playing tennis in temperatures that cold. By this afternoon it will be almost 90F and too hot to play. We go back to sleep instead.

After the not very good hotel breakfast we head down town to the park by the Snake River. It is a lovely green area right in the center of town and there are lots of people viewing the falls, cycling, walking, etc. We join in.

The people of Idaho Falls voted to create a diversion route for the Snake River in 1982. On it they built three turbines to generate electricity and funded the riverwalk. All along the river is a paved path with beautiful flowers, whimsical topiary and artistic benches.

We do a pretty good job walking along the river and check out the power plant and some new construction on the other side of the river. They have commissioned a massive wildlife sculpture at one of the roundabouts.

It’s lunch time and we stop to have a burger at 5 Guys. Pretty good.

Then it is off to the Art Museum where we view a Western themed special exhibition. There are finely tooled saddles, silver bits, and furry chaps. Cowboying is a serious business.

There’s also an exhibition by a local artist, Shushana Rucker. Her oils of the gritty side of urban industrialism are really good but I have no idea where you would hang one.

At this point we decide to have a little respite before we finish our afternoon sightseeing. It gives me time to catch up on the blog writing and nod off. We are off again at three to tour the Museum of Idaho which has a special lunar landing exhibit and quite a few artifacts from the beginning of Idaho Falls, once known as Eagle Rock.

There is also a short film and exhibit on the Idaho National Lab which was established in the early 1950’s to build prototypes of nuclear reactors. It was a great success and continues with scientific projects to this day. It had its risks though and incorrect disposal of nuclear waste has created a SuperFund site where contamination has seeped into the aquifer.

Around 5PM we stop at the Idaho Brewing Company to try out their beers. Of course we have to take the obligatory John and beer picture.

Tonight we are having Thai food and have gotten a recommendation from the bar guy last night. Our dinner at Krung Thep is outstanding. We start out with fresh spring rolls and then move on to spicy eggplant, peppers, and onions with tofu. So good!

Off to Montana tomorrow!!