Day Ten

We left our hotel in Canmore, Alberta, around 8:30 this morning.  Paul Weaver did today’s meditation while we drove.  He talked about the fact that we are not home yet; our real home is in the future.

Our morning adventure was the Calgary Tower.  It was a perfect day, weather wise, and we could see for miles out over the city and beyond.  The glass floor was a highlight for those less squeamish about heights.  The tower opened just over thirty years ago and attracts tourists from all over.  We also saw the ski ramps used during the winter Olympics which were held in Calgary in 1988.

Paul H. met a friend/business associate in the city with plans to be dropped off at the bus later.  Sharon caught a taxi to the airport since she needs to be home before next week.  The rest of us continued on to see the sights.

At Heritage Park, we toured, ate, shopped, and relaxed for several hours.  We were able to see how people lived years ago in Canada, much the way Williamsburg, VA is a piece of history for us in the states. I was most intrigued with the sod house.  Hut, would be a better word for it.  Our tour guide told us that following heavy rainfall it continued to rain inside for three days after it quit outside.  And she said you didn’t have to fear solitude because you were never alone thanks to all the critters infesting your roof.  I paraphrase, but that’s the gist of it.  Shiver.  I am realizing I have not given enough kudos to those brave pioneer women who helped settle the wild, wild west not so long ago.

Paul and I ate at the little Railway Café, outside at a shaded sidewalk table.  The food was pricey but tasty.  Several others from our group took the train around the park, a few took a carriage ride.  Paul prowled around the museum filled with old cars and such. I read my book, sipped my coffee, took a walk to see the sailboats on a nearby lake, and was utterly content.

We entered the plains of Alberta and left the mountains behind with a suddenness that was startling. I looked back to catch a last glimpse of those breathtaking peaks and was too late.  They were gone as if they'd never been.  I felt sad and wondered if I'd ever see them again. And then I looked at the plains speeding past our windows and realized they have a beauty all their own.  Mile upon mile of wheat fields, some of it already harvested, stretching as far as the eye could see.  What a stark contrast to the landscape from this morning!  There was just nothingness, with an occasional weathered building, dwarfed by the bigness of the unending space stretching from horizon to horizon.  I spotted one set of huge grain silos, also in the middle of nothing but fields of wheat.

Late afternoon I saw a cloud far ahead to my left that looked different from the puffy cumulus clouds dotting the blue sky.  Mile after mile I watched, finally assuming it was dust from a wheat harvester.  Not so.  It was a grass fire, I think.  Fire trucks were on the scene with more on the way.

As beautiful as these endless, flat as a table, acres are, I prefer the mountains myself.  I feel like a bug, unprotected and insignificant in the extreme, in the wide open spaces, vulnerable somehow.  Although I suppose one would be able to see danger coming from much further away without the hills to hide it.  

When I heard we are spending the night in a place called Medicine Hat I pictured an aging hotel with questionable amenities in a hole-in-the-wall place with less than a hundred permanent residents.  What a surprise to find a new-looking, multi-storyed hotel surrounded by all kinds of well-known eating places. And joy, rapture, a Target right across the parking lot.  I love the wilderness.  Until I need a few basics to increase my comfort level.  Then I want a department store.  By the way all of us ladies descended on that place, I don't think I'm alone in my thinking.

I left Target with a full box of our favorite candy bars.  When I got back to our room Paul told me he had bought a case as well.  We seem to be stocking up for the Apocalypse.  Oh well.  We can use them for currency if we haven't eaten them all before then.

Day Nine

This morning we left our hotel enthralled by the clouds rolling across the landscape, literally.  They were lower than the mountain peaks. Paul did the devotional and talked about how our salvation is performance based.  Not OUR performance, but that of Jesus and what He did on the cross.

Our first stop today was at Athabasca Falls.  Hidden back in the woods we could hear its roar before we could see it.  The short hike was more than worth the visual feast when it came into view. Then on to Sunwapta Falls which means turbulent waters.  It lived up to its name.  Again hidden in the woods, totally undiscovered by tourists were it not for the walking paths leading to it.

Our tour on the glaciers at Athabasca Mountain was next.  We were shuttled via bus to the Snow Coach terminal partway up the mountain.  I use the word terminal lightly.  It was a simple wooden platform with a roof over it.  The Snow Coach is a fifty-five person vehicle with six huge floatation tires.  At a cost of 1.5 million each there are only 23 in existence on the planet. We reached a top speed of about 10-20 miles per hour.  Our driver, Bruce, took us down what is, according to him, the second steepest roadway slope in North America.  He told us if we’re scared to do what he does and close our eyes.

We learned a lot of interesting facts from Bruce.  The glacier we were on, Andromeda, and the other glaciers surrounding us range in depth from 100 to 1000 feet in depth.  We were told about the dangers of crevices and millstreams.  He pointed out a millstream, which is a hole that develops with flowing water running in under the surface ice, digging ever deeper.  The one we saw could easily have sucked in a small child and it was five hundred feet deep. 

Mt. Snowdome, one of the closer mountains bordering the glacier, is the site of the world’s only triple Continental Divide.  From that point, depending on which water source you’re discussing, the water will run into one of three different oceans: the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Arctic.

We also learned more about rock flour.  It is as fine as talcum powder and remains suspended in the lakes and streams that are fed from melting glaciers, turning the water an aqua blue color.  We were allowed to drink the melt water on the glacier if we wished.  Several of the group did.  We are waiting to see if they survive.

We saw our first bears today!  Well, our first bears in the wild anyway.  A mama and two cubs.  Several of us even managed to get a good photo or two.  I videoed and even though the quality is jerky and poor, I was thrilled anyway.  Three miles down the road someone yelled, There’s another one!”  Well, I totally missed it but I’m told it was a big one.

Back at the main lodge we ate lunch and turned back toward Banff for an afternoon of shopping.  According to a tourist we met today, Banff stands for Buy Anything, Nothing For Free.  There are countless charming little shops full of everything from candy to clothes to jewelry.  Since I’m not much of a shopper I bought an extremely expensive Mocha Frappe and sat outside the coffee shop to read, hoping the double shots of espresso would do their job.  Paul combed the candy stores looking for his favorite candy bars, only available in Canada, the country of his birth.  He also loaded up on boxes of maple leaf cookies, a favorite of ours.

 

We arrived at our hotel early and everyone was on their own for supper.  We ended up at a restaurant that proclaimed itself a pizza place but was actually much more.  The menu boasted one hundred items and they weren’t kidding.  About ten others from the bus walked in right after we did so we had company.   

Walking back to our hotel, the weather perfect, the mountains rising on every side, our stomachs full, stimulating conversation with friends, watching Dave chase gophers down their holes along our route, well, life is good.

Day Eight

The first thing today we rode the gondolas at Sulfur Mountain overlooking Banff, Alberta. After reaching the restaurant at the top, many of us hiked the remaining distance to the 7,486 foot summit. A small watchtower I’m told is a weather station, occasionally manned to this day, has a primitive but fully furnished living space beneath it and gives a birds-eye view of mountain ranges in every direction.  Far below a miniature Banff lies visible, surrounded by rivers, mountains, matchless beauty.  I don’t have adequate  words so I won’t waste my time trying.  Sometimes silence is the best accolade.

And then there is Lake Louise.  Someone was telling me it is the most photographed place around.  I don’t doubt it.  Majestic, surreal, awe-inspiring and so on and so on. It just makes a person want to stand there and worship the Creator. 

We ate at Deer Lodge, courtesy of Green Country Tours.  It was kinda swanky.  A sit-down meal with a chef doing the cooking, I’m pretty certain.  We all put on our company manners and behaved ourselves.  The food was delicious, which is more important than presentation.  In this case we had both.  Paul had a burger so big even he couldn’t finish it all.  Elk and buffalo mixed.  And he looked well-pleased.

Bow Lake merited several stops.  The blue sediment from the glaciers suspended in the water made our pictures look photo-shopped.  One view from above looked like something out of a Bond movie.  Not a ripple moved the water and it was easy to imagine it was actually not water at all but a retractable surface hiding a full-scale evil scientist installation underneath.  Well, who knows.  . . maybe it was.

Story-telling erupted again on the drive toward our evening destination, along with much laughing.  Getting to know our fellow-travelers is leading to new friendships that will last a lifetime.

A quick stop at Athabasca Glacier for a preview of what we’ll see tomorrow demonstrated its enormity when compared with the miniscule buses driving tourists to and fro.  The air was chilly; I think I’ll wear warm clothes tomorrow.

We arrived at our hotel a little earlier tonight; we are staying in Jasper. I find it so interesting how different the hotels and towns and, well, everything is from back home.  Cross a simple, mostly invisible border and the differences are subtle but definite.  Our hotel last night had an electric tea pot but no discernible air-conditioning.  Same story with the one tonight.  Fortunately the weather is mild and the fans are provided so I think it will be quite pleasant.  I have the windows wide open and there was a dog howling (not barking but howling mournfully) until a few minutes ago.  For some reason I just wanted to giggle, thinking about who will be annoyed and who won't care at all. 

Everyone else scattered to find a place to eat.  I opted to wait until later and work on this blog instead.  There are rumors that we may go out and try to see some wild animals before nightfall. And we've been told this is a safe town and we should feel free to walk wherever we want without concern.  All of these things sound like good options to me.

The dog is howling again.

Day Seven

We got a little earlier start today; we left our hotel at 7:30 with David presenting the morning devotional.  Our hotel was the most beautiful Hampton I have stayed in thus far. Actually, all our hotels on this trip have been nice, with updated bedding and comfortable beds.  Those shiny-on-one-side and natty-on-the-other-side bedspreads from yesteryear just don’t cut it with me.  None of those have been seen so far.

Irene performed some medical treatment for my one toe that got trod on yesterday. (I have new respect for her and Dave.  They've been forced into the role of house/bus parents for a bunch of crazy adults. They handle it with total competence and a lot of grace.) Carol and Karen patched up my toe yesterday when it was bleeding.  It was difficult to see exactly what the extent of the damage is because I can’t get my head as close to my feet as I once could.  Too many buffalo burgers I guess.  I might lose part of a nail but not sure yet. At least it doesn’t hurt if I don’t bump it.

In spite of the fact that I stayed up late playing Black Seven with some of the others, I was up early and raring to go.  Our major stop for the day was Glacier National Park for a bus ride up Going To The Sun Road.  It took three of the really cool-looking tour buses to load us all up the mountain and we were in the middle one.  As we found out later it was also the fun one.  But I expect nothing less with Marge in tow.

The Going to the Sun Road opened in 1933 and is an amazing feat of engineering with only one switchback in its fifty-mile length.  There were rangers with flashing blue lights congregated at one spot on the narrow road and we met an ambulance on its way up to the scene.  Later, back at the lodge, a medi-vac arrived to pick up whoever the ambulance had picked up.  Well before we reached the bottom, I saw a mini-van hit the low stone wall at the road’s outer edge and heard an impressive scraping.  This means they were about fifteen inches from sudden death.  Glad I wasn’t with them.

Lisa, our tour guide and driver, along with Marge and her shenanigans, kept our group in gales of laughter through the whole trip.  Lisa claimed she was only on paragraph one of her “guide schpeel” when we got back to the lodge.  Carol and I won the quiz contest; I cheated, Carol didn’t.  Well, to be fair, Karen was the one that kept sticking stickers on me so really I was a victim.  I scored some play dough which could prove interesting before the trip is over.

Lisa told us about the only bus that ever went over the side.  Back in the day when the drivers were college kids, a certain one had a request from a female friend to pick her up after work hours and deliver her somewhere she needed to be. Along the way he picked up several more friends and after dropping off the girl they returned the way they had come, “hitting every watering hole between here and there.”  He drove straight off a cliff at one of the curves, killing himself and permanently injuring his two companions.  The few pieces that were left of the unfortunate bus are on display at Jammer Joe’s.

Another tale she told was of one of the men helping to build the road.  His horse was loaded with explosives and they were on their way up the mountain when the horse lost its footing and went over the side.  Greatly saddened the man had no choice but to finish his work day before he could go search for the horse’s remains.  Since no explosions were heard he knew the carcass would be down below somewhere and when he was finally able to descend that evening, what should he find but his beloved horse, happily grazing in a meadow with the explosives still strapped to its back.  No broken bones and only a minor injury to one eye.

After lunch at Jammer Joe’s we clambered aboard the bus and headed for Banff.  Other than a bathroom break and a quick stop for supper at a small town along the way we cruised along steadily.  Oh, yeah, we had to go through the border crossing.  Fortunately it was fairly easy this time; we all had to fill out a paper and send our passports in with Dave and Tom to the guard house or whatever it’s called and off we went again.  From what I heard, sometimes they are forced to empty the bus while all the luggage is rifled through by the border people.  

With about six hours travel time this afternoon and evening the party started up at the back of the bus again.  Lots of conversation.  Some silly, some serious and usually interspersed with shouts of an animal sighting from someone further up toward the front with more serious dedication to the tourism experience than those of us at the back. Today's big sighting: long horn sheep.

We got to our lovely hotel around 9pm and it seems Banff may be a town that doesn’t sleep.  People are crowding down the sidewalk and the hustle and bustle still sounds like midday in Berlin.  Our suite is awesome with a balcony out front and another out back over the pool.  Two TVs, two rooms, two sinks and I haven’t checked yet to see if there are two toilets.  Probably not.  Too bad we’re usually too tired to watch TV.  But it feels luxurious knowing we could each watch whatever we want if we were up to it.  Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers are just not on my favorites list.  Duck Dynasty we agree on.  

Time to go relax on a balcony.