Spokane

From Glacier, we made it to Spokane, Washington to visit my sister without a hitch.  We had a good time with Kay, catching up on all the family gossip, eating, and playing Cribbage.  Sandy and I went down to Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane (home of 1974 Worlds Fair) to walk the trails after all of that eating.  We did 5 miles, just along the river front seeing the sights.  The river trail will take you to Post Falls, Idaho if you are looking for a longer hike.    Of course we had to take some pictures of the water fall, and boy that water was moving!

What a neat idea for a slide.

We were just in time to watch a marathon.

My nephew, Jordan, just graduated from High School (yay!) and is into body building, so he’s always showing some muscle.  He needs to find a High School Gear Head so he can get his truck on the road again.

Thanks Kay and Jordan for hosting our stopover.  It was great seeing you guys again.

Glacier National Park

We entered back into the states at Eureka, Montana.  It was a tight fit with the motor-home going through the X-Ray machine, but they let us back in.  We camped at Columbia Falls RV Park, about 15 miles outside the park.  There are lots of CG in the area, this is a nice one, with all the amenities at a good rate, and nice people.  Be sure you pick up some local Huckleberry pie, ice cream, and jam!  

Drowned Rats.....

It was a rainy two days of hiking.  We didn't stop though.  We've been dieting (forever!) and we weigh ourselves each morning, we've confirmed that we loose weight after a day of hiking!  So if I want Huckleberry pie, then I have to hike!

Again, lots of rain means lots of white water and spectacular falls.  There is a road through the middle of the park called "Going to the Sun Road", sounds neat doesn't it!  It's usually open by now, but this year they still have 10' of snow at the top, so we didn't get to go all the way through.  We circled around to the south and went in the East side to do some hiking, then the next day ran up the west side to get one last hike in before checkout time at the park. 

These guys were just along the trail, I'd just look up and they were right in front of me, and I never heard a twig break!

It was a good trip, we were just a little bit early this year.

I was disappointed with all the commercialization inside the park boundaries.  The Park visitors center is a little building surrounded by shopping, we drove right by it looking for park information, but I guess it's all about money for the park.

It's just a pet peeve of mine, why do I have to pay for something when it's full of advertising?  I'm just getting too old and crotchety.......

Canada for a few days

We started across Montana for Glacier National Park, when Sandy said "hey, lets bop up to Canada for a few".   It had been raining quite a bit in the lower 48 and the sky looked brighter in Canada, so we altered course and went up through Calgary, heading for Banff National Park.   

It was a piece of cake going through Customs, we were afraid we'd have to dump all of our fruits and vegetables.  When we took a bus to Vancouver to catch a cruise a few years ago, we could not take ANY fresh food across the boarder.  I guess the rules are different for an RV, they expect you to have food with you.  The roads were good to Calgary, but they don't have a by-pass around the city, we were lucky it was a Sunday.  We got up to Canmore, just outside the park and set up camp at Spring Creek Mountain Village.  We didn't know what to expect for campgrounds in the national park system in Canada, and our Good Sam Campground Guide wasn't much help.  

The next day we were off to explore Banff and Jasper National Parks.  First we checked out Lake Louise campground (one of the parks CG), it was very nice, and busy.  They told us to get up there by noon to get a spot, no reservations this early in the season.  The CG has 30amp service and a 8 lane dump station (of course that was not enough, as we saw the next day).  The CG was full of rental RV's from Canada and the U.S., I guess those folks thought you had to dump each morning. 

One thing I noticed while driving the Parks, they had special overpasses for the wildlife to cross the highway!  It's landscaped with trees, shrubs, and grass.

 This is a four lane divided modern highway with 12' fences the whole length and electrified cattle guards to keep the critters out.  They built the highway with 12' culverts underground for the wildlife, but some don't like to go in a cave, they'd rather dodge cars.  They tried the overpass and monitored wildlife traffic with cameras.  Now they are building more overpasses.

The next day we relocated to a National Park CG at Lake Louise so we could explore Jasper National Park to the north.  It was all about hiking, waterfalls, and wildlife.  

I'm not sure what these guys are doing, a lot of head butting going on, but it's not mating season.  They were just out in the middle of the road.........  It ends up with a big CRACK sound.

Well, the rain caught up with us (I've lost track of the number of times we've washed the coach), so we headed back down the other side of the Rockies to West Glacier Montana, and back on track.  It was a brief whirl-wind tour of Canada, and was just a little early in the season, but the white water and water falls were spectacular.  Here are some more parting shots.