Watertown, Alberta

Sunday, July 28, after arriving and getting set up, we got our bikes out and rode around town. We saw the Prince of Wales Hotel, marina, and could ride bike around part of the lake and around the campground. We ate dinner and then we rode to see the waterfalls.


Prince of Wales Hotel


Marina


Cameron Falls

Monday, July 29, we all took a shoreline tour on the Waterton Lake. The lake is a series of deep scenic bays, sheer vertical mountains and beautiful wilderness surroundings. It is the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies. Stop-overs of approximately 1/2 hour are made at Goat Haunt, the northern gateway to Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. You can debark at a shelter, uncommercialized area for a short visit or you can hike, but you must go through the US Immigration with proper ID to remain at Goat Haunt to hike. You can then take the cruise back at different times later. The only animal we saw was an eagle and we went to dock back at town we saw two mule deer walking in the water.


Looking down the lake


USA and Canada line


USA shelter and border patrolled


Boat waiting for return


Mule deer wading in water


View when clouds cleared

About 6 pm we had a cookout with steaks, using about 10 grills, we had potato salad, bean salad, a tossed salad, rolls, and cheesecake for dessert.


Cooking steaks

After cleaning up a bit, Ken and I decided to go for a drive to the Red Canyon, before we got there we ran into hail and turned around, the road was covered with hail and a bit slippery. When we returned back to campsite it was just drizzling, no hail there. Ken talked to our neighbor camper and said that it hails quite a bit back in that area.


Hail on truck

We then called it a day.

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Longview, Alberta

If the pictures didn't appear in Jasper when you checked it, please check again, I had reapplied the pictures. Sorry about the mistake, had trouble at Tim Horton's.

While sending the blog Friday at Tim Horton's, an elk came through the parking lot and laid right outside the window where we were sitting.


Saturday, July 27, we had left early this morning, had 126 miles to drive, had arrived at the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site. The leaders had talked to the the Ranch U Ranch and we're sure whether or not we could park there until right before the caravan started. They said we could park in an open field overnight, which we did. We had a self guided tour of the ranch, which was located down in a hollow behind hills that you couldn't see until you got into the visitor center. The ranch was one of the first and most enduring of the last corporate ranches established in the 1880's, the Bar U was chosen to commemorate the history of the ranching industry in Canada. We followed the story of the ranch through seven decades of change from 1882 to 1950. We explored the headquarters, visited many historic buildings and learned about the people who made Bar U one of the most famous ranches of its time.


Bar U Ranch setting


Percheron horses and wagon that took us down to the ranch from visitor center


Stud Horse Barn


Horse stables


Old wagon and parts


Cook checking pies on windowsill


Leather shop, making us coasters


Inside post office


Parked in open field overnight

The Bar U Visitor Center has a cafe and the people had made us all beef stew with special ingredients, coffee and cinnamon, and biscuits for dinner after closing. We were to be served outside by a campfire with the cowboys, but the sky was very treating with storms, which didn't happen, so they decided to have it indoors. After dinner we had two cowboys entertain us, they sang and one did cowboy poetry.


This is the place where we would of had the Cowboy Cookout.


Poet and singer


Told us a story about his son and his dog.

Sunday, July 28, they had made us a breakfast buffet in the visitors center. They made two kinds of sausage, one with bison, potatoes, scrambled eggs, French toast, pancakes, oatmeal, muffins, biscuits, juice, coffee and fruit.


Cafe inside visitor center

We had another drivers meeting before heading out to the next campground. We had driven about 110 miles today, stopping at Walmart to shop for a dinner that we are helping with tomorrow.






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Banff, Alberta

Tuesday, July 23, we traveled from Jasper to Banff which was about 180 miles, with beautiful scenery of the Canadian Rockies.





Ken checking out the mountain range and water


Glacier

After arriving, we met up with our friends from Calgary, they are camping not far from us in the campground. The rest of the evening, we just sat around and talked with our friends.


Mountain range from campsite

Wednesday, July 24, we went to Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, where we had a guided tour. The hotel was built early for the railroad coming through town, there has been many famous people that have stayed here. The scenery was beautiful with waterfall, golf course, and the Bow River. We had a buffet lunch in the Grill Room at the hotel.


Hotel from across the Bow River


View from outside hotel


One of the dining & conference rooms


One of the hallways in hotel


Hotel front entrance

After our tour, we met our friends again, they had taken use around town to see the sites. Waterfall at hotel, golf course, gondola, train station, Cave & Basin National Historic Site, this is the beginning of the Canada's national park system which was founded on a cave and hot springs discovered in 1883 by three Canadian Pacific Railroad workers. The site consists of naturally occurring warm mineral springs inside the cave and an emerald-colored basin outside. We then drove to Lake Minnewanka, we had driven over the dam to a lookout and saw mule deer and two fawns eating and playing.


Waterfalls on the Bow River


Lake Winnewanka


Mule deer and fawns

Thursday, July 25, we boarded a bus with a packed lunch, and went to Lake Louise, we hiked part way on one side, went into a coffee shop had a cup of coffee, with another couple until time to board the bus again.


Lake Louise


Fairmont Chateau Hotel at Lake Louise

We then went to Moraine Lake, had our picnic lunch and a hike to top of rock pile to see the lake.


Lake Moraine


Rock pile

Boarded the bus again and went to Takakkaw Falls, what a great falls, bus driver said he never saw so much water coming over the falls. On the way up the mountain, there is switch backs that the bus can't turn sharp enough, so he backed up the one way and backed down on the return trip. Was scary but he did a great job. Motorhome didn't know how to turn or back up hill, he just went back down. There was a sign how to drive the switchbacks, guess he didn't read the sign.


Takakkaw Falls


Motorhome couldn't turn corner.


While driving, the bus driver, talked about the spiral tunnel that the trains use, we didn't see a train, so no pictures. We then went to Emerald Lake, another lake but this one wasn't as cold, there were people swimming here.


Emerald Lake


Another Emerald Lake picture


Cute flower design

We returned back to camp about 6 pm.,ate some dinner and then went and visited our friends again until late.

Friday, July 26, our friends drove us downtown, checked about changing money, went to Starbucks to check the Internet, walked around the shops, came back to camp, ate lunch and left again to go up the Gondola. What a beautiful view, from the top, you could see Banff and the surrounding area.


Town of Banff seen from gondola, beautiful mountain ranges, they really change with the sun during the day.


Gondola ride


Town of Banff with bridge over Bow River


Elk seen at parking lot of gondola


Banff Ave. and mountain range in background

We had gone to The Old Spaghetti Factory with our friends for dinner, came back and had a drivers meeting, before retiring for the evening.


Friends from Calgary, Jim & Martha Walmer!




Our circle parking back in Red Deer picture, we just received it. As seen from airplane.


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