Banff and Lake Louise

Banff Canada...words cannot express the beauty of this place. The Canadian Rockies are beyond description. With advice from a fellow traveler, we are staying at the Tunnel Mountain Park. It was the best advice we have gotten so far. It's a beautiful RV park just above the town of Banff. Banff is a National Park and and a National Recreation Area. It's a ski resort town in winter and a mecca for tourists to experience the beauty of the mountains in summer. Today we saw a bear, deer, and a family of mountain sheep. Yesterday we rode in the gondola up to the top of Sulphur Mountain and experienced the views. Today we rode in a chair lift to the top of the Lake Louise ski mountain. That was fun....right out there with your feet hanging over terrain that is the home of grizzly bears and black bears. They have an electric fence around the resort to keep them out.

Don either ate or drank something this week that gave him a stomach bug....has not been fun for a couple of days, but is snapping out of it.

Just got an e-mail from his Uncle Al who already had arrived in Alaska with his wife, Rose and their RV has broken down. They cannot repair it until July 9th, so I guess we will be able to meet up with them after all. We have been stopping and smelling the roses a lot. Don and I are sitting in a little coffee shop updating this post. Went to Lake Louise today after our chairlift ride. One of the most stunning glacial lakes in existence. The photo will not really show its deep turquoise color. All in all a great two days. heading north tomorrow for a ride on the glacier. We decided to do some special things on this leg as it was one of our top picks of places to see. Languages from all over the world swirling around us. So neat.

Wyoming and Montana

Glacier National Park




It's Saturday here in Cut Bank, Montana. We have deemed this a day of rest. Don will wash the truck and watch the World Cup, and I will read and do laundry and post to my blog. We spent the week getting here to see Glacier National Park and it was worth the trip.
Along the way we stopped at Devil's Tower National
Monument and Little Bighorn Battlefield. The first photos here are of Devil's Tower. My little Canon camera zoomed in to get these climbers on their way down. I have always wanted to go there. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed there.
I have to say, being "Over the Hill" has some advantages. We have a Golden Eagle Pass for all of our National Parks. It gets you and everyone in your car in at a once lifetime price of $10.00. That's the senior bargain of the century. We would be paying $25.00 to get in to most of them. It has been a big savings.
Our next stop was the site of Custer's Last Stand. Heard a wonderful ranger talk from a 4th grade teacher...part time Park Ranger whose ancestors fought here. You get a whole new perspective of American History when you visit these places and listen to other views. There is a great presence of native culture in the west. It is evident at all of the National Parks. The darker gravestone marks where Custer fell. His body was removed and buried at West Point. We bought a book and are reading about the battle while on the road.

One night we stayed at Cabelas for the night...check out the sign.
Here we now are now near Glacier National Park. Photos nor words can describe the beauty of this place. It is unbelievable. We spent the day driving on the "Going to the Sun" road a must do if visiting here. We stopped and took photos and went on a 4 mile hike into the woods and up to see two amazing waterfalls. We hiked back in a light rain, but felt invigorated after the views and the exercise.
The highlight of the day for Don was this Visitor's Center surrounded by snow. The day we were there was the first day the road was open. Some of it has washed out and is under construction. We were lucky.
Tomorrow we cross the Canadian Border and head to Calgary and Banff. Banff is supposed to be one of the most beautiful spots in the Canadian Rockies. Then will head north into the wilderness. Hopefully will get wifi here and there along the road.

I have to add just this one more note. I just met a lady from NY who flew to Seattle and is biking to Maine with a group of 9 people. She was a librarian in the Bronx and is now retired. They go 56 miles a day and then tent for the night. I am so impressed, and thanks to Uncle Scott for the book, "Younger Next Year" Think we had better get reading. By the way she is carrying an ipad on her journey.

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

We are spending some time in the Black Hills of South Dakota. You do not realize how vast our country is until you have crossed the Mississippi. Once across there are no more traffic jams, tolls, and all you have before you is a vast expanse of space. You can see the weather fronts coming way in the distance, and sometimes they look pretty scary. We have been caught in a couple of downpours but for the most part, the weather has been great. We have stayed put for a couple of days here in the Black Hills as there is so much to see; Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument still incomplete, Custer State Park, where you see all kinds of wildlife, some that we took photos of today. Tomorrow we are heading to the Devil's Tower National Monument. Remember "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?" It was the focal point of that movie. When you are here you really begin to feel quite patriotic. It's really a different world. Everyone has been very nice. An older man stopped by yesterday as we were setting up and gave us his pass into Custer State Park....saved us some money. He said he was leaving and didn't need it anymore. We plan to pass it on. We have made friends with a couple from Virginia who are on the road most of the year have been kind of following along our route. They wrote out a big long list of places to go and things to see on our trip through Canada and Alaska. We met a guy in the gift shop at Rushmore today. He's retired and so is his wife. They work in Theme Parks and National Parks, traveling back and forth between them summer and winter. They live in an RV full time. I also met a nice lady from Texas while doing laundry last night. She had lost her husband of 58 years, and met a man who had also lost his wife. They just got married and are traveling in an RV. She has never done this in her life. Very sweet and adventuresome don't you think? This photo of the buffalo with the birds on its back is my favorite of the day.

As I am sitting here writing this we are in the middle of another violent thunderstorm, pretty scary...hailstones pounding on the RV....hope we don't blow over. Guess it's better than a tornado.

Day 4 and More

Hi Everyone, Thanks so much for the great comments and for the people who have chosen to follow us.We have 10 followers and many more through e-mail contact. The photo to the left is the home of the Cleveland Indians taken through a window. I am updating this blog today from Utica, Illinois in a campground surrounded by corn fields. One of the best things I have done is join Passport America. You can stay at all of their affiliated camp sites for half price. On our first night out we stayed at a Camping World in Syracuse, NY. They let you stay there for free as they usually get business. The second night we stayed in a WalMart parking lot in Ashtabula, Ohio. Great spot right on the edge of Lake Erie...There is where we had our first mishap...our brand new generator bought in Topsham on the way decided to not work. Luckily, there was a Yamaha dealer within 9 miles and the next morning that was our job, get it fixed. They were extremely nice and we did not have to give them a dime. they just billed Yamaha and then we were on our way. It's a good thing we didn't have to pay them as many of our dimes were spent on tolls in New York and Ohio. We think we are past that now here in Illinois.

Today was our most eventful day. We were touring along Rte 90 and I noticed that we were nearing Elkhart, Indiana, home of the RV Hall of Fame. I convinced Don we were on an adventure as he would have driven by, but he reluctantly took the exit and we stopped for a visit. We were both glad we did. Elkhart, Indiana is the RV capital of the world. It was fun to see all of the very old vintage rv's that were used all the way back to the 1920's. The Caddy shown here was my favorite.

We left the RV Museum and then headed to South Bend. One cannot go by South Bend without a visit to Notre Dame. This has to be one of the most beautiful college campuses I have ever seen. We went to a small cafe for lunch and then walked the entire campus. The book store was my favorite. It was just like visiting a Barnes and Noble...two floors of everything Notre Dame. Some of the photos here I am posting for Brian Devins, our friend and a huge Notre Dame fan.
We are now experiencing central time. It was not dark last night til 9:30. Very warm, in the 80's, but a nice breeze. Bought Don Major League Baseball on the ipad for Father's Day. He is loving that. Happy Father's Day to everyone. I think we will be in South Dakota on Father's Day and hopefully I will post again.

We're Off

June 11, 2010:
We headed south at 3:30. First stop Topsham to buy a generator. That's a just in case item needed when staying at places without power...a necessary evil I call it. Our first two nights we will be staying at Scott's house. Our nephew is getting married next summer and we are attending an engagement party. We also have to get our last grandchildren fix before we head west. So our actual beginning of the trip will be on Monday. It's pretty nice here in Stratham, NH and I am liking the electricity and wifi that Scott is providing. He has a nice camp site here on his small cul de sac. After an engagement party, t-ball game, Daisy Scout ceremony, and lots of good-byes we will be off in the rain. We thought we might leave on Sunday and get a few miles down the road, but things took longer on Sunday than we anticipated so Monday is our actual date of departure. We hope to get into western New York. Our itinerary will keep us in the lower 48 until we reach Montana, and we have many stops planned along the way. I have to tell everyone, my new ipad is the best tool for travel. On it I will Skype and iChat and I have more apps for the trip than you can imagine, including one that lets us know where all of the free stays are on the way. I can also read a book, and I am playing Scrabble with about 12 people on any given moment, and when I want I can watch a Netflix movie. All in all I think we are all set...ready and raring to go.

Hurricane Bill

Not a good time to be in Atlantic Canada I guess. We are now at the mercy of the track of the hurricane. We are supposed to be on the ferry Sunday at 4:00 pm, but that might not happen depending on the weather. For now we are in Corner Brook, Don's checking on baseball scores, and I am updating the blog. We had a great three days in Gros Morne on the way down the island. Went to the southern part of the park near Trout River. Stayed at the Water's Edge RV Park right on Bonne Bay. The man who runs it was a former principal of the Trout River School. We had some great conversations while there. They also own the new Red Mantle Lodge where we had our second dinner out, and sat in a beautiful dining room with a spectacular view...shown here at the top.Don got in some trout fishing in a small brook, caught a few small trout and a couple of very small salmon, but the water there was very low this year. We drove all the way in to Trout River. What an isolated existence. They did have a post office and we mailed a couple of post cards home for the grand kids. We went on a hike through the Tablelands. That was spectacular as it's a part of the world where the earth's mantle is exposed where two continental plates crashed together and pushed up.
Another photo below is of the Torrent River Salmon ladder. We went down into a viewing chamber where they hold salmon so that they can count and check them each day as they wend their way up from the Atlantic to spawn. That was a highlight for Don. You got to look at the salmon up close and personal. We are winding our way down the Trans-Canada highway and will continually check with the ferry service to see if we can get off the island before the storm. The next to last photo shows the pitcher plant which is Newfoundland's national symbol so we were told. These we saw while on the Tablelands...so interesting....a carnivorous plant.

The Top of the World

Well, we have had quite a ride to the top of the world. At this moment we are sitting in the Visitor's Center of Gros Morne National Park where they offer free wireless. We spent yesterday at Lance Aux Meadows, a World Heritage Site, where it's commonly believed that the Vikings had a settlement in about 1000 AD, four hundred years before Columbus. It was a very interesting and worthwhile stop. The story behind the discovery of the ruins is fascinating. A couple in the late 60's were the ones instrumental in the discovery of the archeological site, and the evidence they found confirms that the Vikings were here. We stayed at a small park outside of the site, and I followed my friend Susan's advice and had lunch at the Northern Delight, our first meal in a restaurant so far on the trip. We are quite proud of ourselves as the only money we really have spent has been on gas, and that's quite pricey at 1.14 per liter. We also went to a small place called The Dark Tickle where I purchased Partridge Berry Jam and BakeApple Jam, also recommended by my friend. Although this road we are on is called The Viking Trail, I have decided to call this leg of the trip The Susan Stilwell Trail for Susan who has given us hints and advice. A local told us to skip the Partridgeberry Pie and go right to the Partridgeberry cheesecake, so we bought a piece to go and shared it for dinner. We stopped at a place called The Arches just above the park, and that's where I took the photo of the man we met from Ontario. He's motorcycling with three dogs in tow....unbelievable. I also included a photo of the couple who camped across from us with two cats on a leash. They were camping in a pup tent and carrying along theses cats. We have now reached another part of Gros Morne where Don plans to do some fishing. We are sitting in a lodge overlooking the most beautiful view we have seen to date. I will post that photo next time.