Traveling the USA

Today is day #200 of our trip. No wonder I'm homesick.

We take our time packing up this morning.

Before leaving the Traveler's Oasis Campground in Moose Jaw this morning, we walk across the road to Moose Jaw's claim-to-fame: the largest moose in the world. Bruce the Moose is showing his age, but we check him out and take some pictures.

They are collecting funds to maintain the very tall moose. Jere contributes the rest of our Canadian coins to the fund. It's our last day in Canada, so no need for Canadian coins after today.

Lots of farmland scenery today on our drive south from Moose Jaw (Saskatchewan, Canada) to Minot, South Dakota. I'm still enjoying looking at the farmland and the many grain elevators.

Our border crossing back to the states is uneventful, but takes longer than any other border crossings. We answer all the usual questions about alcohol and firearms and ground beef, but this time the border guard asks for our trailer keys and inspects the inside of our trailer. Not sure what he was looking for, but after a few minutes he comes back and gives our keys back. He then tells us to drive up to a different guard who has us slowly drive through a special scanner of some kind. We drive through the scanner and then wait a few minutes for them to give us the final okay to drive away.

Another gorgeous day with good weather, so when we arrive at the Roughrider campground in Minot, South Dakota we spend all evening outside. Joe even gets Jere to play soccer with us in the field across from our campsite.

What a wonderful drive today. I expected the drive across the Canadian prairie to be boring, but it was a very enjoyable drive.

We started the day by packing up and taking a short drive to Medicine Hat's claim-to-fame: the worldn't largest teepee. The teepee was built for the Calgary Winter Olympics and then moved to Medicine Hat. It looks really tacky from the highway, but up close it is a very interesting structure.

We then start our drive across the prairie. We see buffalo and antelopes, but mainly we see lots of farms and grain elevators.

It's a beautiful day, so we have a picnic lunch at a nice roadside rest.

Our other long stop for the day is at Reed Lake, where we look for birds and enjoy the scenery.

We arrive at our campground in Moose Jaw before dinner and have a quick swim at their indoor pool and waterslide before dinner. Jere and Joe spend the evening at the waterslide, while I relax in the trailer. My stomach isn't feeling so good -- I think the loopy waterslides got the best of me this afternoon :-(

Our last day in Banff and Jasper national parks, so of course this morning the sky is blue with no clouds anywhere. I take a short walk in the morning. I never realized that there is a beautiful mountain behind the campground.

It's time to start heading home. We want to be home in time for Joe to start school the end of August.

We have ten days to get home and 2500 miles to drive, so we’re driving 250 miles each day. But before we start our first 250 mile drive today, we decide to drive up to see Lake Louise one more time. Some clouds move in by the time we get up to the lake, but the lake is still pretty.

Then a long day of driving. We drive past Banff and look at the mountain scenery that was hidden by the rain on Friday when we were here.

The drive is uneventful, except for some minor trailer brake issues. The scenery is okay, but nothing special after we leave the Banff area.

However, it is close to 90 degrees fahrenheit today. We are not used to this heat! It was below freezing less than 48 hours ago. What a change!

We stop in Medicine Hat, Alberta for the night at the municipal campground, Gas City Campground. Nice campground. We unhook, have dinner and then get some groceries and gas. We make a few phone calls, go for a walk around the campground and then watch the first Harry Potter movie on tv.

The temperature was below freezing last night and it snowed on top of mountains! It's August! I take a walk around the campground this morning with a winter coat, hat and gloves -- but I'm still cold.

It is very foggy this morning, but by the time we drive up to Lake Louise, the fog begins to lift.

We're taking a long hike today in the Lake Louise area. As we start up the Lake Agnes trail, most of the fog lifts off the lake and we get a view of gorgeous Lake Louise.

We were here 15 years ago for one day and I remember it as being the most beautiful place that I've ever seen. We were fortunate to have a crystal clear blue-sky morning that day and very early in the morning the lake was as smooth as ice. Simply beautiful. So I am looking forward to our hike with views of the lake and area glaciers.

As we hike up the Lake Agnes Trail, we meet a couple from Canmore (a city about 20 miles south of Lake Louise) who must be close to 80 years old. We will cross each other's paths all day with this couple -- they are almost in better shape than we are. I hope that I am capable of a strenuous hike when I'm their age. I really enjoy talking and joking with them throughout the day.

We hike up the Lake Agnes Trail to Mirror Lake and take a break to enjoy the view. Big Beehive mountain is the mountain behind Mirror Lake. After our hike up to Lake Agnes, we will continue our hike around the lake and up to the top of Beehive Mountain.

After our break, we continue on toward Lake Agnes.

We finally make it up to Lake Agnes.

We find a place with a great view of the mountains and eat our lunch.

After lunch we continue our hike around Lake Agnes. The lake is very picturesque, with a teahouse at the end (near where we had our lunch). There are many others at the lake today and the teahouse is filled with people drinking hot chocolate, coffee and tea. The teahouse was built many years ago when the park was trying to encourage tourists to visit. It's rustic, but pretty. Jere has no interest in it, but Joe and I take a peak inside.

After we get around Lake Agnes, we head up the trail, with it's many switchbacks, to the summit of Big Beehive. We take a break at every switchback to catch our breath -- the view is incredible at every switchback. Here's a view of Lake Agnes from halfway up the mountain:

And here's a view of the distant snow-covered mountains from the trail:

We finally make it to the top of Big Beehive and the view is absolutely incredible! We sit on a rock ledge and enjoy the view of Lake Louise while we eat the rest of our lunch. That's Chateau Lake Louise at the left end of the lake.

There's also an old shelter at the top of the mountain where several people are relaxing. We spend some time talking with several people and enjoying the views. And taking lots of pictures.

We eventually leave the top of Big Beehive and head toward the Trail of Six Glaciers. The views of the glaciers above Lake Louise are wonderful as we hike down the mountain.

As we're taking a break to look at the various glaciers, we hear a roar and realize the the one glacier is calving off big chunks of ice. Very cool to see.

It's a long hike, but we finally get down the mountain and take a trail that leads to the far end of Lake Louise.

We again take lots of pictures of Lake Louise.

We only hiked about 7 miles, but the trails were somewhat steep and strenuous, (and we took many breaks to enjoy the scenery) so it is almost 5pm when we return to the car. We really enjoyed the trails. The scenery was incredible. There were a lot of people on the Lake Agnes Trail and the Trail of Six Glaciers--and they were from all over the world. We must have heard at least 8 different languages being spoken. Surprisingly we didn't meet anyone else from the U.S.

We're tired but decide to drive over to Morraine Lake anyway. It's a pretty lake, but it's getting late and we're tired so we don't spend much time there.

We then go back to the trailer and collapse for the evening.

We have breakfast and then pack up the trailer to move it from the overflow campground to the regular campground at Lake Louise. Another night of rain again, sometimes very heavy. Plus it is really cold today. The TV weatherman informs us that we’re in the coldest town in Canada this morning! Winter coats today and it’s the middle of August :-( It stays in the 40s all day!!!

The Lake Louise campsite isn’t as nice as the Jasper Whistler campsite, but we do have electric here. The worst part is that there is a very busy train track only about 50 feet away from our campsite.

We drive the Bow Valley scenic highway to Banff. Clouds and rain, so not very scenic. Nice hike back to a waterfall in Johnson Canyon--it even stops raining for hike :-)

We see a large elk beside the highway and there is a very large crowd of people surrounding the elk taking pictures. I guess they didn't see the signs saying to stay 3 bus lengths away from the elk :-)

Banff city is a mess.

Lots of cars and the main street is completely closed with construction, but we finally find a place to park. We do some shopping and have dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Good warm food in a warm restaurant – it pours down rain while we eat, so we have a nice leisurely dinner. The only bad part of dinner is when the waiter informs us that prior to this week they had 4 weeks of sunshine. We didn't really need to know that.

After dinner we drive out to Surprise Point to view the famous Banff Springs Hotel.

It’s drizzling so it is a quick stop, as most stops are today in the rain. Then we drive out to the Cave and Basin National Historic Park, the site of the first Canadian national park. The inside museum has already closed but we can walk around the outside to see the original hot springs resort. They also have a boardwalk leading to the original hot springs above the resort.

We also drive around town on the Tunnel Mountain Road with a few quick stops. The rain and low clouds are putting a damper on what is supposed to be a beautiful town.

Then back to the trailer to play a game of Life and bedtime.