May 27, 2014 ? Day 7
Up and out the door early this morning, we even set the alarm to go off at 6:30 AM. Too bad I didn?t make sure it was set for AM or we might still be lying in bed waiting for it to go off. I?ll make sure next time not to set it for PM. Still we were on the road for a long days drive up to Lake Louise, about 350 miles. Had to drive about 30 miles to the border crossing. No problems there. Headed north on Hwy 4 to Lethbridge and we past a guy riding a bike and about a mile down the road was a Monk with an orange-ish robe, bald head and sandals, just walking down the highway, very strange. Then onto Hwy 3 to Fort McLeod. I offered to give Jim a break from driving and took over about the time we hit Hwy 2, north to Calgary. Scenery about the same as the plains of Colorado, pasture land and some rolling hills and no rain or construction, yeah. About 5 Kilometers or 3 miles from Nanton, Alberta, we blew a tire on the Trail Blazer. I had moved over to the passing lane to give a car on the side of the road some breathing room and there was this metal object in the road, I avoided it with WeBe, but not the Trail Blazer. I was having difficulty with the steering and Jim thought it might be a belt that broke. Then I saw smoke out the back. Pulled to the side of the road. Boy, did I annihilated the front driver side tire. There was a gentleman by the name of Ken who stopped to help. He was a retired tow truck driver. We couldn?t get the spare tire to drop down from underneath the car and finally called AAA. Ken sat with us in WeBe because the mosquitoes were having a heyday with us. We told him he didn?t need to stay with us but he said since his wife died he had plenty of time. He told us stories about panning for gold, meeting Walt Disney, who gave him his card and said if he was ever in CA, come to Disneyland. This all took place in the 1960?s. Well, he and a cousin went on a road trip down to Mexico and on the way back up to Alberta they stopped at Disneyland. It was closed that day, but he said he called up Walt and he took them in and let them have a look around. We were glad to have his company while we waited for AAA.
Got the tire changed and headed for the nearest tire store to replace the tire. By this time, I am a mess. I had stood on the side of the road with semi?s whizzing past as my husband laid under the car wrestling with that stupid spare tire. Oh, we also had to undo the bikes that are on the back of the Trail Blazer to open the back to get to the device to drop the spare from underneath the back. I never said so many prayers at one time. Went to Integra Tires, small little operation and they only had one particular brand of tire to fit the Trail Blazer, $495 CA later and a total of 3 hours we were on our way again. Oh those little bumps in the road so many told us about. To be honest, I am done with bumps in the road for a while.
We finally make it into Calgary but directions were not the best and when we got off the Deerfoot Trail, which was another name for Hwy 2 and tried to find the exit for Hwy 8, the exit sent us going east. I know we have had a stressful day but I thought we were supposed to be going west. A few exits later we were able to turned around and heading towards Banff/Lake Louise. We passed the Canada Olympic Park, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988. It was really cool to see the ski jumps and a couple of arena?s. Now we are making progress. We can see the Rocky Mountains ahead of us. We start climbing some hills and I see a sign at the bottom of a very short exit that says ?Texas Gate?. A few miles down the road and there it is again and the only thing I can see is a cattle guard. We also saw signs for ?Watch for Pedestrians on Highway?, once again, strange.
We are about to Banff and we are seeing all these beautiful snow covered mountains skirting along the highway. You could almost visualize the glaciers of long ago. There was one particular peak that Jim said it reminded him of a scoop out of an Igloo. That doesn?t mean much to anyone but the Ryan Family. Igloo?s are a very special Christmas dessert that is made with chocolate wafers and whipping cream. We also passed under several of these tunnels that were specially built for wildlife to cross this 4 lane highway. I?ll try to down load a picture or two.
We now arrive at the entrance to Banff National Park. It is official, we are in the Canadian Rockies. That is after we pay the $58.50 park pass.
We drive onto Lake Louise to the campground. The entrance building is closed and we figured out that you pick a sight and then come back to pay and give them your camp site number, which ours is #37. Now though we can?t find any potable water. The area designated for this, the water is turned off. After asking numerous people, who must have come into the campground with plenty of water, no one knew where we could get water. Finally found a washroom that had a hose and we just hooked up and filled up. Even though this is an electric site, they are turning off the power from 8 PM to 4 AM. Great, no O2 for me tonight. Hope we have electricity tomorrow night.
I am tired and ready for a glass of wine. TTFN