We're in the Rockies!

(By the way .... Click on the pictures to make them huge! The panorama looks awesome.)
So we finally got our night in Elk Island, which was really great because after a nice hike we did an evening drive and saw a bunch of wild bison grazing the grass near the road. The next night we went about 3 hours north of Edmonton, to Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park, where we finally got to swim and hang out at a beach. (Until the storm rolled in that is). Then we headed a few hours west and spent a night at Hilliard's Bay Provincial Park, where it looked like it would rain, so Chris put up some tarps. However, it seems that his tarps are the magic touch, for whenever he puts them up, the skies clear and the sun shines!
We had to go back to Bev and Bill's for mail, and since that was a four hour drive south, and we had another four hour drive west to the Rockies, we were convinced by the both of them to stay the night and hang out with them. Done deal! Pizza and TV ... it was beginning to feel like home! But we headed out the next day, after a glorious brunch with Bev at Smitty's. And that was the day that Chris saw his very first mountains of the Rockies, as we did the amazing drive into Jasper National Park from Edmonton. It was so beautiful. We spent the night at Pocahontas Campground, and before going to bed that night we soaked up the views and the hot mineral waters at the Miette Hot Springs (where the water is so hot coming from the ground that they have to cool it by 16 degrees Celsius before it's even bearable!). The drive deep in to the mountains to get to the hot springs is marked as Chris' favorite road yet this trip!
Well rested (but very very cold) the next morning, we explored as much of Jasper as we could. We did an awesome drive to Maligne Lake, where there was a caribou hanging out at the side of the road ... it was massive! At the lake we did a really nice hike, and once we were done we drove to the town of Jasper (where the caribou were roaming everywhere and eating the shrubs out of people's lawns) and had a picnic lunch in the park. That night we stayed at Wapiti Campground, and yet again it was a night that required toques, double layers, and an extra blanket.
The next morning, after hot hot showers, we started our drive down the Icefields Parkway, which was surrounded by stunning views everywhere we looked. We did a drive down a nice quiet road called Edith Cavell, where we saw our first grizzly bears!! ... From the safety of our car. It was a really amazing moment, because they are such powerful creatures it's hard not to be in awe of them. We continued south to the Lake Louise area of Banff National Park, where we did a (crowded) hike around the Athabasca Falls, and stopped at a picnic area to have some lunch. Farther south, we did a short but steep hike up to the Athabasca Glacier, which was so awesome. They had signposts to show where the glacier had been over the last hundred years, and even as late as the fifties it was where our car was parked. That night we stayed at Waterfowl Campground, which had its own awesome little walk over a bridge and around the forest. The views were so incredible ... it was impossible to get used to seeing such immense and overwhelming nature.
In the morning we continued south, and decided to check out the Bow Glacier. It turned out that it was the same place Katie and her family had spent hours checking out many years ago on their trip through the Rockies, and yet again it was stunning. We were really lucky with our timing on getting there, because when we arrived there was absolutely no wind, which turned the glacial lake into a perfect mirror of the mountains around it. Then, within minutes, the breeze picked up and the lake rippled, showing off its unbelievable turquoise colour. Finally we moved on, and we spent the afternoon hiking around both Lake Louise and Morraine Lake, both of which were ridiculously beautiful and perfect. Over and over again, we marveled at the amazing ways that nature worked. We stayed at Lake Louise Campground that night, where we had a relaxing evening of pasta, a campfire, scrabble and tea.
Today we were on the move again, and we decided to take the much more relaxed route on the Bow Valley Parkway (1A), where the speed limit was way lower and the people had time to cruise. (We got a little tired of aggressive vacationers who forgot they were there to relax ... people kept passing us on the Icefields Parkway when we were going the limit and enjoying the views. Didn't they notice what was around them? ... Yes, yes, we sound old). We did a 5.5 km hike to the Johnston Canyon and back (another nostalgic moment for Katie!), which had several beautiful waterfalls and was surrounded by an old, quiet, peaceful forest. We set up camp at Two Jack Campground about 20 minutes east of the town of Banff, and right now we are in the town making good (and much needed) use of their laundromat and internet cafe.
So far, amazing. We are loving the Rockies and the views all around us, and even though we wish we were billionaires and could do all the amazing and very expensive tours (rafts and horses and helicopters and so on), the best part about nature is that walking through it and marveling at its beauty is still free.

More Amazing Alberta

Wow, it's been a while since we updated this! A lot has gone on, but we will try to keep it as condensed as possible.
We went to Livingstone Falls as planned last Monday, where we were met by rain and near freezing temperatures, not to mention hail the next morning. That was the coldest it has been for us so far ... we were in many layers of clothes at night, including toques and snowboard socks and still it was numbingly cold! We stayed there for two nights, and then drove north to McLean Creek Camper Centre, in Kananaskis Country, along the way seeing herds upon herds of rams. We were happy to get back on pavement as we neared McLean, but the trade-off for such civilized things was that we were in RV country, where the sites were gravel and the privacy was nonexistent. We were staying there for three days, which made all of those things feel unbearable, but it was the only campground in the region with showers (even though they were $2.00 for five minutes!), and we wanted to be close to Calgary for the Stampede. On Thursday we went to Calgary to see their Science Centre's Body Worlds exhibition, (the picture on that link is one of the things we saw, and it's a real body) which was absolutely amazing. We were blown away by what we saw, and stayed there for hours looking at many variations of real bodies of people who had donated themselves to science. Unreal!
The next day was the one we had been waiting for ... the Calgary Stampede! (<-- such a cool picture! We were sitting under where it said "Calgary Stampede"). We got gold seating tickets for both the afternoon Rodeo and the evening Grandstand Show, and in between toured the city a little bit and ate at Milestone's on their famous Stephen Ave. pedestrian walkway. It wasn't entirely pedestrian at one point: a very confused young tourist and her sister, both slurping their Booster Juices, tried to turn from the "sidewalk" part of the street to the "road" part, crushing the passenger door into a fixed metal garbage container. As she tried to back up, she ended up denting and scratching the entire length of her car, getting so stuck a passerby had to take over and drive the car for her all the way out of the street (yeesh, tourists eh?).
Anyway, the Stampede actually lived up to its claim of being "the greatest outdoor show on Earth" ... we were amazed by the Snowbirds, the Rodeo itself, the four motorbikes criss-crossing each other in a huge metal ball while more did tricks in the air above them, girls doing triple back flips onto balance beams that were no wider than their feet being carried by men beneath them, the hundreds of dancers, the fireworks .... it was incredible. The whole day was so great, we thought it would be a once in a lifetime experience but now we want to go back for sure!
The morning after the Stampede, we left MacLean Creek suffering from a major excitement hangover after so many quiet weeks of camping. We spent a long time at a Mazda Dealership getting a few things fixed up, and by the time we left at 5:30 pm it was pouring. We drove several hours to Elk Island National Park, just east of Edmonton, where upon arrival at 10 pm we found out that they had no sites left, nor did any park within a 2 hour range. Uh oh! We ended up having to make a nervous late night call to Chris's cousin Bev, who lives north of Edmonton in Fort Saskatchewan, to ask if we could start our visit a night early. She and her husband Bill were the best! They took us in and made us feel right at home, and we even got to sleep in a real bed! They also have two amazing dogs, Mabel and Chubby, who made us feel nice and loved and welcome, for a fair trade of hugs and petting. The next day, we checked out Edmonton a little bit, and even got to see Jake Raynard, a friend of Chris's from high school. He and his wife Mia own a tea shop downtown called Cha Island Tea Co., which was so cool, and we made plans to get together there the next day (his only day off in a month!!!). That night we made Bev a steak dinner, which Bill couldn't join because he is in the Military and was working a 13 hour (!!) shift that night.
The next morning we checked out the infamous West Edmonton Mall which was wilder than we could have imagined: it looked like they squeezed all of the Canada's Wonderland roller coasters into the "play area" of the mall! Feeling overwhelmed by it all we left in a daze, forgetting to even see the zoo part which we were so excited about. We saw Jake after that and had a blast at his closed shop, playing Settlers of Catan (which helped us greatly ... we were having major withdrawal since playing it addictively in Thornbury!) and eating Belgian Waffles that are a part of his menu and so delicious. It was such a great day .... topped off with a great Mexican Dinner back at Bev and Bill's with their friends and their two dogs as well.
We were going to leave yesterday to head back into the camping world, but after about 3o straight hours of rain we realized it might be best to extend our stay under a roof. So instead of setting up a tent on saturated ground, we lay on the couch and had a completely relaxing day of doing absolutely nothing except watch TV (a first in so long!). It was great to have a chance to relax like that with Bev and Bill too, since the days before had been so busy. We finally got to sit around in our pj's and enjoy each others' company.
Today it's back to the camping adventures, and we are headed out to try Elk Island National Park for a second time. Hopefully they will have a site for us this round!
(PS we put up new pictures again ... still in the same Facebook album as last time so scroll through to the new ones!)
(PPS you don't need Facebook to check these out!! ... we thought we should clarify that since we had a few questions about it)
Here's the link! (CLICK THIS).

Pictures Again

Click Here .... for more pictures. The ones on pages 1-3 were there already, we just added some more after them. Enjoy!

Canada Day Week

The park we headed to after the last post (Kinbrook) was crazy busy. It was a sign of what was to come in the two weeks on either side of the Canada Day long weekend, especially since school is all finished now. In any case, we ate an awesome stir-fry and enjoyed a good sunset, surrounded by the soothing sounds of generators and many many people.
We went to Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park the next day, which only had 4 sites left by the time we got there, but somehow we got the best one in the grounds according to the lady at the desk. Sweet! We went on a great hike through the Hoodoos, and a landscape similar to the Badlands, where we saw so many deer grazing across the river, including wee little babies, and then we got to watch the male deer fend off some hungry coyotes as they tried to get down into the valley. Eventually, the coyotes gave up, but they gave us quite the show which was pretty awesome. Another deer on our side of the river also walked up to Chris (about 10 feet away) and didn't care at all that we were there. He just kept on munching the grass and cruising by.
The next morning was Canada Day. We had done some research and found out that Waterton National Park, in the far southwest end of Alberta, had a large campground of first-come-first-serve. So we packed up and headed out to get there by 11:30 am - two and half hours before check-in was even allowed. When we showed up, we were stopped and turned around because the entire park was already full for the whole weekend - and it was only Thursday morning! We were pretty disappointed because we had heard good things about that park, but in any case we started northward and stopped in Pincher Creek for gas. And while we were there, we actually got McDonald's - our first fast food of the trip (not including good old Canadian Timmy's). This town would get winds of 120 kms an hour and would last up to 20 days, so Chris was told by a new friend he met in line at McDonald's. Katie also bought a few things at Walmart to cheer us up, like Doritos and magazines. She was really excited about one magazine, because Chris loves trucks and cars, but when she pulled it out of the bag we realized it was an Extreme Radio Control Car magazine!! That definitely gave us both a laugh. It was a magazine on how to personalize and pimp out remote control cars!
We drove past two more campgrounds, both of which had signs in the front saying they were full. We were starting to think that we would be spending the weekend in our car. Finally, after a series of happenstance turns (Chris turned right instead of planned left because the van in front of us was driving like an idiot, for example), we ended up at Castle Falls Provincial Recreation Area. (Check out the pictures and also where we were on the map!) We didn't even know that Recreation Areas had camping, but this one said it did and so we checked it out. We saw one site open, and we almost called it a day right there and set up we were so excited, but we decided to keep looking. We even went over to the next grouping of sites, and there we found the best site we could possible imagine. It was 20-30 metres from the rushing rapids of beautiful Castle River (the picture on the top right is our backyard), surrounded by forest and hills, and there was really only one campsite within our sight. It was perfect! We set up right away, then drove back to town to make out first beer purchase of the trip. It was Canada Day, after all. We relaxed in the sun, and explored the rapids, and eventually met our neighbours. They were Craig and Anne-Marie, from Newfoundland, and they had moved to that area three years ago. We ended up hanging out around their fire later that night, chatting and laughing and having an amazing ending to an amazing Canada Day. It was awesome!
We spent the next three nights at that sight (although our fun neighbours left the next morning), since we knew that we weren't likely to find anything anywhere else, especially that nice. It got very very cold at night (about 4 degrees), and the days didn't warm up much past 15, but that was because we were in an area that got sprinkled with a tiny bit of rain every morning and was under the weather influence of some very big mountains nearby. We checked out the waterfall down the road, and played lots of Scrabble, and read, and just relaxed all weekend long. It was perfect. There was definitely action going on around us (one guy chainsawed himself in the leg on Friday, and we drove by police and a helicopter landing in a field on Sunday), but it was all out of earshot from us so we just got to enjoy the roaring of the water in our backyard.
Yesterday we moved on, and although we went to Park Lake Provincial Park first, the wind was so bad we wouldn't have been able to set up our tent. So we drove all the way back from near where we came from and went to Oldman River Provincial Recreation Area. Turns out all Recreation Areas are not made equal - our campsite had a stunning view of the garbage, the outhouse, and the highway bridge, while the roar of the water from the weekend got replaced with the rumble of trucks going by all night. We had thought it would be fun to check out the central region of Alberta, but we realized the parks just don't have much to offer so back we go into the foothills of the Rockies.
Today we went to Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, which is a World Heritage Site that preserves the area where the Plains Indians would corral hundreds of Buffalo at a time and then scare them into stampeding over a cliff to their deaths. It has over 9,000 years of history that has been found in the form of bones and tools, and it was an amazing place. We ended up staying there for two and a half hours, as we explored the histories of the people and the land. We are staying in Livingstone Provincial Recreation Area tonight, and the next two nights are yet unknown. By the 8th, however, we will be up near Calgary (don't worry, we reserved a site Jen!), because we have got ourselves tickets to the Calgary Stampede on the 9th - both the rodeo and Grandstand evening show. It should be a blast, and we just found out Katie's cousin Martin will be there around the same time so hopefully we will be able to meet up. In the meantime, it's time to explore the foothills of the mountains.