Burns Lake, BC

Thursday, June 24
Jasper, AB to Burns Lake, BC

New name, same blog.

Jasper, AB
Nice little town in the center of Jasper National Park.














Our B & B, but no breakfast.
We supplied our own Frosted Flakes.















Some groceries, and back on to the road.
Several more hours of mountains, but not quite as high and rugged today.
Crossed into British Columbia.






































We're now on Pacific Time - three hours behind Middlebury.
Next will be Alaska time, four hours behind.

Alberta and British Columbia seem to be a well kept secret.
Beautiful country. Maybe it's because I'm on vacation but the people seem nicer and everything seems a little cleaner up here. Alberta even has a 10 cent deposit on the paper milk cartons. They probably don't really want that many Americans around here mucking up the place.



Came upon Moose Lake. But alas, no moose.
Tally of sightings so far:
Bears: 1
Moose: 0
Mounties: 0
Moose warning signs: 30+

At Prince George, BC we had to decide which way to head north to the Alaskan Highway.
North from there to Dawson Creek area or farther west and up Route 37 to join the Alcan near Watson Lake.
We opted for the more remote route to the west.
Called ahead and reserved a B&B in Burns Lake, BC.
Turns out the couple who owns the house are of Mennonite heritage. He is a Nickel and she was a Wiebe. They say there are plenty of Mennonites in the area including some she described like Amish although we didn't use that word yet. We'll get into it more at breakfast.

At about Kitwanga, BC we will turn north on route 37 on the Cassiar Hwy and eventually join the Alcan near Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. That will be a long and remote trip, but we are promised to see plenty of moose among other things. A couple of people have suggested we diverge over to Stewart, BC and step into the lower pan handle area at Hyder, Alaska, then back to 37 and on north. That's what I would like to do, but we'll see how time permits.

There is a resort at Bell II (which doesn't make the map) half way up to the Yukon that seems to be the only accomodations in the area at that time we pass through there.

We'll see how things go.

Banff & Jasper Parks

Wednesday: 6-23-10
This is Banff, Alberta. A lovely little tourist town among the Canadian Rockies.
We stayed here Tuesday night and half of Wednesday.
First thing in the morning we went to the gondolas that take you up the top of a mountain. Kernal mustered the courage to ignore motion sickness, etc. to take the ride to the top. Those little specks in the picture are the gondolas on the cable.























Then we had a picnic lunch on a mountain side overlooking Banff. It was quite a view. There were also of course 5 carloads of Japanese with their rice cooker having lunch at the same lookout. I think I saw Julie Andrews skipping over the grass with a bunch of kids singing something about the hills.


Then on the road. A day of spectacular scenery all the way.






















This dude and a buddy like him were riding from Argentina to Prudhoe bay. One had been at it for two years. That's a German flag on the back. The other one was Italian.

This is an animal overpass. It's covered in sod and trees for animals to cross from side of the 4 lane to the other. The road is fenced off otherwise. They have dozens of these along the way.

We drove through the Icefields Parkway all afternoon, and got to Jasper, AB about 8 or 9 in the evening. A little cruising around and we found a nice B & B for half the price of the going rate in town. Actually our no reservations approach to accomodations has worked fine so far. And B & B's are great.

The highlight at the end of the day was our first bear sighting. Actually more of a glimpse as he crossed a road, but it was official. Kernal declared at that point that she was NOT sleeping in the van that night.

Thursday, on to Prince George, BC and on into some more remote country. Maybe all the way to the beginnings of the Alaskan Hwy.

So far about 2100 miles.

Calgary & Beyond

Had to get a coffee at the Canadian McD's. For 2 cents more I got an excellent bran muffin in the deal. Can you believe it? Something healthy and tasty at McDonalds? And there was none of that yellow McGlop they call cheese.

Then out of town and back over the prairie. Grain bins and wheat fields as far as you could see, which is a long, long way.






Then into the thoroughly modern city of Calgary. Indistinguishable from an upscale neighborhood near Columbus, OH only much cleaner.
I took a nap for 45 minutes or so while Kernal drove toward Banff, and woke up to huge granite mountains.

Cruised around the town of Banff looking for a room.
Again a cleaner, more upscale version of someplace like West Yellowstone. Touristy but not tasteless.
Found a decent, cheap B & B for the night.
Better pictures tomorrow.

B & B #1, Glendive, MT 6/21

Monday,June 21 We pushed on to Glendive, MT late Sunday evening. I found a great Bed and Breakfast on the map, called them and got a room.


An old sheep ranchers mansion, now a B & B. Sourdough pancakes and all for breakfast.
Then on over the prairie of Montanna all day and to the border at Sweetwater, MT about 10:30 PM our time.

The crossing was anticlimactic. Passports and about 5 questions, and we were through. We had to stop for the mandatory picture.
I changed the units of measure to metric on my map program, and we were then going 109 KPH all the way ( 93km) to Lethbridge, AB where we got a salad and some sushi to take to the Comfort Inn for the night. I discovered that my laptop wasn't going to let me online at the motel, so I had to move on to Kernal's computer ( #3) which is working just fine.

Tuesday we will make it into the Canadian Rockies and Banf National National Park.

The Magic Bus

Due to a lack of cooperation between my computer and this blogging program, updates to this blog have been delayed ( and extremely frustrating ). Hopefully this post and others will eventually make it out to our eager followers. We'll see...

6:30 PM Friday: The target departure time came with me being the one not ready rather than Kern. Also about 7PM we were hit by the mother of all thunder storms which surprisingly did no real damage, but did take out our power until the next morning. Thus an additional 12 hour delay.

Meet Grzegorze, the Magic Bus, our mobile companion for the next 3 weeks.

By mid-afternoon we were finally “ready”. After a champagne kick off, we finally rolled out of the driveway about 3:07 PM.

After our first van "camp out", we dined at McD's near Eau Claire, WI.
You can see the feet of "She-who-must-not-be-named" ( this IS unauthorised ) at the back of the van.

Here she is at the helm.

Lunch at Charlie's, Freeport, MN where Garrison Keeler used to sit at the counter and write material for his earlier radio programs.
Someday this program and I will get along better and this will look better. For now, I'm going to bed.

The Lunch Party

12:12 AM, Harborcreek, PA

GOING LIVE ! It's a launch. My blog is up - I think .

Sitting in a truckstop in PA I'm feeling like doing anything but driving right now, but that won't get me home in the morning.

This blog has not been authorized by Kernal, hence the name. She has however seen the blog so it is no longer a secret. All are welcome.

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