Road trip to Alberta - final post!

Seeing all there was to see in the Dickson area we headed north along country roads (avoiding the freeway) to Edmonton. Who can be that close to Edmonton and not stop in at the largest mall on earth?!

We left Ellen snoozing at the motel (catching up on some much needed sleep) while Glynn, Elda and I hit the mall. Its immense size paired with stores not found in the US of A and many amusement attractions make the Edmonton Mall a step more grandiose than any other mall. But, a mall is a mall is a mall. I'd much prefer to shop in unique stores in a quaint little town any day!

By afternoon, we were on the road heading west to Jasper National Park. Ellen wanted to head south, journeying to Montana via Medicine Hat where we would see Indians on horseback. She insists they use their horses for transportation to this day! We are relatively positive that these modern day Indians traded in their hay burners for gas burners many, many years ago....

Just outside the park we slowed down to accommodate this flock of bighorn sheep.

Words cannot describe the rugged beauty of the Canadian Rockies. (Nor can photos taken from a moving vehicle!) Rivers and lakes were turquoise blue due to what the guide book calls glacier flour. Glaciers cling to the sides of rugged mountainous peaks.



We spent the night in a rustic cabin along the roaring Athabasca River just outside of the town of Jasper.



It was chilly enough to enjoy a fire in the fireplace and we fell asleep to gentle rain only to awake to this in the morning!


Continuing south from Jasper, we soon entered Banff National Park. Not quite as rugged as Jasper but still gorgeous. The day was chilly and overcast but visibility was good enough to ride the gondola to the 7,500 ft level of the mountain where we were pelted by hail and gentle flakes of snow. Fall comes early in this neck of the woods!

Squint and you can see the famous Banff Springs motel.

The town of Banff reminds me of Leavenworth, Bavarian in flavor. We did not stop to mingle with the scores of tourists clogging the sidewalks but it's definitely a town worth exploring. We observed many foreigners in Jasper and Banff (tour buses full of them) and I realized that day that I, too, was a foreigner.

Journeying further south, we spent the night in Sandpoint, Idaho and completed our trip the following evening when the buggy pulled into Tumwater at around 6 pm.

All in all, it was an excellent trip. Ellen wants Glynn and I to buy the farm back from the county (to the best of my knowledge, it's not available for sale) and build a home there so the family can use it as a vacation spot! In a perfect world (and if we had more money than brains), it would be a lovely getaway from the mad rush of life as we know it. Quietness by a slow moving river in the middle of nowhere...... Anyone want to partner with us?!