You may have guessed by the scarcity of new blogposts here that Candy and I are having too much fun to blog. This post comes to you from Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta. It is contiguous with Glacier National Park just across the international boundary just south of here. We landed here after working our way down from Jasper and Banff, through the Kootinay National Park and on south to the US and Glacier National Park. They just opened the Going-To-The-Sun Road about a week ago, so we got to traverse the entire park. As spectacular as the scenery was, we’re actually happier to be back in Canada, where there are fewer tourists and regulations.
A camper at one of our campgrounds recommended Waterton Park, and we’re very happy we took his advice. Thi place is very different from Glacier in that the high plains of Alberta come right into this relatively narrow stretch of the Rockies, where they meet coastal weather systems and produce an unbroken carpet of wildflowers. Waterton is also home to grizzly bears, black bears, moose, mule deer, coyotes, wolves, cougars, rattlesnakes, wolverine and hoary marmots, all of which can ruin your day if you meet them on a blind corner.
This is day three for us, and we’ve already spotted a dozen bears (including a mother black bear and two cute cubs), a female moose and tons of mule deer. The deer are actually quite aggresssive and can attack and hurt you without provocation, whereas the bears, thankfully, will try to keep out of your way *if* they hear you coming. Our hikes so far have been uneventful bearwise, but we’ve been singing “Winnie the Pooh” very loudly as we walk along these impossibly beautiful pathways. An ounce of prevention….
Tonight may be our last night in Canada, or not, depending on whether we opt for another day or two. After that, it’ll be several marathon days of driving, as we try to clear the Plains as quickly as possible. We’re planning to go across US 2, all the way to Duluth and then spend a couple days in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan before turning the corner for the home stretch. We’ve scratched our original plan to visit Mt. Rushmore (been there, once was enough) in favor of the more scenic route. So, at this rate we will probably arrive back home in another ten days or so, no promises.
With any luck, I will produce a nice little retrospective slide show of our trip to post here once I get back to my main computer in PA. As much as we’d have loved to document the trip more frequently, it’s just been too big a hassle to manipulate images with the new computer, and we’ve been without internet or phone service in many of the places we’ve stayed. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Cheers from the cool and gorgeous Canadian Rockies! As much as we love home, we could stay here forever.