On the road in the Canadian Rockies

We spent 9 days in the Canadian Rockies– spending time in all four National Parks – Banff/Lake Louise, Yoho, Kootenay and Jasper. We had snow flurries on and off for the first four days and lots of the trails were still full of snow! Even Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are still frozen over – what a surprise for late May! I thought I was going to get a picture of Lake Louise with the beautiful blue/green color but the picture I took was all white! Apparently the trails aren’t snow free until late June! We saw lots of wildlife , beautiful scenery and had some nice long hikes ( we were able to find some trails that weren’t a foot deep in snow)!


Plus – the chief of maintenance has gotten a break - we’ve had 9 days of problem free travel !

Highlights of Banff/Lake Louise/Kootenay and Yoho

• Beautiful scenery at Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Emerald Lake and at our campground

• Wildlife – big horn sheep and elk

• Great hiking trails that Molly could go on too ( Canada National Parks allow dogs on the trails)

Highlights of Jasper National Park

• Icefield Parkway drive with lots of Glaciers

• More great hiking to beautiful turquoise blue lakes and thundering waterfalls

Click on the arrow to play the video of the loons - beautiful birds!

• Wildlife – black bears!

Next stop – Prince Rupert, British Columbia where we board the Alaska Ferry to travel through the inside passage of Southeast Alaska. We’ll spend the next week slowly meandering our way west on the Yellowhead Highway to Prince Rupert. It’s a road less travelled so we’re not sure what to expect – hopefully we’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Great Falls and Glacier National Park, Montana

We traveled from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Great Falls, Montana and on to Glacier National Park and also Waterton National Park ( the sister park in Canada to Glacier). Lots of wildlife sightings, beautiful scenery and waterfalls and history about Lewis and Clark and the indian tribes of the area.

We had yet another repair issue - it would be so boring if everything went smoothly! This time Rose had a coolant leak that Gary had to fix but fortunately it was just tightening the hose and adding more coolant that we brought along with us! As they say in Ireland - easy peasy, done and dusted!

Great Falls Montana

This was not a planned stop but turned out great! Getting there was a really long day - 11 and a half hours but fortunately the western scenery made it seem not as long....

Highlights

• Visited  Benton Lake Wildlife Refuge and saw thousands of migrating waterfowl.
• Stopped at the National Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and learned a lot about the 18 month expedition from St. Louis to the west coast.
• Went to the Great Springs State Park on the Missouri river - the largest spring and the shortest river in the US that flows into the Missouri - 210 feet long

Glacier and Waterton National Parks

The scenery is incredible here. Beautiful snow covered mountains, glaciers and waterfalls and wildlife too!

Highlights

• Going to the Sun scenic drive

• Hike to St Mary and Virginia Falls

• Beautiful views from the campground - "slightly" better than our normal vies at a Walmart parking lot! Plus a Really unusual off road RV that a Swiss family shipped to the US to travel in!


• Wildlife sightings

We have loaded up Scooter in Rose's garage for the drive up to the Canadian Rockies tomorrow to see Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper National Parks. The price of gas is double what it is in the US - ouch! Plus roaming costs and our Verizon broadband are really expensive to use in Canada so we'll be on the lookout for WIFI hotspots to update the blog!

Exploring the wild west in South Dakota

We left home on Monday, May 10 – one week ago today. We loaded up Scooter ( our Smart car) for the long ride cross country in Rose. Rose was anxious to get on the road again and so were we!

We spent two days on the road and drove 1,200 miles staying at Walmarts each night. We’ve already had a few “repairs” along the way and fortunately the master mechanic, Gary, was able to fix them on the road. We had a loose windshield wiper that was “drooping” – yes we’re STILL having windshield wiper issues even though we changed out the windshield wipers to a different kind ( supposedly more “sturdy!) , the generator kept cutting off and our mud flap on the back came loose on one side plus we lost one hub cap on Rose. We sure do hope that we don’t have this many problems the whole trip!

Our first fun stop was at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. We could see why it is called the Badlands. It’s a very desolate area – no wonder many of the pioneers that settled in the badlands moved on to better lands! It was truly the wild, wild west! I would have made a lousy pioneer – how did they survive without air-conditioning!

We spent two days in the Black Hills of South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park. We saw lots of animals - bison, pronghorn antelope, mountain goats, coyotes, prairie dogs, marmots and lovely scenery! Mt. Rushmore is quite impressive to see….. We tried to take a hike with Molly but the snow on the trails was still too deep - Molly was up to her chest in snow!

Now we’re on the road again, headed to Great Falls, Montana and then on to Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada!

North to Alaska!

After 6 months of planning and anticipation, we are almost ready to leave for our BIG trip to Alaska - 10,000 miles in "Rose" our motor home! The comforts of home ( like a dishwasher, washer and dryer and  just more space to spread out in)  will be missed but it's the trade off for having a home on wheels that takes us to beautiful places that we've never seen before!

Our new granddaughter Lyla arrives!
Our original plan was to start out on our trip to Alaska in mid April but when we found out that Anna and Drew were expecting another little girl in May ( our second granddaughter) we of course changed our plans to leave after the baby was born! Since then we've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new little granddaughter Lyla Elizabeth. She was born 3 weeks early on April 27 and she is adorable! Her "big sis" Emmy just loves playing with her baby dolls and since Lyla is just about the same size as the baby dolls, Emmy's delighted to have a little sister to hold!

We took care of Emmy while Anna and Drew were in the hospital. Emmy is talking up a storm. We're still trying to figure out what "con corny" is - she points and says it alot but we don't have a clue what she's talking about.  It's so much fun to be with her- she is so full of energy and gets excited by the littlest things - like a flower or the wind in her hair!


Drew, Anna, Emmy and Lyla. Lyla is one day old.

Molly making sure Emmy cleans her plate!

Now it's time to head north to Alaska!
So now we're back home finishing our packing and planning for our trip. We'll be travelling through the Midwest with our first stop in South Dakota to see the Badlands National Park and Mt. Rushmore. Then we'll head north through Montana to the Canadian Rockies for a few days and then west to Prince Rupert to catch the Alaska Ferry through the inside passage. We're planning 6 stops along the way to Skagway, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, Haines and finally Skagway.  At Skagway we'll be back on the road again heading north on the Klondike Highway through the Yukon and then into the main part of Alaska - Fairbanks, Arctic Circle, Denali National Park, Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula. This is the  longest we've ever been on the road and the furthest we've ever driven in "Rose" so it will be quite an adventure full of lots of unexpected surprises and challenges!

Gary has replaced Rose's windshield wipers with a new style - sure hope Rose adjusts to them and doesn't throw them off like the last ones! Fingers crossed! Plus we're taking extra fan belts, spare headlight bulbs, fluids for Rose, etc.

Molly is helping with the packing. Her list includes dog biscuits, treats, toys, food and she prefers us to leave the comb and clippers at home. And - she's also helping with the planning - well sort of!

Molly hard at work planning the trip!

Now there's the oil spill in the gulf that is expected to raise the price of gasoline to possibly $5 a gallon (we sure hope not, it's not in our budget) and who knows what else will happen while we are gone for 5 months - flexibility is key!

We're watching the weather forecast now so that we can scramble through tornado alley between big storms. It looks like sometime this weekend or early next week will be a window of opportunity! But first we have to get Molly's health certificate to get into Canada and finish our "to do" list!

We invite you to follow along as we travel through Canada and on to Alaska and back! Broadband is scarce in rural Alaska and the Yukon Territory so we'll update our blog whenever we can - hopefully every couple of weeks.