Long Road Home

 

For three great weeks with friends Brock and Leola on Spyder, Duane and I rode Screamin’ Eagle through some of Canada’s most wild and beautiful national parks.  Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay found us exploring what they had to offer.  It was plenty, but we never tired of it.  However, we had to go home to the US sometime, and that time was now.  Monday, August 1 we pulled out of our Hinton rv park for our last trip through Jasper National Park.  Once again we took the Ice Field Parkway, but this time in sunshine.  I was able to get better shots of the numerous glaciers and glacial remnants since they were on my side as we headed south.

Duane and I also appreciated all of the weird rock formations.  Looks like a reclining face to me.

One of the larger glaciers—Bow Glacier, with its resultant Bow River.

The granddaddy of glaciers, the Columbia Ice Field, source of the Columbia River headwaters, flowing beside the road. 

There is an excursion you can take onto the lower part of the floe.

From Jasper to Banff National Park was our first day.  We all spent one night in the same campground we used when we toured Banff National Park.  Next morning Duane and I had to say goodbye to our traveling companions of the last two months, as Brock and Leola were staying in a different town after we reentered the States. 

Banff was the next park we revisited as we continued south, then took 93 across the Continental Divide into British Columbia and through Kootenay.  Once we marveled at the snow fields,

tree-clad slopes,

and the beautiful Kootenay River.

In a previous post I remarked that we enjoyed our ride through this park, but decided not to go all of the way to its southern gateway town, Radium Hot Springs, because Duane was not feeling well and because the road was very bumpy from frost heaves and relatively flat.  After our picnic lunch, we returned north.  Big mistake!  If we had gone further we would have been wowed by some of the best motorcycling roads ever! 

If we had reached Radium Hot Springs we would have been prepared for the compactness of the town, and the amount of tourist traffic and would have been able to find the best place for us to refuel.  As it was, we picked the first one on the right.  After a really tight squeeze into a fuelling station (with, literally, two inches between us and the pump on one side and a van on the other), we managed to escape without mishap.  With a few ups and downs,

most of the rest of our Canadian trip was through upland valleys like the Columbia River valley,

past scattered hamlets and crossroads like Skookumchuck.  The two pix below show the whole place, not lying about the size or the name!  Just across the river was Ta Ta Creek but we couldn’t see it.  Check the map—they’re both there! 

We enjoyed our Canadian trip immensely and had great fun while we were there, but after two long days, we were glad to see the border.  We did our homework and made sure that we didn’t have any fresh vegetables or fruits, seeds, plants, etc. and nothing that we had bought in Canada like alcohol or tobacco.  After 17 minutes of waiting, we were passed through in about 3 minutes.

Yay!  No more metric system!

CA 95 turned into US 95 which ran with US 2 south to Bonners Ferry.  Surprise!  We left Mountain time for Pacific time!

At Sandpoint, where Brock and Leola were stopping, the road turned west, then went across the state line to Washington.  This sign was displayed with the street signs in the middle of Newport, which apparently sits on the state line.

We still had several miles to go to our Thousand Trails rv park, our home for the next week. 

Time for a rest!

Louise and Duane