Happy Trails...as we head home

We were pretty sad that our trip was ending. We enjoyed Canada's fall colors that we will not see for a long time in Texas.
We'll miss waking up to this scene in our campgrounds. And the smells--the cool crisp air with the burning wood. The best!
We'll miss all the trees (pine, birch and aspens) that we don't have back home. And the sounds of the wind blowing through the tops of the pine trees will not be forgotten!
We didn't think it could happen, but we really were able to fit all of our luggage and people in the minivan after we returned the RV! There were 8 duffle bags, 7 back packs, 3 large boxes, and miscellaneous "stuff" that we packed in just about every nook and cranny.
The van was ridin' pretty low with everyone and everything in it!
Back on the plane...
...back to reality!Ah, home!

Glacier National Park (Montana)

Since our RV was too long, we rented a minivan to go up Going to the Sun Highway to Clements Mountain through Logan Pass.

We took a 3-mile hike through slush and snow to see Hidden Lake. Since we normally don't see much snow here in Texas, our kids had to spend a little time messing around. Then Joe mentioned, "Hey, kids! We haven't played in the snow since...JUNE!" That was during our trip to Colorado. For Texans, our kids have played in a lot of snow!

Then it started. Kathleen may now regret that she sent this first snowball Jimmer's way...
...because it came right back to her
again...
and again...
...until she had to do something to stop it.
Tackling him took care of it--for a few minutes anyway!
Hidden Lake
Here's a "Where's Bighorn?" picture. (Click on the photo to enlarge.)Can you find the bighorn sheep somewhere in this picture?

Meeting up with bears seemed so theoretical...until they crossed our hiking path!

While we were still in Waterton National Park, we hiked in Red Rock Canyon to Blakiston Falls.

Doesn't this look like a place where bears would be looking around for berries before they hibernate for the winter?
Oooh, sure enough! There were two black bears on our path! Don't worry--Joe wasn't holding hands with one of them (see above picture). That's just Jimmer wearing his black lumberjack hat!

We were coming back from our hike from the falls when Kathleen and I spotted a black bear about 50 feet ahead of us. We swiftly turned around to meet the rest of our family on the path. I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a picture of it as it stood there looking at us, probably just as surprised as we were! So, after we stepped back another 50 ft or so, I took this picture as it was heading off the hiking trail.As is turns out, the two black bears were a momma bear and cub. They were in no hurry (and thankfully more interested in finding berries), so we had to wait on the path and visit and make a little noise until they decided to move back into the woods. Since we were quite aware that bears can run faster than we can (180 ft. in 3 seconds = ~40 mph), we thanked our lucky stars for our good fortune that they took no interest in us. (The fastest race horses go around 45 mph, so these bears are not far behind!)

After our encounter, we met up with a park ranger and asked if he had many bear encounters.Of course he had come across plenty of bears, but even though he carried a rifle and pistol, he said the most effective protection against bears was his big canister of pepper spray. You have to be an excellent shot to stop a bear with a gun, but his pepper spray (or to be more accurate--pepper fogger) can stop a bear in his tracks. His bear pepper spray is not to be confused with the regular police concentration of pepper spray. The ranger said that regular police carry 9% concentration in a canister about the size of a travel-size hair spray, and park rangers in bear country carry 25% pepper spray in a canister the size of a small fire extinguisher! The next day when we headed into Glacier National Park (Canada side), we spotted a grizzly bear crossing our path. At least we were in our camper at the time!

As the saying goes about black bears being able to climb trees, but grizzlies can't...A black bear will chase you up a tree, and a grizzly will shake you out!

Ha, ha, ha.....ha, ha...ha!

Just a warning about Waterton--it is very windy!Mikey and Kathleen getting blown around on the beach in the morning when the wind was "calm". (I believe it takes at least a 20 mph wind to create white cap waves. These are not-so-small white caps.)

It is especially windy at night in the campground right by the lake. It was so noisy and windy, we had to sleep with the slide-out IN. In the morning, I was not surprised to see that the trees near the lake were growing at a good slant--in the direction of the wind!

St. Mary's Lake on our way out of Waterton.
Since none of us slept very well that night, we had some of this going on again in the RV the next day--on our way to Glacier National Park in Montana.

Waterton National Park

We drove through Bison Park in Waterton National Park--still in Canada--that had two bison! Here they are as the kids gauked out our RV windows!
At the Waterton visitor center we met Bruce Nelson, who had walked from Mexico and would cross the border into Canada that day (5 months, 3,100 miles, 6 pairs of shoes). He is from Rush City, MN.
We went to Waterton, stopped at the hotel (Prince of Wales Hotel), took pictures from the very windy cliff.

Columbia Glacier and Yoho National Park

The Columbia Glacier (in Jasper National Park) looks so ethereal.
Close up--at the foot of the receding glacier
You can see that the inside of a (cold) glacier really does look icy blue!


This is the HUGE Ice Explorer vehicle that takes you on top of the glacier.Check out the gigantic tires! If you're within 5 ft of the vehicle, all you smell is rubber.

Buddy boy brothers
We went over some more mountains and headed for Yoho National Park. This is where we got stopped so workers could clean up a rock slide. Since they had to stop traffic on both sides to work, they could only work in 20 minute increments. Part of their clean up included a couple of guys rappelling on the cliff hitting the rocks and making some more big rocks and boulders come down. The kids enjoyed watching it all.
Beauty all around!
In Yoho we stopped at Emerald Lake. This is an untouched photo that shows the bright emerald color of the water.Gotta love that glacial rock flour! Or is it an alien lake...or did the Tidy Bowl Man visit? Enjoy the color now since it won't be looking like that after the glaciers are gone.

Hiking around Emerald Lake in Yoho National ParkJimmer still loves to hold hands!

Along Icefields Parkway--Lake Louise to Jasper National Park

Between Lake Louise and Jasper is a beautiful stretch of highway that is considered the backbone of our continent called Icefields Parkway.

We stopped at Crowfoot Glacier. Can you see the crow foot shape?Well, it used to have three toes, but the lower toe melted. Now the middle toe is also disappearing. It still looks like a crowfoot to me though.Since it was pretty rainy, we decided to wait until the next day to do hiking and outdoor site seeing. So, we had a longer driving day as we drove to Jasper. This was some of the scenery in the RV along the way.

Grampy and Mikey snoozing at the table
Incognito kids
We ate dinner in Jasper, and we went to--as you can imagine with 8 people camping including 4 young children--a laundromat.Turns out that this stop was quite productive for the kids as they found money between many of the washers and dryers. Mikey hauled in over $4.50, Jimmer earned a toonie for letting a guy know that he left money in the change machine......and the girls each found a number of coins as well.

One of our beautiful campsites
Mary Kate spotted a bear trapJust checkin'