Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 113

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 113

Canada

6/5/09 – Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

We pack up, have a last breakfast at the KOA and excitedly head for the Canadian Border.  No reason to expect any problems, just the unknown awaits us.  We go back through Whitefish, enter Tobacco Valley, bypass Trego and continue on our route through the green, pine-filled, rolling hills.  Lakes dot the area. Sam has to restrain me when we pass Ant Flat Historic Site, which is near Laughing Water Guest Ranch. We cross the Grave Creek Bridge and enter Eureka.  This town has US flags lining the streets.  An occasional Canadian flag could be seen fluttering at random locations. Not sure why the pattern was that way, but is made for a grand visual.  This town also has an outdoor-indoor museum.  There is a turnaround street that has re-created old-time buildings (schoolhouse, church, cabin) lining the outside of the street. The buildings are furnished and have information kiosks, as well as a dedicated ‘museum’ building.  So interesting.  Sam missed the whole thing and he used the turnaround twice to get to gas stations.  Lucky for him – I took pictures – once.  We make it to Roosville, our border crossing location.  No lines. No other vehicles even in sight.  We show our passports, answer a few questions and we are told to have a good vacation. We grin – we can do this. 

Eureka

Street Museum

We want to see if the Canadian towns and cities are like ours, or more like those in Mexico.  We have a ways to wait. It appears that Canadians do not generally like to live right next to the road.  It also could be that the trees and underbrush grow so fast that you just can’t see more than a few feet past the trimmed wayside.  Whatever the ‘reality’ is, we do not see a town/village until … well… Lake Louise.  The map indicated that we had passed Grasmere, Elko, Galloway, Jaffrey, Wardner, Fort Steele, and Wasa.  We missed them. Even when we saw road signs informing us that we were there, we missed them.  They were either behind the trees and mountains, or we were distracted by the trees and mountains.  We missed them.  About 3 ½ to 4 inches of map – no towns.  Few bits and pieces of traffic. In the late afternoon we pull into the Lake Louise Campground in the Banff National Park.  We are warned that although there are bear in the area, the campground is actually located in an elk calf-bearing area and that the elk cause more physical harm and trips to the hospital than the bear.  We got it.  Beautiful campground with flush toilets, hot showers, great campground.  We drive up to Lake Louise, but since it is extremely cold and the wind is whipping down from the glacier-filled mountains, we felt encouraged to start our time here tomorrow.  We got that too. 

Just Before The Ice Caps