6/21/14

The rest of yesterday was also extremely beautiful too.  The ride from Radium Hot Springs to Banff & back is 82 miles each way, and the whole time, one is traveling through the Canadian Rockies, which in my opinion, is more beautiful than the US Rockies. But that is like comparing 2 beautiful women, it is strictly in the eye of the beholder.  I always marvel at how they select winners at a flower show...how is one pink rose prettier than another...choosing a mountain range over another is the same process, only harder.

But we started and finished our trek in Radium Hot Springs and dealt with rain several times, but beautiful sunshine too.  The crowds aren't here yet, but there is still a lot of people to deal with too.  So, we had a wonderful day looking at some of the most beautiful scenery on earth....hard not to enjoy.  The sun is trying to peak out this morning, which will make our drive back over the mountain as pretty as yesterday's.

We are planning a gondola ride to the top of the mountain today too, then a bus ride tomorrow through the park.  Then on Monday, we are headed north again, with a destination of Jasper Alberta.  Lots of beauty.

We will likely not have decent internet for the next few days, so we may not be posting for a few days.  We will catch up when we can...BTW, I took 150+ pictures yesterday, can't post them all here, but you get the idea...beauty is everywhere!!  Make sure you add this area to your bucket list.

Radium Hot Springs from on top of the mountain...pretty valley

Our chauffeur extraordinaire 

The ride towards Alberta

Barb checking out the Kootanay River

The Banff/Kootanay border

Just south of Lake Louise

Lake Louise

The view through a dining room in Chateau Lake Louise 

Moraine Lake

Starting the ride home

One of the falls along the way

We had dinner here last night in Radium Hot Springs

6/21/14

Yesterday was the last day of Spring.  Today Summer begins, which is a big deal for several reasons. Foremost is that the days start to get shorter from now until December 21, which was my parents wedding anniversary.  My mother, who was a very Christian woman, would remind everyone how Dec 21 had the longest night.  It was a very important thing to her.  So tonight, being the shortest night, makes me think about my parents too.  But yesterday made me think about them for a completely different reason.  Barb & I got in our car yesterday morning and drove the 82 miles from our camper in Radium Hot Springs in British Columbia up and over the continental divide & the Alberta/BC line to Banff National Park.  My father was a seriously patient photographer his whole life, and Banff & Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia were on his Bucket List of places to visit for many, many years.  He visited Banff years ahead of Bay of Fundy.  He was almost reverent in his descriptions of Banff.  So yesterday, when Barb & I walked up & sat down on the benches overlooking Lake Louise, the remembrance of my father sitting on the same place years ago, patiently waiting for the crowd to part so he could get that perfect picture of the emerald water and the glorious surroundings.  It is almost impossible to get a picture that reflects how beautiful Lake Louise is, but you try.  I don't think I even came close.  The beauty of this place is hard to describe, let alone capture with a single shot with a camera.  Here are a couple of my attempts, I am going to try again in the next few days to get a better time & get some better ones, as we are there for 2 more days...we shall see.

6/20/14

Yesterday, we drove from Coeur d'Alene, ID to Radium Hot Springs, BC Canada.  It is 250 miles, a US/Canada border crossing, another time change (back to Mountain time) and 6 hours of beauty.  Northern Idaho is as picturesque as anywhere else in the US and we are sorry to see it go.  We spent 20 days in Idaho & western Washington this time around and are planning more when we get back from Alaska...it is that pretty.  But we are moving on for now, north to Alaska.

Most of our trek yesterday retraced part of our route from June 6, so the pictures there are mostly the same scenery as we saw yesterday, while very pretty, I won't get redundant.  I think the view of Columbia Lake, which is the headwaters of the Columbia River, is one of the most spectacular ones we saw again yesterday.

There are 24 rigs in our group, so there is a good chance that some crazy things will happen.  Yesterday was no exception.  One of the rigs close to us in Coeur d'Alene had a problem with the stabilizing jacks that wouldn't retract when they got ready to break camp.  We checked all the fuses, no luck.  Tried a lot of stuff before calling a mechanic.  The mechanic finally found a loose connection after an hour & 1/2 and got them moving. Then, on the border crossing, the rig that decided to wait with the disabled rig, was chosen as a random search at the border.  The Mounties spent 1.5 hours searching that motor home from front to back and found nothing.  But 2 of our couples missed the spaghetti dinner we all had last night at Radium Hot Springs.  So we are all together again in Canada after some interesting developments...on the road again.

We are all staying here again until tomorrow morning, when we will all move 82 miles into Alberta & Banff National Park for 2 days.  Most of the group is staying here today, Barb & I are going to drive to Banff in the car.  We are at a really pretty camp ground in Radium Hot Springs.  We visited with some of the other participants last night after dinner and told about our experiences.  After 30+ years of motor homing, we have a lot of crazy stories to add, so it is a lot of fun.  Stay tuned.

Steve & Barb Larson

Views from the road to Radium Hot Springs

Our spot in the camp ground in Radium Hot Springs

Our view from the camp ground

6/18/14

We spent the day doing some site seeing around Lake Coeur d'Alene and getting some groceries. Then we all (48 of us) went to dinner in another floating restaurant on the Lake. Tomorrow morning, we are off to Radium Hot Springs as our 1st stop on our Alaska Adventure. Been raining for the better part of 3 days, be good to see the sun...We have met a lot of nice folks the last 2 days...this is going to be a good time if we have some decent weather.

24 RVs on a 59 day adventure starting tomorrow.  48 folks representing 12 states with FL being the furthest and 3 couples from both Washington & California.  Everyone is retired, obviously, but few have been doing this as long as us.  It will be an interesting trip.  But I think that everyone having their own space while we move from place to place will make it a lot nicer.  We are all on vacation together.

Lake Coeur d'Alene

The mountains comes right up to down town

And right up to the Lake

48 for dinner

Cream puffs w/Huckleberry ice cream & chocolate

Think she is enjoying this?  YEP!

Clouds on the way east, we hope!

6/17/14

We moved from Laclede to Coeur D'Alene, ID yesterday.  Our time in Idaho is almost over, for now. We plan to visit the south 1/2 of the state along with The Teton Range and part of Yellowstone again (parts were still closed the 1st 2 times we went there) on our way from Oregon to Utah when we get back from Alaska. We have had an incredible time here, beautiful scenery, very nice campgrounds, and super friendly people.

For the next 2 days, we will get to know the group we will be traveling with for the next 59 days.  We met several of them, including the Wagon Masters & Tail Gunners from Fantasy RV Tours.  This is going to be a blast.  There will be 22 RVs and 2 leaders/follower RVs, so there will be 48 folks on this adventure.  We head out Thursday morning, first stop is Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia. The big thing on the agenda is a last chance to fix anything that needs repairing/added to our motor home.  Barb & I are off to Spokane again to pick up a spare serpentine belt & fuel filter for the engine, just in case something fails...good insurance.  Our coffee maker has died too, so we will pick one of those up too.  All the folks we have met so far seem really excited to get going and seem like super folks...59 days together may change that opinion, but we are here to have a good time, not worry about someone else's drama...that is what the leaders are for.

Our last night in Laclede was rainy, but we had a bunch of firewood to dispose of...nice campfire seemed like the best way.  So we sat out there and enjoyed a nice fire...nice evening, even if it was raining part of the time.  I am going to reiterate, the Army Corps of Engineers have some really nice campgrounds, use them if you have the chance.  We stayed for 13 nights for $175...hard to beat. Enjoyed the place a lot!!

We plan to keep up this report as best we can, depending on the internet connections along the way. It will likely be Radium Hot Springs before we make another post.  Stay tuned, lots to come.

Steve & Barb Larson

Our last night in Laclede

6/14/14

We spent Friday the 13th traveling to & from Spokane, WA, which is about an hour away.  On the way we took a scenic route on the Idaho side which also took us through 2-3 little towns and then a ride into Spokane on I-90.  It was a fun ride, and included several side trips through small towns and even a Huckleberry milk shake that Barb let my share with her (pretty tasty).  Small town America is always a fun adventure, as people with an imagination, not too much of a budget, and time on their hands, try to place their stamp on their hometown.  We also rode through an area that most folks would not view as 'nice', but literally 100's of folks had attempted to turn into their idea of a 'Resort'. Cheap cabins, trailers & campsites piled like cord-wood around a little lake, so they could drive their boats in circles and try not to run over the neighbors.  It was pretty amazing.  But we looked in awe and moved on.  NW Idaho is an amazing place.

So is Spokane.  It is spread out into a huge area, seemingly with not too much planning.  Houses set between 2 businesses, lots of non synchronized traffic lights & one way streets.  The main exit from downtown was US 2, lined with businesses with driveways connected to the street and a stop light every block...we must have hit 20 or more that were red.  It took forever to get out of town.  We realize it is probably the 2nd biggest metro area in Washington, but the planners were clearly asleep during the time they were supposed to be at work...what a mess.  Downtown is centered on the 1974 Expo Park, that looks the same as it did 40 years ago.  But there is some new construction, but mostly it looks like 1974...we saw the pictures.

We found a parking spot & went to the Riverside Park, which is 100 acres of grass, paths, buildings & the Spokane River Falls as the river slices through town.  The train driver said it was a very ugly place before the great upgrade happened prior to the Expo...when they made it nice.  Then they forgot about it.  The day before was the last day of school, so our guess that Friday, being a workday, it would be quiet, was not correct.  Seems a lot of parents had taken the day off and were giving their kids a day in the park as a reward for finishing their school year. We stood in line and bought a ticket, and it included a Skyride over the falls, a ride on a train, a carousal and a visit to the I-Max theater, today showing a film about the Lemurs of Madagascar...how interesting :/.  But we took all the rides and sat through about 1/2 of the movie and went across the bridge to eat an early dinner (happy hour was in effect) in an old flour mill on the banks of the river that had been turned into an office/retail/eating establishment.  The view of the river was nice, the food was fine, and the wedding party gathering for dinner was the entertainment.  We walked back to our car through an almost vacant park at 445 on a Friday afternoon.  The parking lot was mostly empty too...they were all on US 2 on the way north...lol.  But we enjoyed a nice, mostly quiet day visiting Spokane.

We lit a fire, and sat down to talk about our day and make plans for the next week, to only have it start raining.  We moved under the awning until it stopped.  It didn't rain enough to affect the fire much.  We waited for the fire to burn down and then watched some NCIS episodes.  Nice way to end the day.

Two other subjects we need to mention.  Peggy (my oldest sister) went home from the hospital yesterday after almost a week's stay.  Her doctors have given her a new way to get her medication 24/7 directly to her heart through a port near her collar bone...sounds fun, eh?  But that is the only way...keep her in your thoughts.  She is living every day one day at a time.  We hope she can make a trip to Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the rest of her family...she deserves that pleasure.

The other is that the entire rest of our family is on the road starting today on a trip to Yellowstone and back. This includes both of Barb's sisters & their kids & grand kids, our two kids & Dan & our two grand kids, all 12 of our family minus our 2 brothers in law...please hope for safe travels for them all.  They will be on the road for 2+ weeks.  Thank you.

Today is get ready for Coeur D'Alene day.  It is raining so that works good...nice reason to just stay inside. The campground is not full like we expected, so we will do a few things we were planning to do on Monday.  Monday we move back south to meet the group we will be leaving for Alaska with on Thursday morning.

Steve & Barb Larson

The water tower in Spirit Lake, ID

A two story home made RV

In line for tickets

Sky ride in Spokane

Spokane Falls

Barb got a ride on the Carousal

Our train ride

The view of the river from the restaurant

The old flour mill that has been recycled into businesses

1974 view of downtown Spokane, not much different today

A tribe of skunks at our campground when we got home last night

Riding the sky ride over the falls

Even the restaurant is 40 years old