Balmy Beautiful Banff

Thursday - July 16 - Sort of a rest day. We worked on laundry and the blog all morning until hunger sent us down the street to find lunch.

The town map showed a Ski Museum. It just happened to occupy the public spaces of this shopping mall, a totally different concept for a museum.

Note the age and gender restriction.

When men were MEN and skis were SKIS.

One of the advantages of this museum was the Dairy Queen right next to the display of early skis.

How is this for a fancy ski binding?

The bus to Cave and Basin National Historic site was not running today so we hoofed it up the road. How come we left our bikes at the motel??????

The sign with distances to everywhere. The Cave and Basin visitor center just re-opened in May after a major renovation.

Robin Family, this one is for you.....see Point Pelee at the bottom.

Mural depicts the First Nation peoples use of the cave.

This place is important because "discovery" of this mineral pool by a couple of white guys led to the establishment of Banff National Park, which was the first one ever designated in Canada.

Early development included several pools and buildings that now house the interpretive displays.

A little street action on our return to town.

These pajamas or a t-shirt.....tough choice.

T-shirt wins!

Even the public transit buses had artwork on them.

By the time we returned everything had finally dried out, including the tent which was hanging from the balcony. Fortunately our room was on the back side of the motel. 681 miles so far.

Lake Louise to Banff - Wild Life

Monday - July 15 - How to mosey.

The thunderstorm started at 04:00 and it was so loud we hardly heard the train that came through at the same time. How come every time we've camped, there's been a storm?

These were behind our tent. Bet they were put there to dry and were forgotten. Or maybe a bear ate the owner?

We are just going to pack up and go eat breakfast at the bakery in the village.

Carefully opening the electrified gate. The "cattle guard" is also electrified so they didn't recommend walking across it.

The Bow River

It was not just our wippiness, THAT is new snow on those mountains.

The Parkway parallels Highway 1 so there was very little traffic. We enjoyed it all day.

Soon after this we saw our first wolf. It was a young one that was just as curious about us as we were about him. He kept looking back as he ran away. Not far down the way, a mature wolf ran across the road just in front of us. These were the first wolves we've ever seen in the wild....very exciting!

We really did mosey as the scenery was so spectacular, we had the place to ourselves most of the time, and we already had a place to stay for the night.

Baker Creek Lodge drew us in for some hot drinks.

We kept an eye on this cloud.

Just depended on which direction you looked though. Looks dry that way.

The memorial commemorates the immigrants that were interned during the First World War and used as labor to build National Park roads, bridges and other facilities.

The rain caught us as we arrived at the Storm Mt. viewpoint just in the nick of time to don our rain gear.

It didn't keep us from moseying.

Castle Junction and sun just in time for lunch.

Chris joined us for lunch. We shared our cheese, he shared his chips and we all swapped stories of our travels. He is headed to Denali and then down the Pacific Coast. He has given himself 4 months to make the trek on his BMW motorcycle.

We must be getting closer to Banff as we are starting to see day tripping bicyclists with increasing frequency.

More bug killed trees.

What is going on here? We haven't seen this much traffic all day!

A wildlife traffic jam! These Rocky Mountain big horn sheep had us all gawking.

Mike showed up at just the right time to invite us onto this bike path that would keep us off the highway. The path was only built 2 years ago and had not shown up on any of our maps. He is also involved in the ski industry so we had plenty of things to talk about and he encouraged us to buy new skis. Do we need such encouragement???

The Vermillion Lakes greeted us as we approached town. At dinner, the highlights for the previous week of the Tour de France happened to be playing in the bar. We ate our dinner VERY slowly, then ordered dessert and ate it even more slowly! What a great day from beginning to end.