Thursday, September 2, 2010

Traveling to the Lower 48--Part 3--August 23-27, 2010

The weather in Meziadin was horrible--cold and rainy. Bob and I pulled out our trusty rain ponchos to get the rv and car hooked. Brrrr! Then we were on Cassiar Highway again. We made a stop at Kitwanga's Battle Hill. It is a huge dome shaped area where the First Nation people used to have battles. These are the steps going down from the parking area. There was a matching set to climb the hill! We enjoyed the small towns along the highway. Each town had a visitor center with unique items outside. All the centers also had wi-fi!

We stopped at Hazelton to empty our tanks--the visitor centers also have dump stations and fresh water since the provincial parks don't have them!From Hazelton we drove to Houston. This is the largest fly rod in the world.Then it was on to Smithers where we spent the night in the city park. The alpenhorn man was on Main Street. The town looks like an Alpine Village.Burns Lake was next. At each of their welcome signs was a VW bug.Vanderhoof is the swan capital of the world. Each fall as the swans return south, they stop on the lakes around Vanderhoof. We found a cache near their welcome area.That night we spent the night in Prince George at the one and only Wal-Mart. We are in search of good weather!

Thursday morning we got on the road early--can't say bright as it was another rainy day! Hopefully it would be better in Alberta!

Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy all the way to Mount Robson--our last stop in British Columbia. We went in the visitor center, but the weather was so bad you couldn't even see Mount Robson, let alone the summit! So off we went again. We entered Alberta east of Jasper. We found a place to park in Jasper (not a big rig friendly town) and walked around in the rain.
We decided to keep going and check out Icefield Centre--the middle of the glacial area in Jasper National Park. It took longer than we anticipated so we stopped for the night at their campground. What a place! It was a parking lot with lines painted for sites (about 50). The parking lot was on a huge slope so it was difficult to get level using their marked spots so we parked across several 'sites' to get the rv level. Others had done the same thing. There were only 6 other campers in the 'campground.' It was an eerie place at night in the rain---which turned to sleet by the time we went to sleep.In the morning, we had a surprise--SNOW! The area really looked eerie in the dim morning light.The Athabaskan Glacier is in the background in this photo.Bob got the car ready to tow (we didn't unhook the night before) and off we went in the snow--yes, it was still snowing.

We stopped at a rest area and made coffee. We got out for photos of the white stuff.The snow looked better when the sun began to peek through the clouds.This fireweed is a little late in blooming--it shouldn't have flowers, it should be white fuzz!We stopped in Lake Louise, but is was still cloudy and we couldn't see any of the scenery so we kept going.

Finally, blue sky appeared and the rain/snow stopped. We had a great view of Calgary as we drove around the city.We made it to Fort MacLeod, Alberta for the night.

No comments: