[A/S] Fwd: TWIMC - Banff - Lake Louise

["Sandy Noyes" <boojum@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just another case of don't give up five minutes before the miracle. 
From Swift Current on is all prairie.  It changes half way to Calgary
to high plains, a lot like Nevada and some stretches of Mexico 1 in
Baja California.  I have seen lots of plains and high plains so while
it was beautiful, it is not new.

I left Swift Current about 6:00; I hadn't reset my watch so I thought
it was 7:00.  The
landscape west of Swift Current is lunar.  Wide open and softly rolling
hills unbroken by tree or rock.  It is easy to imagine the roaming
herds bison who filled the horizon when they passed through.  I didn't
have to imagine the pair of Pronghorn antelope at the side of the road;
a buck and a doe.  A benefit of rising early is to see the wildlife.

The business of this area is agriculture: grain and grazing.  The towns
are small, a horizontal smear of 30 to 50 two story homes with a
vertical smear of grain elevators all bisected by the railroad in a
line from one side of your field of view to the other.  Then miles and
miles of open range and then a repeat of the small town intersections. 
As the road heads west the grain gives way to more and more grazing and
oil stripper wells lazily pumping out the last of the well's oil. 
Cattle almost vanish onto the range it is so huge.  I suppose that this
is just what it looks like on the southern side of the border around
here, but I have never seen it.  It is huge; huge beyond my east coast
belief.  There is endless open range.  As the range becomes more arid
it looks like Nevada and Mexico high plains.  Sparsely vegetated,
various shades of green scattered in through the brownish gold and
splotched here and there with alkali ponds which look frosted over. 
Strangely the alkali ponds are sometimes within a mile or less of marsh
land. 
The difference of course is ta the marshland has a drainage outlet and
the alkali ponds do not.  The land is so flat that the rivers all
wiggle through meadow and marsh.  It is all part of the north - south
migratory bird flyway.  I saw cranes and geese, ducks and coots and
other birds I cannot identify all paddling, wading and flying around. 
The land is huge.

The approach to Calgary is all uphill.  Calgary itself is higher than
3,000 feet.  Just like the other cities it sticks up out of the
prairies like Oz.  Almost imaginary.  The wide open plains with a city
stuck right in the middle, intersected by roads and rails, dotted with
trees and crawling with traffic.  Calgary is the nicest city that I
have passed through.  The best town has been Kenora, Ontario at the
northern edge of the Boundary Waters National Park system shared by the
US and Canada.  I was surprised about Calgary having heard so much of
the Edmonton sniping about Calgary: "Tulsa north" they call it in
Edmonton.  Not a
compliment in case you are wondering.

I stopped at a" Humpty's" hamburger stand west of Calgary to get fuel
and eats.  I had the hamburger.  I was going into greasy beef
withdrawal.  Not bad.  And a major discovery: "Humpty's" has phones
with data jacks on them in some booths.  I will upload and download
there if I do not get another chance somewhere else first.  But now,
Banff.

I am sure that you all know that it is beautiful.  Well, it is more
beautiful than that.  It is Aspen in spades.  I first glimpsed the
Rockies as I pulled out of Calgary.  I could barely see them through
the summer thunderstorm that was swinging my way.  It broke over me as
I was fueling at he "Humpty's" and stopped before I had finished eating
lunch.  The dogs spent the storm in the trailer having lunch and a
short nap.  We all piled back into the truck as the storm cleared and
sunlight filled the sky again.  The countryside is hilly and green as
you would expect the foothills to be.  The hills showed more and more
dark grey granite mountains as I drove west and closed on the ridge of
Rockies that passes north - south here.  The tops of these mountains
became nuder and nuder as they rise higher and higher.  The park I am
staying in is 4' short of 4,300.  The altitude is enough that
rainstorms can sweep through in a matter of seconds.  As I look out the
window at the rugged mountain I see out my window I can see that its
peak is misted in a bit and the sky has greyed over with dark grey rain
clouds and a lighter grey background.  It looks like rain for sure.  I
have closed up all the windows and have some rice and onions cooking as
part of dinner.  

I am exhausted.  It is just 6:00 PM local time and I am pooped.  Of
course I was driving for ten or eleven hours which is kind of draining.

Even the dogs are tired.  BG is watching me from the bed and Edie is
asleep on a pillow oblivious of me, Banff, the mountains, Canada or
anything else to interfere with her sleep.  The CBC  Saturday opera was
Handel's Agrippina an opera I know nothing about.  I miss Sterling Moss
doing the announcing, but this is not the Texaco Opera.  It has been a
great day.  The CBC manages to broadcast good music from coast to
coast, something that the US is curiosely unable to do.  I have
listened to jazz, classical, "Bare Naked Ladies" a Canadian group that
gets a lot more air play here than in the US and some great early,
unhyped "country" music.  And I have been mercifully spared what
George, Al, and their running mates are doing or not doing.  Jeez, pie
them the way the Canadian PM was.  That would be newsworthy.  BTW,
there was another pieing of a politician in Canada yesterday.  These
folks up here understand politics better than do we.

More later.

Keep the faith and Happy Trails to all.

L8R