July 9th-11th: Our 9th-11th days on the road

Hello Blog,

We are still in Calgary, but scheduled to leave toward Banff in the morning.  We drove into downtown Calgary today and did some sight seeing.  This is a very nice place, clean and well kept.  Of course we went to Walmart and did some shopping.  Prices for food are higher than in the states. Just about everything is higher. We are planing to go into town later in the evening and see the lights of downtown.  65 degrees here today and 105 in Lubbock.  I think Lubbock has had 2 days of record breaking temps.  We had a little rain here  this morning. We decided to spend and extra day in Calgary so we could get a full day for Banff.

Friday the 10th
We left for Banff park  about 1100 hrs and traveled about and hour to the park entrance.  We purchased the Canadian National park pass for access to all the national parks. Cost was 136 Canadian dollars. We figured that with the 3 of us, we come out to the better than paying at every park. We decided to spend the night at the Two Jack campground near the town of  Banff with 185 sites. We have met many fellow travelers here and the campground is live with campers. 
The time is 1045hrs and I am sitting with Jay and Barbara at the campfire typing on the computer.  It is still late twilight and it is near 1100 hours local time.  All the campsites are lit with campfires. The park is forested with Lodgepole pines that are 100 foot tall. Low temps for the evening are dipping into the mid to low 40 tonite.

John

Saturday the 11th - Guest blogger Saturday
The Harris clan met the camping neighbors, consulted the maps, and decided to stay two nights here at Two Jack lake.  We got a late start (by dad's standards), so we hit a traffic jam on Hwy 1, just before Lake Louise.  Road construction can only occur in the summer, which is when all the tourists are here so...   After about an hour, we split from most of the traffic and headed west into British Columbia.  First stop, the lower portion of the spiral tunnel of the Canadian Pacific railroad, just east of Field, BC.   In the early 1900's, runaway trains on the downslope became a problem around there, so a corkscrew tunnel was devised.  Too bad we didn't have time to sit around and wait for a train,   We went west to BC because one of my Calgary contacts recommended visiting Yoho Nat'l Park, including Field, and taking a hike at (the less touristy) Emerald Lake.  The gourmet Bison Burger at the Truffle Pigs roadhouse in Field was excellent.  Even better with a pint of ale.  After our late lunch, we headed out to nearby Emerald Lake.  Glacial silt makes the water a translucent green/blue, and the day was sunny and warm (which was very nice compared to the wet, cool summer they've been having).  We hiked the 5.4km lake loop trail (mom got chastized for picking a few flowers..haha) and got a great feel for the place.   Then headed back down the road to Natural Bridge, which is an odd rock formation along the Emerald River.   Since it was still afternoon, we had time to drive up to Takakkaw Falls.  Maybe a mile off the road, you can hike right up to the base of this 400FT waterfall, which is one of the more beautiful spots I've seen in a long time.  Photos will be served later.   Funny thing about the time up here: your internal clock is pretty worthless.  When the sun angle feels like about 6pm, it's probably about 10.  Hungry, and behind schedule, we cruised through the village of Lake Louise and spent some nice time at the big lake right before sunset.  Then back through Banff to our campsite.  More than a full day by my standards.  But I'm pretty sure we'll have energy for a few more days like this. 

Jay