Day 8 Glaciers and Animals 07/18/2010

The bottom picture is Lake Louise. We left Banff this morning. The forecast was for rain. There was not a cloud in the sky, the temperature was 50*. We got on the Ice Field Parkway, a 200 mile highway through the Canadian Rockies to Jasper. We saw one glacier after another. Each one was spectacular. I have more pictures if you wish to see them. The high today was 65*

The drive is said to be one of the 10 most beautiful drives in the world. I have to agree. The trip along the parkway was uneventful, except for a traffic jam when 5 mountain goats took the highway as their own. They moved on and so did we. Later we stopped at a turn out so Linda could take pictures of a waterfall. That was when she took the pictures of the Raven. He attacked her, but all she had was bear spray. Speaking of which, we stopped for lunch by the Saskatchewan River. I told Linda, we were in bear country and since we did have the bear spray, lets place it on the table. It would do no good in the car. I told her to spray the bear and not me, unless he had me in his arms, then spray us both.

In addition to the glaciers, we saw quite a bit of wild life. 5 bears, 2 mule deer, 2 ravens, 5 mountain goats and 2 unidentified ground squirrels? After leaving the parkway, we entered British Columbia. Linda was driving 55mph, when another SUV towing a trailer passed us doing around 70-80. No sooner did he get in front of us, when a black bear ran out in front of him. He hit the bear, almost wrecking in the process. We turned around to check on them and the bear. They were OK, just shook up. The bear was dead. I took some pictures, but Linda won't let me post them. This is when we started spotting bears and deer.

We continued on to Prince George for the night. Tomorrow we travel to Dawson Creek to pick up the AL CAN Highway and will stop at Ft. Nelson, BC.

A good day. Gas is now over $4.00 a gallon and American Express charges an extra fee for being in a foreign country. Canada is not really foreign, is it?

Good night, Jerry