Bow Valley Parkway

We woke up this morning to no water.  We have been six days without filling up which is probably the longest we have gone.  Between dishes, showers and two loads of laundry, that is all we can expect to get out of eighty gallons of fresh water.  We closed up the motorhome and Ted emptied the tanks as well as filled the water before returning to our site.  I had driven the car over as he had hoped to at least hose it down to get rid of some of the dust but the place was really busy so I drove back to the campsite to wait for him.

When we got set up again we packed lunches and drove down the Bow Valley Parkway.  There are interpretive signs at quite a few turnouts and we stopped to read them and look at what they were pointing out.  We stopped at one that had something to do with internment camps.  I was just getting ready to read the sign when Ted said, "Sheila, there's a bear".  I quickly returned to the car and stood on the running board trying to get a picture of the grizzly that was in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.  There was one other car there when we arrived but within minutes the road was full of cars blocking our view.  We drove on with me tying to snap pictures between cars.  We were doing the responsible thing and staying away from the bear and others were getting the good shots.

Bow River and Canadian Pacific Railroad

Grizzly

The temperature had risen from 58 degrees F in the morning to 84 degrees.  We have had temperatures in the sixties or less for a week and wasn't used to the heat so didn't really want to hike.  The one place we would have hiked was Johnston Canyon but the parking lots there were full and cars were lined up on both sides of the road.

We stopped at the Storm Mountain Overlook for a picnic.  This mountain generates its own weather and one can often see storms forming in its shadow but it was clear today.  As in other stops, the Bow River and the Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks were below us. Castle Cliffs were magnificent.  After WWII the mountain was renamed Mt. Eisenhower but there was such an outcry from hikers and people in the area that it was renamed Castle Mountain and only one peak is named Eisenhower. The ragged edge of the Sawbuck Range was interesting.  Ted especially liked this range that is about two million  years older than the Rockies toward the west.  At Muleshoe, a wetland bird and wildlife habitat, we could look up at the Hole-in-the-Wall, a solution cave.  At the Backswamp, an area once part of the Bow River is no longer as the river has cut a different path.  At one stop we chatted with a woman who grew up in Brewer and graduated from UMO in 1968.

Picnic Spot

Wildflowers

Storm Mountain

Castle Mountain

Elk Eat the Bark of the Aspens

Hole-in-the-Wall

Backswamp

We returned to Lake Louise Village by way of the Trans-Canada Highway and stopped for a few items at the market as well as the T-shirt I had picked out earlier.  One green pepper, a medium bottle of Canola oil and a loaf of bread cost $17.12.  I'm glad we stocked up when we did.