Week 4, with Joe

As I've said before, Joe flew out to Seattle, joining up with us on Saturday, Oct. 5th, the same day Kitte and Jim flew back to Michigan.  I've already described Joe's first day with us, as we tried to explore the very congested Seattle.

On Sunday, Oct. 6, we drove from Seattle to Vancouver.  We had heard that the next day was going to be rainy, and we wanted to be sure to see as much of the city as we could while the sun was shining.  For that reason, as soon as we checked into our motel, we drove right to the downtown (that is, the Gastown area), where there is an office for the Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off company.  Some of the tour was good, especially the separate drive through the very large and lovely Stanley Park.  But about half of the tour was very disappointing and ineffective. Our overall impression of Vancouver was that it is like many other big cities: it was crowded and busy and diverse; much of it was attractive; some of it was not.  We were just not wowed by it.  Vancouver is in a beautiful setting, and we did like the Gastown area, the oldest part of the city.   Honestly, we were kind of happy to go back to our motel room at the end of the day.

Totem poles in Stanley Park

Vancouver has water on almost all sides

  Monday, Oct. 7.  Because we weren't very interested in going back into the city, we decided to take a drive north of there, on what is called the Sea to Sky Highway.  That sounded like it might be interesting, and it definitely was.  We loved the beautiful water of Horseshoe Bay, and then the drive into the mountains to Whistler.  In Whistler, we drove around an area that was built for Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics, to house the athletes.  This day of sightseeing suited us just fine.  Unfortunately, there was rain during much of the drive, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Tuesday, Oct. 8.  We left Vancouver today, driving 5 hours NNE to the town of Clearwater.  Because we were driving north and driving up into the mountains, we were happy to have the heavy morning rain stop before it could become a big snowfall.  The drive was so beautiful--hills, mountains, waterfalls, golden aspen trees, snowy evergreen trees.  Clearwater is near the very, very large Wells Gray Provincial Park, so when we got to town, we just kept on going for a drive through a small part of the park.  The park has 39 waterfalls in it; we saw 3 of them.  We also saw a big, black bear, which was very exciting.

Snow!

Beautiful aspens and evergreens, with a river running through it.  :)

I'm pouring a waterfall out of my hand.

Wed., 10/9.  Today, we had a beautiful drive NE from Clearwater, British Columbia, to Jasper, Alberta. Jasper is a cozy, little town, surrounded by beautiful mountains.  It's at the north end of the large stretch of land that is Jasper National Park.  We explored a nearby area called Maligne Lake.  It's described as being a turquoise lake, but the day was very cloudy, so the color of the water was not very remarkable.  Our room for the night was in a nice cottage just off the shore of Patricia Lake--which, of course, was bordered by mountains.  We saw a group of big-horn sheep today, and two female elk.  We keep looking for a moose.

This is the impressive Mt. Robson, at the north end of Jasper National Park

John and Joe, at Patricia Lake in Jasper, where we spent the night

Pyramid Lake, a perfect mirror

Thurs., 10/10.  There are many particular days I was looking forward to on this wonderful, 5-week road trip, and this was one of them.  I've wanted to see the Canadian Rockies for a long time, and today was the day.  Our drive through Jasper and Banff National Parks was all I hoped it would be, and more.  For our entire drive (180 miles), we were surrounded by amazing mountains--just non-stop beautiful peaks and chains of mountains.  Most of them were snow-covered, or had large snowy ice fields near them.  Some of them had blue-green glaciers on them  Because glacier water is turquoise, that means that all of the melted water--the rivers and waterfalls and lakes--are that same amazing color.  The 3-and-a-half-hour drive took us about 8 hours because of all the many times we stopped to enjoy the beautiful scenery.  We spent the night in Canmore, just east of Banff.

Just a river--an amazing, turquoise river

Joe and I, enjoying the sights

Peyto Lake

Lake Louise

These are definitely Rocky Mountains.

Friday, Oct. 11.  We had a short and beautiful drive today--just two hours-- from Canmore to Calgary.  We drove downtown, parked, and walked around for a little while.  Calgary is an attractive city.  Like all cities, it has many buildings that are big and modern, and many that show their history.  The central part of the downtown has a few blocks that are pedestrian only, which made walking around very easy and interesting. There were a couple of street performers, even though the temperature was only 40 degrees.  This is Joe's last full day on vacation with us.  Tomorrow morning, bright and early, he'll get on a plane in Calgary, and fly home to Detroit.  We will definitely miss him.  John and I will then begin our fifth and last week of this road trip.

This was the view out our motel window this morning in Canmore.

Along with mountains all around us, this was the pretty drive we had on our way to Calgary.

Downtown Calgary