Glacier and Waterton Lakes

Daisy has been taking all the time at my computer lately. Seems she has much to say about her adventures. She did not mention the two well-behaved Aussies who stay glued to Mr. Hugh Johnson's pickup at Johnsons of St. Mary. They ride everywhere with him as Mr. Hugh works on the maintenance end of the business. One of them, according to a clipping in the local paper, was off fishing with Mr. Hugh, when the weather turned bad and Mr. Hugh told the dog to go home, meaning back to camp. Instead, the Aussie traveled 50 miles back to St. Mary. What a dog!

Before we left St Mary, population 30, no post office, we had the daily maintenance issues of the RV. This time it was a leaking water hose. Carl fixed it with duct tape, and later today we got a new hose at an RV place. Seems like he is going to be very busy this trip. What would we do without his handyman skills?

We left St. Mary and traveled about 10 miles into Glacier, to the point where the sign said if you are over 21 feet, turn around immediately. This was at Sun Point on the Going to the Sun Road. Daisy and I took a walk down to lake's edge, and you can see a couple of my artsy photos from the walk. I was going to go the other direction to a waterfall except for the bear warning sign. I got to thinking how a bear might think I was walking his lunch on a leash.

As we traveled north along the edge of Glacier, we passed through hills of charred trees. Last summer St. Mary was evacuated for a fire.

We chose to take the more remote Hiway 17 through Waterton and cross the border there. I have been obsessing about how much food I was going to have to throw away crossing the border. But the entire process took about 1 minute. Alcohol, tobacco, firearms questions, and that was it. We offered up Daisy's health certificate, since she had positioned herself right between us and was pretty obviously going with us, but the customs official was not even interested.

Waterton Lakes and Glacier share the magnificent area at the base of the Canadian Rockies as an International Peace Park. Waterton has a very wide open valley between two mountain ranges, and the valley in one area is filled with my favorite green moguls, pictured above. This time we got to drive through them in a buffalo range within the park. No buffalo, but incredible scenery driving the moguls. It felt like I was a 1 foot tall person driving on a golf course.

We stopped for the night in Fort MacLeod at Daisy May's RV Park. We just had to, didn't we? It advertised a hot tub, but the repair man was working on it when we arrived. By nightfall, however, it was up to temperature, so we had a very relaxing dip.

Daisy and I walked next to a very swollen Old Man River, which is normally a little trickle but is currently about 100 yards across. It has been raining excessively here and floods are rampant. And the winds have been quite remarkable. Small children and pets have been reportedly blown away to OZ. Today, however, was just gorgeous, so maybe the bad weather is over.

We parked next to a lady from Ottowa who is moving here and waiting for her house to be ready. She has a one year old pug named Molly, and Molly was crazy about Daisy. Daisy, however, snubbed her. Just too much jumping around in her face, I guess.

Aside from the one escape, Daisy has been a real traveler. In the evenings, we put her out on a long line and she is content to gaze at the world for hours and greet passersby. As long as there are no squirrels, cats, buffalos or elk, she behaves like a real lady.

From here we head north to Calgary and Banff, then on to Lake Louise and Jaspar. We were here two summers ago, so I have my hot springs list ready in my head. I plan to revisit the Banff Hot Springs in the next day or so, and I am hoping for the bike ride we did not take in 2006. Once inside the park, the RV parks will not have WiFi, so it may be a while before I blog again. I will, however, take lots of pictures. In case you can't wait, I have linked to the website for our 2006 photos. That was before I was Ansel Adams.......