Day 73 Canmore to Revelstoke BC
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
81
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Revelstoke,
British Columbia,
Canada
Sunday, July 20, 2008
We managed to stay in bed until 8am (yep a short sleep in ) rolled the Castle out and filled with gas in Canmore and headed to Banff.
We arrived in Banff at around 9:45am and both Earnie and Rick were a "little lost in this town" both had previously been here in the 1990's but nothing was recognisable.
The town had been rebuilt and turned into a tourist destination.
No kidding, even the Western theme bar Rick recalled having a steak sandwich up on the balcony was not there! We found a place to park the Castle and went for a browse around this newly revamped township.
A circle of the block and a walk in the park still gave no recognition points to either prior visitors. No direction or indicators to the Stand out hotel (The Fairmont Banff) that both recalled seeing last time. Also this town was recalled as having Elk wandering in the streets and outside the motels etc. Gee have they both the boys been afflicted with dementia? (DONT answer that!!)
Oh well have a coffee and then roll the castle to have a drive around. This took us over a bridge and out towards the Fairmont Golf course, and there hidden by the trees is the "Lost Hotel" so up to the drive we head with OUR Castle (as opposed to this old hotel built in old stone and a lot of turret type windows that resemble a castle).
Through the Rotary (USA/Canadian equivalent to our roundabout!), under an arch way that linked parts of the hotel, and to the back car park. It was getting a little tight for the Castle to turn around so a three (or was it 4) point turn, and head away from this old landmark (at least to Earnie and Rick it was!).
Back out the driveway and down towards the golf course to execute another Castle special 3 or 4 or 5 point turn, to find a car park to observe the nice waterfall behind the hotel.
Ok enough of Banff, lets hit the road, as we retraced our steps to find the exit road, Rick recognised one of the buildings from his visit, an Indian Trading centre with an old fort attached, the building from his recollection held some historic information about the aboriginal inhabitants of the area.
We found the highway and flowed with the traffic along the Canadian route 1 towards the west.
We lunched at Kicking Horse Pass rest area, and observed 2 trains climbing the tortuous tracks towards the east, as well as looked back up to the route and bridge we had come over, Certainly a marvellous engineering feat, the bridge was huge and climbing up the mountain pass, over the Kicking Horse river.
We tracked through Glacial National park and Yoho National park, the mountains and scenery with over hanging glaciers and views again, we come to accept as part of the journey through this harsh yet beautiful part of the country.
A nice lunch stop with the sun giving us a sense that maybe it is summer here in Canada, and we continue on down the West side of the Rockies to pass into British Columbia and another time zone change (at times it has been a challenge just working out the time zone we are in yet alone the days of the week, but gee we are on holiday (vacation to our American friends) so does it really matter what time or day it is?
We chose to stop a little earlier than usual to enable the washing to be done, and also it is only a reasonable 5-6 hour run into Vancouver from here, so we chose a KOA park and here we are situated between some nice pine trees with a lovely large size grassed site.
Earnie and Rick lined up for a haircut while the washing was being done, (mind you we have taken 5 washing machines and I guess it will take a couple of dryers to catch up, but at least we will hit Vancouver with the housework done. Karon has ordered a fire in the fireplace with toasted marshmallows, so Rick had to scow the park for dry pine cones (as opposed to paying $5 for firewood)
The plan is to head into Vancouver tomorrow and spend the next three nights in a park near the city, we will hire a car to tour around Vancouver and Vancouver Island, as well as give the shops a good hard look.
Marian has to leave us in 4 days so a sightseeing trip around Vancouver and a shopping turn should relieve some of the pain of terminating her holiday and heading back to work.
Oh by the way they have ice cream cones at the office this evening for $2.50, so guess what is for sweets tonight?
