[whatsnewell]

Well, we entered Alberta, Canada on July 2nd, and just emerged from cell phone blackout today, July 23rd. We spent a month with Tom and Darlene (meeting them in Sioux Falls, SD prior to Spearfish) and a month with Forest and Cindy (Spearfish on). We had a lot of potluck dinners, and saw some amazing scenery in Jasper, Columbia Icefields, Lake Louise, and Banff. As Forest says...."after a while you just run out of adjectives, and just say "OOOOOH!" "WOW!"......that about covers it. As you know from Tom's posts he had to replace his refer while we were in Madden.....we drove into Calgary one day and helped Tom spend his money, then helped him install the new Kitchenaide, which Darlene likes a lot. We had planned to be in Madden 1, or 2 days, but spent the week. The day we were leaving Madden Tom noticed a puddle of coolant under his radiator when he was hooking up the Honda.....of course you know that story too. Tom left our caravan that day, and we continued north to the Columbia Icefieldsd with Forest and Cindy, and what a great drive it was.....even the 10% grade up to the Icefields. We took the Icefields tour the same day we arrived, and then drove up to Jasper the next day. It rained several times while we camped in the Icefields parking lot....the views from the lot are worth the $15.70/ day you pay to stay there. After two days we headed south to Lake Louise and did more "oooohing and awwwwing"........it rained as we left the Icefields, and was wet all the way to Lake Louise, so our coaches got all dirty again, of course. Each day you are in a Canadian National Park you pay a fee of just under $20.....plus whatever you pay to camp. We paid for two days initially when we entered Banff Nat'l park, and had to pay for one more day when we got to Lake Louise....in addition to the $45 for an electric only site (30 amp). We drove up to Lake Louise, and then Lake Morraine......it was cold and windy.....we began to wonder where summer has gone.....not that we don't like the cold weather!

From Lake Louise we drove 266 miles to Cardston, AB where we had hoped Tom and Darlene would catch up with us, but they decided to stay a few days longer in Lethbridge with their in-laws. They came over to Cardston one day to exchange a few items we each had of each others......Forest had 2 of Tom's impact drills, Darlene had a coat of mine, and Tom had a hard drive of Forest's. We said our good byes, and look forward to meeting up with Tom and Darlene again....they are like part of our family now.

Today the Olivier's and Hockwald's drove 16 miles to the U.S. border on PH-2, which turns to U.S. 89 in the USA.....we both had to pull into a parking area for a few minutes.....the agent said they wanted to see inside my trailer, and Forest made the mistake of saying they "were with us".....I opened up the trailer, but as it turned out Agent Ware just came over and talked to us about our adventures in Canada.....he is newly arrived from Houston, TX.....quite a change, eh?

In Babb, MT we parted way with the Olivier's.....it was a little bitter sweet, but we know we will cross paths again.....we stopped at St. Mary Lake and got permission to park overnight in the Visitor Center parking lot, then unloaded the 'Bird and drove 40+ miles to Lake McDonald with numerous stops along the way to do more "ooooohing and awwwwing" and take pictures. We have strong 3G and 5 bars of cellular so life is good......we are connected to the world again!