From Jasper in the snow

July 11, 2010

Joyce and I have been playing this dumb “Punch Dub” game. It is unfair because you are not allowed to punch the driver. And I am the driver. As we were coming thru Burns Lake I called a “Flowerdy One”. It was an old Beetle that had live flowers planted all over it. Unfortunately Joyce could not get a picture.

We continued thru lots of beautiful farmland. They must raise hay as a cash crop because there was a lot of it being cut and baled. There did not seem to be enough livestock to feed it to.

We made an early day of it and stopped at Purdon Lake Provincial Park and camped for the night. By the time we arrived the temperature was about 80 degrees. Had supper then a campfire with toasted marshmallows.

July 12, 2010

Well the pleasant temperature came to an end. 46 degrees this morning and a light drizzle. Packed up and on the way. Stopped down the road a couple of miles with the intent of getting gas. Pulled up to the pump and across the front was a handwritten sign saying gas was $2.00 per liter. That works out to $7.60 per gallon. I had more than enough to get to McBride and got gas there for 1.09 per liter.

We continued on to Jasper National Park. On the way we noticed that some of the mountains had a new dusting of snow on them. We could see it on the trees near the top. We have been driving thru rain off and on most of the day. Shortly after we entered the park we changed time zones. We are now on MDT, only hours difference from home.

We arrived at Whistler Campground and got a site and set up. This campground has 781 sites and 177 of them have electricity. They were all taken so we are “Dry Camping” again.

We had forgotten to get milk and needed an onion also. So we went into Jasper itself and it is nothing but shops, restaurants and Adventure stores for the tourist. Must have been a least 50-75 RVs of one description or another parked there. Found a grocery, made out purchases and headed back to the car. Overheard someone saying that they had arrived 20 minutes before the snow. He said that heard that there was a half inch of snow on the highway.

I hope to get this posted in a couple of days. We are either going to Lake Louise or Yoho National Park tomorrow. I will decide sometime or the other.

July 13, 2010

Well, the weather decided for me. We awoke to a steady rain. And we could not believe we had slept until 7:45. I blame it on the time change. We were indecisive about what we wanted to do, but did not want to stay there another day. We packed as much as we could do without loading the car. To make the story shorter, we took the camper down in the snow. It was mixed with the rain and left a slushy mess on the canvas.

We left the campground at 11:00 and by that time it had turned to all snow and was beginning to cover the ground and the trees. We drove over 100 miles in a really good snow storm. They even had snow plows scraping the road and spreading sand.

As a consequence we did not stop at Lake Louise or YOHO National Park as I had wanted to. In fact, it has rained or snowed on us all day.

We are in Nanton, AB south of Calgary in a small roadside motel. We plan to be in the Lower 48 tomorrow.