West Driving Trip 2010

The following bunch of entries showcase the road trip that Deb and I took from end of June through beginning of July 2010. We had planned a longer trip because we had expected Chris to be working at Camp KeeMoKee for the summer. During our first week away our neighbour discovered on our answering machine, a message saying that Chris has now been accepted into auto body pre-apprenticeship training program at Fanshawe College. The message got passed on to Linda who then let us know. Linda was great, handling Chris being sent home after his first day of work tryouts and then keeping him occupied until the following week. She made sure he was at the college on time for registration and drove him back and forth for his first couple of days until we made it back into town. Chris is now settled into a place of his own in London. Actually it is a place he shares with 2 other guys but with no parents that qualifies as "place of his own". He did come home for a day last weekend so that he could pack up the essentials like his XBox, TV and computer. At this point he isn't sure if he is going to come home this weekend or maybe not until next weekend. It is good to see he is enjoying his independence and we hope he is doing well in school. So far he claims that he LOVES the program. I hope that is the truth and not just what he knows we want to hear!

Now that we are back at home, both Deb and I are back into job search mode. We are hoping to be able to find part time employment close to home. I am still awaiting surgery approval for gastric bypass. My appointments continue with nutritionist and social worker follow ups next week. After those I will hopefully have my file finally passed on to a surgeon. OHIP has made quite a long process out of referrals now but at least I am moving on through.

We spent a night in Rugby, North Dakota because this town is considered by many to be the geographically center of North America. We have been coast to coast and now we have hit the center point too! The strange monument Deb is seen beside is supposed to represent the northern lights. It was much too light at night during our trip to see any northern lights. We noted many nights that even at 2 or 3 am it was very light despite being in some very remote places. I'm not sure if this was due to the time of year or the fact that we travelled during the period just before and after the full moon.

We enjoyed many of our lunches at small roadside parks. On this day we noticed the small Swallow's nest above our heads before we experienced the owner flying in only to be scared by his encounter with us. he sat patiently on the sign nearby until we were ready to leave. We observed this Pelican in flight a short while later and took these pictures since our other Pelican shots were while the birds were sitting.

We found this lone Stag Elk standing out in a field one early morning. It was very nice of him to pose for us as Deb got eaten alive by millions of little bugs while snapping these pics.

More birds

A couple of more interesting birds we saw along the roadway. You can see we are still travelling in flooded areas.

Wildlife

You can just barely see the Osprey at the top of the nest. This was in the parking lot at the East entrance to Glacier National Park. The Osprey was busy feeding the baby or babies in the nest and the noise caught our attention. Also there are a few pictures of the black bear which we saw in another parking lot inside the park.

Park wildlife surprise!

This Black Bear was quite the surprise for us to see so close to traffic and people. He seemed undisturbed by everyone around him as he worked at turned over a large rock in search of food. Our tour bus driver moved the bus so that we could get better pictures of him at work. The park rangers quickly showed up to chase him away from this people area and prevent any harm to the bear or to people. The park hands out warnings to all visitors that bears who are fed by people must be killed because they present danger to other visitors.

Glacier National Park top

You can see the huge amounts of snow still waiting to melt near the mountain tops in Glacier National Park. We saw lots of people using their cross country skis to enjoy the areas near the visitor center at this stop. It is normal for this road to open around the beginning of July. We had checked online when we left Ontario and the road was not fully cleared at that time which was why we travelled through Canada first before coming here. Our original plan had been to do this trip in reverse order. Park scenery was absolutely beautiful. I would recommend this park to anyone who can find the time to enjoy this. I wish we had more time to spend touring Montana. Maybe next time???

Glacier National Park westbound

We went to "going to the sun road" where we took the free tour bus to the top of the park. On the way we stopped for construction and took some pics of the great views. Lots of melt water runoff from snow higher up and closer to the top. At the top we encountered snowbanks over 5' high and in the spots where the snow had been cleared there were these little Colombian Ground Squirrels running around. Apparently they live in boroughs in the ground even under the snow. They were sort of a cross between the Prairie Dogs we had already seen and the red squirrels we see near home. Cute to watch them scurry around. We did finally see a lone Alpine Sheep but he moved too fast to get a good picture. Still no moose!

crossing the border

These are just pictures taken as we travelled along hwy 2 in Alberta and then #89 in Montana. The native hunters are on the roadside just after entering the U.S.A. Pretty little water bird, called an American Avocet, was seen in another flooded field. We were surprised by how much snow was still noticeable in the mountains in the distance, for sure it is not all glaciers but just remains of winter snow.

random

While travelling we stayed at some very nice motels. One of these is shown here: the Bluebird Motel in Claresholm, AB. This was south of Calgary en route to Montana. This place was just a little roadside motel but it was filled with antique furniture and decor. Our room was very large, comfy and quiet. The bird is an unusual one that we noticed at lake Louise. We are thinking it is one that dives into water and then swims to catch it's prey. We read about it in some papers we gathered along the road but have now misplaced and of course I have no idea what the possible name was.

Lake Louise

These pictures were taken at lake Louise on July 1st, 2010. While we were there the wind was blowing at us from across the lake and the overcast skies were spitting out snowflakes on us. Yep, snow on July 1st!
While most people were dressed in long sleeves, jackets and pants, there were a few younger people showing off their stamina by sporting shorts and T shirts.

Banff

Moving on into the mountains and Banff National Park we enjoyed taking the scenic route northward. We stopped at various places along the route to enjoy the scenery, search for wildlife(none around) and have lunch.