Oh Canada!

So this post is going to highlight our adventures in Canada.

The first thing you have to remember when you're going into Canada is that you're crossing a country border, which means you are going to go through Customs.  Just for the record - it's better to remember this BEFORE you go shopping for the week - as some foodstuffs are not allowed through the border.

If you happen to forget - you can do as we did and return a large shopping basket of items to the grocery store.   This gives you the karma that you need to meet a nice Canada Customs Official that basically waives your through (great - but now we needed to go shopping again.  Sigh.)

But in all seriousness - the Canadian Customs Official was great and we had heard of much rougher border crossings.

We drove from Idaho into Cranbrook, British Columbia where they were building a brand new KOA at St. Eugene's Casino.  The park is absolutely beautiful and I don't think the photos can do it justice.

Look at those mountains

Watson and Moriarty

And a casino/hotel

And this was the river that ran along the park

St. Eugene's is a beautiful park.

It's also a new park.

We lost power the first night.  Actually everyone lost power the first night.  Apparently an 800 amp fuse blew somewhere and they had to track down a spare at 5:00 pm (it was still light outside).  For RVers in 70 degree weather - this isn't huge hardship but it is annoying.  They did get it back up and running before midnight.

We did mention that they use metric up there, right?   So all the road signs, etc. were in kilometer's per hour.  We changed our GPS to metric and could follow along perfectly.

But the hardest problem we had - was that our internet solutions we use in the States simply did not work in Canada.  Worse, our phones are normally our backup plans but Thomas had only limited calling capacity (and no internet) and Shanon's phone was providing only spotty internet.  Suddenly we were trying to depend on RV parks for internet...(Or Tim Horton's....or wherever)...and all of those solutions seemed to be spotty at best.

Frankly none of these solutions were satisfactory.   It's one of the reasons why this blog has been delayed.

From British Columbia we traveled to Calgary, Alberta - home of the Calgary Stampede.  We actually choose to travel there the week AFTER the stampede to avoid the crowds.  We don't have pictures of the campground oddly called Mountain View - because while British Columbia had lots of mountains - Calgary is flat (and we didn't see any mountains).  Thomas hoped that the RV park in Calgary would have better internet.

Nope.  Actually they were even worse.

We did some sight-seeing in Calgary though: travelling to both a dinosaur museum (sorry, no pictures of the museum but we did see a prairie dog) and and overnight stay at Banff.  Thomas thought he had remembered seeing Banff from a Boy Scout World Jamboree - but it was 30 years ago and some of his memories didn't align.

Prairie Dog at Museum
"I know the sign says not to feed me...but have you got any food?"

Banff is very pretty.  It's a small mountain town with tight roads and limited parking.  We didn't take Moriarty (Arctic Fox) with us and were glad we didn't.

On the way to Banff

Mountain view in Banff

View from Sulphur Mountain (after taking a gondola ride to top)

Banff was beautiful...but high up in the mountains.  Altitude had affected both Thomas and Shanon back at the Grand Canyon - so we wanted to keep this trip short.

After all of that - we were ready for a return to the states (and internet)...Montana - our next post!