Monday, June 2nd

Wow, it has been awhile since I last posted, but I concur with Rich Halverson's description of our trip from Banff to Jasper.  We had every type of weather, beautiful mountains both with and without snow. The weather in Jasper was much warmer and enjoyable.  We had a little excitement with a Mama Elk chasing a man who got a little too close to her baby.  Park Rangers got everything under control, but we had to get the dogs in the RV's to be safe.

MaMa Elk trees man as wife watches!

The rail transportation through Jasper was quite impressive with the passenger train traveling (possibly another bucket list item).

Canadian Pacific passenger train--Toronto to Vancouver stopped in Jasper

There is a tremendous amount of gas and oil exploration and supporting industries, therefore their economy is doing quite well.

The highlight of the past few days has been our attempting to refuel our RV's.  [Rich will probably have more to say about this "Chinese firedrill"].  Most of the stations require what is known as a card lock.  These are gas pump stations only--unattended!  Unfortunately, none of our credit cards appeared to be liked by these machines.

On leaving Dawson Creek,  we were looking for the Flying J just up the road in Hinton.  Upon arriving there, after driving several miles off the main highway up into a big trucking area, no one was present to assist us and nothing worked.  Upon leaving, we all ended up in a lumber yard for a paper mill and had to find our way out and back track down to town.  Fortunately, we were all able to find the humor in this.

Yesterday, we again had a similar problem and ended up breaking into the traffic line trying to get into a newly open Tim Horton's for their donuts.  Being persistent and larger than the other vehicles we were finally able to fuel up.

When we arrived at the CG in Ft. Nelson, they had an RV wash--thank goodness!!  We came through some sections of highway that were covered in mud from the logging trucks who came onto the nice road from logging roads--mud, mud, mud!  Because of the spotty rain, our vehicles were covered in brown crud!  Everyone jumped in and tackled the 3 RV's along with 2 toads.  We were great entertainment for those in the CG.

"Jack, should I put in a loonie or a toonie?"

Jack scrubs, Rich analysis's!

"Ok, guys, look out!  Tam is spraying the back and she will soak you!"

 

One dirty Toad...Rich's JEEP before the wash!

Tonight, we are in Gold Nugget - 20 miles west of Watson Lake and are going to give the card lock pumps a chance again in the morning.  The camp host says, they take all credit cards - they haven't met this traveling "3 some".

Our travels today brought wonderful viewing of black bears, buffalo, and big horn sheep.

Taking advantage of the wifi in the restaurant here at the CG.  Also enjoying visiting with the owners of the restaurant whose father built the CG when he was 70 (20 years ago).

Tomorrow morning, we will be heading to Whitehorse for a few days.