You guys! This is it. The final recap post about our July/August Road Trip. I’m excited but sad…kind of how I felt at the end of the trip: happy to get home, sad to be done with vacation.

• Part 1: What Happened to Scott?
• Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam
• Part 3: There are still a few glaciers left…for now
• Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton
• Part 4a: , Pikas, Marmots, Bison, and More!
• Part 5: Banff, Black Bears, and Beyond
• Part 6: There are no mountains in Jasper National Park

It’s always hard leaving the mountains. We left off on Day 18 of the trip, and Louie and I had just left the Canadian Rockies. I’d been a little worried about the next segment of our trip, because we still had 4 or 5 nights left before we would be home but the most spectacular scenery was behind us. Would the rest of the trip be terribly anticlimatic and boring in comparison to all the amazing things we had already seen?

I’d decided our next stop would be Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. By all accounts neither of us had ever been to North Dakota so it seems like a good detour—and it wasn’t much of a detour. It was about 16 hours or so drive from Jasper to TRNP, but another 17 home from there no matter what, and it was about the same distance if we took another route. I made a reservation for two nights at TRNP and then we wanted to hit up the Badlands in South Dakota one more night as well (again, this added at most 1 hour of driving to our trip) since we were already so close.

Okay! So on Day 18, con’t, we just drove. We drove through Calgary, through lots of construction, and through ridiculous amounts of bugs. We killed so many bugs with our car, it was ridiculous.

The views aren’t as beautiful as Banff, but they are still very different than St Louis. The older I’ve gotten, the more I appreciate that.

We stopped in Medicine Hat (still in Alberta, Canada) for the night at a place called the HomeStay Inn. It was perfectly fine, and had a very nice bathroom IN THE ROOM, which, after 10 nights camping, was the height of luxury. We had a late dinner at a bar/restaurant called the Local in downtown Medicine Hat. Medicine Hat seemed to call itself “Gas City” because there were a lot of oil companies and such there. I’m not sure that’s something I would be so proud of, but…we did use a lot of gas on the trip so I suppose I can’t be judgy!

Day 19: We got up and had the free hotel breakfast. During breakfast the Canadian news was on and we heard a story about a wolf attack at a popular Banff campground and both sat up very straight! It seemed a wolf had attacked a family at a campground off the Icefields Parkway a few days prior. Terrifying! I remember driving by that campground and seeing the sign that it was closed, but I figured it was due to just too many bears being around (during this time of year the berries are ripe and the bears want them—in fact, evidently a grizzly bear can eat 200,000 berries in a day!).

The day was mostly driving. At one point during the morning we had to enter the United States, which was bittersweet—we had loved our time in Canada! The customs official was less nice than the the Canadian one a week prior, and gave us a hard time about forgetting that we’d bought a few beers in Canada and had those in the cooler. They don’t give you a form or anything to fill out like they do on the airplane, they just ask a few questions and then act tough. They let us back though and we continued on our way. This day we drove on quite a few small roads, but all were paved, and it was pretty scenery.

We had lunch along the way from the car, and tried to just keep going so we would get to our campground before dark. We had been spoiled with some places staying light (I’m looking at you, Jasper) until close to 10 pm and suddenly we were looking at sunset before 8 pm! We got to Medora around 6 pm and filled up on gas and ice before entering the National Park. Right away we saw a bunch of wild horses, which was a pleasant surprise!

We had a walk-in site at Cottonwood Campground, which meant there was a walk from our car to the campsite. It was a very nice site, but the walk makes set up a little more challenging. We also had to walk awkwardly close to another campsite but there wasn’t anyway around it! We set up our tent, and then decided, what the heck, let’s go back to Medora and eat dinner at a restaurant. I think we were just getting tired of cooking on the campstove and Louie was tired of camp food.

The campsite overlooked the Little Missouri River and was absolutely beautiful. The campground had decent bathrooms but not a very good place for washing dishes…another reason I was glad to not cook, ha! No showers though, and no firewood for sale though you could make a fire in the grill, so we decided to buy some in town again.

Medora is a very small cute town, with a few different restaurants, a gas station/general store, some motels, and a few other things. The park is important because Teddy Roosevelt had a ranch there before he was president, and when he was president he started the National Park Service, so really, this was where it all started.

We decided to eat dinner at what looked to be the fanciest place in town: the Rough Rider Dining Room. I had a butternut squash ravioli which was tasty but a bit too rich…I won’t say more, but it did give me some stomach issues. I probably shouldn’t have eaten so much of it! Anyway, after dinner it was already dark, so we headed slowly back to the campground (about 5 miles drive) and then made a nice fire in the firepit and relaxed for awhile before hitting the hay.

Day 20: Since it gets dark early, it also gets light early in North Dakota, and I remember waking up, thinking it was full daylight, and realizing it was not even 6 am yet. Also at 7 am some guy started singing and playing guitar at our neighboring campsite—to add insult to injury, it was an empty campsite, not his own, which in my mind meant he didn’t want to play guitar near his own traveling companions (unless he had already alienated them all and they were gone) but instead came to torture me. Luckily, shortly after that a huge storm came through so that scared everybody away and I went back to sleep for a bit. I can’t remember which day it was, but one of the mornings we heard a bunch of “whoops” from a lot of coyotes…in my sleepiness I first decided it must be a pack of prairie dogs, but then I remembered they aren’t real dogs!

Since this was the first National park we had hit up in awhile that wasn’t super crowded, we didn’t see a need to get up super early to beat the crowds, so we didn’t get going until after 10 am. The rain had stopped by then, so we figured we’d go drive the scenic road and then do some hikes along the way, nothing too intense. One of the main features of the park seems to be that at least 50 percent of the land is settled by prairie dogs. Over the course of the day, we saw a ton of the prairie dogs, wild horses, a few pronghorn, and towards the end of the day we finally saw the bison herd and had our last “bison jam” of the trip!

We visited various overlooks to the Little Missouri, watched a couple from the St Louis area ford a river, saw a bunch of amazing cool features, hiked a few miles down the Jones Creek Trail into the middle of nowhere and then hurry out to beat the rain, saw an area where there used to be a coal vein fire, and learned as much as we could about geology and the history of the area.

This was a random stop along the road.

That’s the Little Missouri River (above)

A picture with the trusty Subaru.

Wild horses couldn’t’ drag us away from Teddy Roosevelt National Park.

A really gnarly tree!

Long shot of the park. The landscape is really bizarre.

Louie got some great pictures of the prairie dogs with his zoom lens. This was one of them in the middle of a warning for the other dogs—they would kind of jump and flop into the air while making a high pitched sound. The danger was…us. There were just vast areas populated by the little dogs…would be quite annoying in your own backyard but out here, it’s amazing.

It seemed like the bison in TRNP were smaller than the bison in Yellowstone, but they still seemed to enjoy blocking the roads.

That’s a pronghorn. It’s one of the fastest animals in the world.

I’d love to show you another dozen prairie dogs, but you’ve probably seen enough! Louie and I fell in love with the little critters.

We explored the area until close to 6 pm, and then we decided we’d better get dinner…we decided to be lazy one more night and went to the Little Missouri Saloon. The bartender was also waiting tables and we felt a bit rushed and him to be a bit rude in our deciding which table to sit out, but the beer was cold and the fish and chips were hot.

After dinner, yep, you guessed it. We made a fire and relaxed.

Day 21: We packed up, and since we hadn’t gone to the Visitor’s Center yet, we stopped in on our way out of town. They had a nice shop and some nice displays.

Such as this odd wooden sculpture of Theodore Roosevelt on a horse.

Our next and last stop would be the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. As we’d been a few years ago, we were only staying a short period of time, but last time the campground in the park didn’t take reservations so we stayed elsewhere to be sure, and this time it did, so we were looking forward to staying in the park.  We got to the Badlands around 3:30 and first put up our tent (always a good idea, so that you are done with that!) and took a quick tour of the campground.

Then we hit the loop road, which isn’t really a loop. We drove out to the Sage Creek Road which had been too muddy on our last visit and saw MORE prairie dogs and a couple of bison (no jam). Then we headed back and enjoyed some awesome views, and were lucky enough to see more bighorn sheep and then finally, a MALE bighorn, which we hadn’t seen on the trip.

Oh, more prairie dogs By the way, don’t feed them. They are still wild animals and you should never feed them.

A bison, just chilling.

Female bighorn.

A young bighorn sheep, just starting to grow horns.

Beautiful view of the badlands.

The sun was starting to set.

We almost didn’t stop at the turnout where we saw this guy—such good luck we decided to! So much of animal sightings involve luck, being fairly quiet, and moving quickly. And just being out there.

Odd thing, there was a woman getting her picture taken and playing viola at one of the stops. There were actually several parties that seemed to be doing some professional style photography, carrying light shields or whatever they are called. It was kind of strange, honestly.

It was really getting dark then, so we headed back to the campground. We decided to shower first—there were pay showers and we both felt really gross as we hadn’t showered since Medicine Hat. We showered (it was an adventure as the shower curtains didn’t quite cover the stalls, plus the water didn’t shut off until your money ran out, but you had no idea how much time was left…I showered quickly, got finished, and then had to wait a really long time, but I was afraid to like, soap up again, so I just stood there being wet and bored!), and then immediately had to put on more bug spray as the bugs were out of control. We made dinner and enjoyed the darkness. No fires are allowed in the Badlands.

Day 22: We packed up and like in TRNP, went to the visitor’s center next. We wanted to do a short hike called the Notch Trail that went up a big ladder, (which I’ve actually done three times now: once as a girl, which I forgot, and then our previous time, and now this time. Perhaps my last) and then wanted to hit the road, and maybe get back home that night.

And that was it. We finished the hike, changed our shoes, and hit the road. We stopped in Chamberlain, SD for lunch at Taco John’s, and dinner in St. Joseph, MO at Cracker Barrel (it’s become a road trip favorite). We hoped to get home but had to admit defeat near Columbia, Missouri and got a hotel. We drove the last two hours the next morning, far more refreshed and safer.

We drove about 5000 miles on the trip, and were gone over 3 weeks. It was amazing. I spent 10 months planning it, off and on, and for the most part my planning paid off. It’s nearly impossible to plan enough for these trips, and there is always a bit more I wish I’d made notes of, but really one can also just wing it. You don’t have to start planning that far in advance, but I did have to make some of my camping and lodging reservations far in advance. In January I made all of the Canada National Parks camping reservations on the first day each opened, and some places did fill up quickly. I also felt good about the sites I’d chosen, for the most part, so I was glad for that.

Our biggest issue this trip was figuring out how to deal with the luggage in the SUV, as we are new SUV people and just couldn’t get it sorted for awhile. We’ve seen people who seem to have drawers in their vehicles and have some ideas for next time, but plastic bins help a ton. We also tried traveling with a smaller cooler which mostly worked out well, but putting it behind the driver’s seat was a tight fit and ended up being a bit awkward, so we’ll need to reconsider that. Sleeping wise, having the blow up air mattress topped with a foam topper couldn’t be any more comfortable unless it were on a bedframe. I slept better on this trip than I had on any camping trip! But clothes ended up everywhere, and shoes too, and sometimes it was hard to find what you were looking for. I wished I had a nature field guide I’d forgotten to bring as well, and perhaps one guidebook I didn’t have, and a road atlas might have been a better idea than a few maps which ended up not including the area we did need once…but it all worked out.

As far as eating: we have had a two burner Coleman stove that uses propane for awhile, but this trip we also brought a one burner butane stove because it was handier. I thought we might use both, but we didn’t really need it. I liked the butane stove better because set up was much quicker and the flame could be better controlled. The Coleman is more either on high or off, which can be challenging. We do a lot of mac and cheese, or beans and couscous/rice and beans, grilled cheese with a “toast-tite” and soup, or a few other random things. We end up eating a lot of canned veggies too, and apples and string cheese, peanut butter sandwiches, and trail mix, sparkling water and beer and other sparkling beverages, and make coffee through a pour-over filter.

As far as keeping in touch and electronics charging: we have tons of car charging options, including a little device that you can plug regular plugs into. Louie would charge a battery that he would have in the tent to charge his watch overnight, and whenever we were driving places we had all kinds of things charging. We also had a free trial of Sirius XM and listened to so much classical music, a free trial of Apple Music, and made the car into a wi-fi hotspot, which sometimes worked better than our phones (ATT for the car, Sprint for the phones). It’s nice to unplug, but 3 weeks is too long, plus we were dealing with some family health concerns and wanted to be in touch in case we needed to change our plans.

So there you have it. All those National Park, all that driving, and now it’s all just a really wonderful memory. I am so grateful to have met Louie and found somebody who encourages me to explore and is willing and able to take the time to have a long road trip. We really cherished our time, and had so much fun hiking, hanging out, taking pictures, and watching wildlife. If you have any questions about planning a trip, let me know! Or suggestions about packing a car for a very long road trip!

I hope you enjoyed reading these posts. I’d love to hear from you via a comment if so. Thanks for stopping by!

• Part 1: What Happened to Scott?
• Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam
• Part 3: There are still a few glaciers left…for now
• Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton
• Part 4a: , Pikas, Marmots, Bison, and More!
• Part 5: Banff, Black Bears, and Beyond

Please check out the above blog posts if you are interested in our trip up until this point.

Day 16: Driving the Icefields Parkway north to Jasper National Park.

When I started planning the trip back last fall, I originally planned for Banff to be our northernmost point. Then I started reading about how the Icefields Parkway, the road from Banff NP to Jasper NP was supposedly one of the most beautiful drives in the world, and I figured, well, we oughta do it. So I booked two nights camping in Jasper, but then we had to get back. I would have loved to have more days, but this trip was already just over 3 weeks (I included weekends, so 3 weeks with both the weekends) and we have like, jobs, and stuff.

I also had the Gypsy Guide app for the Icefields Parkway. I’d used the app in Yellowstone, but I’ll say I thought the one for the Icefields Parkway was better and more informative. Lots of great information and stories.

So, we packed up our campsite in Banff and hit the road. The mountains were covered in fog for a bit, in fact, more than a bit.

Our first big stop along the road was Peyto Lake. We almost skipped this stop because it was raining and then we said, okay fine. I’m glad we did!

Though the mountains were quite covered, the Lake was a gorgeous color. The path was a bit annoying as it was paved yet quite steep, but I guess that makes it easier to maintain. For your information, the parking lot had some gigantic potholes and we were happy not to be in a Toyota Corolla.

Then we took the short hike down to Mitaya Canyon. Mitaya Canyon is a slot canyon formed by the river (as canyons are generally formed) and is a short hike from the parking lot.

At one point we saw a herd of bighorn sheep along the road. They like to lick the salt.

The road went by some of the most amazing scenery, even though parts were obscured by clouds or fog.

The big highlight of the day was the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefields. You can take a bus out to the glacier, but it was expensive and so busy when we arrived, that we decided to do the hike to the Toe of the Glacier instead. (Spoiler Alert: we decided to do the tour on our return). What we didn’t realize was that the hike doesn’t officially go to the toe (the edge of the glacier) so we had to duck under a barrier to get there. Everybody else was doing the same, and we didn’t want to get so close but not get there. One thing to note: the closer you get to the Icefields, the colder it gets. I was glad to have brought my coat along.

As you walk to the glacier, there are little signs telling you what years the glacier was at various points. It’s a long walk past the signs.

We didn’t see this guy, but I think we would have if he’d been around.

I’ve decided that khaki pants are just never a good idea. But nonetheless, I found this sign interesting because my family visited the Athabasca Glacier in 1991. So this was new territory of ground for me from this point forward.

I’ve finally figured out how to put selfies in my blog posts. Generally my computer makes them upside down but if I open them, “edit” them and save them again, they work.

So that’s us, standing on the Glacier. It really was that ugly brown color, but it was ice. Wear good shoes!

Our next stop was Sunwapta Falls. It was funny—the road wasn’t too busy, but at all the “recommended” stops the parking lots would be slammed. We didn’t do any long hikes along the road, just a mile here, two miles there, and we realized by the end of the day we had hiked nearly 12 miles.

And after Sunwapta Falls, we stopped at Athabasca Falls. I’m more of a lake person than a falls person, but the power of water is just so impressive!

It was getting to be close to 6 pm by the time we arrived at our campground, Wapiti Campground. We would have liked to cook dinner and make a fire, but it was raining off and on and we were only a few miles from the town of Jasper, so we decided to go out to dinner. First we set up our tent on site RR20, which was on a bluff above the Athabasca River. Then we headed to town, and after walking around briefly, decided to get dinner at Evil Dave’s. It was pretty good, and we were definitely hungry!

We got dessert as well.

Day 17: We woke up not terribly early and it was pretty foggy and rainy. We decided to forge ahead with our first plan for the day, the Valley of the Five Lakes Trail.

Now. We’d been really luck on our trip so far. We had managed to not let rain ruin many of our plans. Today would be different though. We did the hike. I suppose there might have been mountains, but we certainly didn’t see any. It was only raining lightly, off and on, and the Five Lakes were perfectly nice, but I imagine the mountains might make the hike nicer.

See! Pretty lakes, no mountains.

We were cold and damp after that hike, so we decided to head back to Jasper town to see about a brunch/lunch something. We ended up at a diner called Smithy’s which was totally fine, and then walked around a bit. We kept hoping the weather would clear up, as it was possibly forecasted to, but it didn’t. We went to the “Museum of Wildlife” which was a creepy taxidermy place and that was worth the visit–even though I think taxidermy is awful and creepy I am also kind of fascinated by it. Louie finally got a pair of shoes, so that was a success! (At a store, not at the taxidermy museum.)

We thought we’d check out the fancy hotel in town so we drove over to the Fairmont Jasper Lodge. It was a nice place, with elk and golf, and a big lake.

It kept raining, so we were getting a little depressed. We went to nearby Lake Annette and started walking around it…and after about a mile, the mountains did start clearing up a bit! Not for good though, but we got a taste of things. We also went to see Lakes Pyramid and Raven after that.

I think Louie might be a better actor than me. Or I’m a better photographer than he is?

We decided (because of the weather) to eat out again. We had a great dinner at a place called Raven. Afterwards, we went back to the camp, and decided to purchase a fire permit and have a fire. It had finally stopped raining enough to be outside, and we weren’t sure if this was our last chance for a fire…either way it was our last chance for a fire in the Canadian Rockies. The firepit was wet and actually full of water, so Louie had to work hard to get the fire started.

One funny thing was that on my way to the bathroom at one point I ran into a woman who realized we had been at the KOA in Glacier together! Every once in awhile you’d see people and think they looked familiar, and did they look familiar because they’d been at a previous park or campground with you? Who knows!

Day 18: Back through the Icefields Parkway. We got up and packed up our tent. It was still pretty poor visibility in the area, so we decided, well, we’ll have to return to Jasper someday and hope for better weather! Almost right away we saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road, and yep, it was a black bear! No great pictures though.

Things looked clearer as we went along though!

We didn’t plan to stop very much along our drive today, as we had two days to get to Theodore Roosevelt Park, and at least 16 hours to drive. We hoped to drive more than halfway, at least.

Well, as we got closer to the Columbia Icefields again, Louie started to worry he’d regret not doing the bus tour. I’d gone as a child, so it wasn’t something I needed to do…but I worried he’d regret it to. We decided to just go for it—it was only about 10:30 am when we arrived and though our tickets were for a later tour, we were able to squeeze into the next tour! (I will say that tickets were ridiculously expensive and had to include the sky walk, so we paid more than $100 Canadian per ticket. It was $16 for adults in 1991.)

I was pretty pumped though, because I remembered absolutely loving the tour.

You first get on a regular tour bus, then you go to an area right near the glacier and get transferred onto a special ice bus and you get driven right out onto the glacier. It was pretty cool. You pass by this giant rock man.

The tour driver was a young man from Scotland and he was very funny.

There were a ton of people out there, as you might imagine. The crowds in this area are truly insane. It’s so worth it anyway, though!

Some kind midwesterners took some pictures of us.

Those tires are pretty big!

After about 30 minutes we had to get back on the bus and head to our tour bus again.

Next stop was the Glacier Skywalk, a strange contraption that goes out over the edge of the mountain and has a clear plastic or whatever bottom on it. Not my cup of tea at all, but we had the tickets for it so we went. You can pick up a handheld tour guide gadget and that made everything go smoothly and you felt like you were learning!

After we were done at the skywalk, we boarded another tour bus and headed back to the Icefields Center. It was past time for lunch, so we decided to eat there—we knew we’d be leaving Canada soon, so we decided to get an order of poutine, and we got a veggie burger as well.

It was cool and windy but we couldn’t resist eating outside for the view!

Then we hit the road again. We decided we needed to drive at least to Medicine Hat, Alberta for the night.

Going back through Banff Louie got a good picture of one of the wildlife crossroads for the wildlife to cross the highway.

And that’s where I’ll leave you for today. Goodbye, Canadian Rockies. Hope to see you again!

• Part 1: What Happened to Scott?
• Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam
• Part 3: There are still a few glaciers left…for now
• Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton
• Part 4a: , Pikas, Marmots, Bison, and More!

When we left off, we had just arrived at our campground in Banff. We stayed at Tunnel Mountain Campground 1 and it was one of my favorite campgrounds of the trip. The guidebooks will tell you that it’s overly crowded, yada, yada, but honestly, you don’t notice that from the site. Are you alone? No, but it’s a campground, not wilderness camping. The sites are big, and we had a nice one near the edge of the loop so nobody was walking by our tent. And the bathrooms even had showers, no extra cost and not limited, and somehow they weren’t even that busy! Plus, you got unlimited firewood.

Day 13: We wanted to do the hike to the Lake Agnes Teahouse and the Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse at Lake Louise. I’d been to Lake Louise as a girl and remembered how beautiful it was (also, internet pictures), but Lake Louise was an hour drive from our campground, and word on the street was that the parking lot filled up early. Like, really early. So we decided to get up to get there by six am with the hopes it wouldn’t be an issue. We woke up at 4:45 am (horrors) and got on the road—we even made coffee the night before and put it in a thermos. We got to the parking lot just before 6 am and while the signs said “parking lot full” that wasn’t true, and we got a lovely spot. We took our time getting ready to hike, drank coffee/ate breakfast/bathroom and such, and then headed out. It was crowded right at the Lake, as it was just past sunrise but the mountains were covered in fog still—I guess people were waiting for the sun to rise over the mountains and tons of people were set up with serious photographic equipment. We started hiking instead.

We first hiked up to the Lake Agnes Teahouse, which was just over 2 miles. When we got there, the mountains were still covered by fog.

Anyway, we had a pot of teas, some scones and jam, and a bowl of veggie soup (random, I know but it looked good and came with bread).

The teahouse gets all its supplies by either helicopter or by foot. While we were there a helicopter arrived, which was kind of fun.

Do you see the helicopter? And the mountains are appearing!

At this point in the day it was still chilly outside, but by the time we left it was warming up. Our next step was to hike around Lake Agnes and up over the Big Beehive.

I had a few instances during that portion of the hike of being terrified of hikes, but I made it. At the top, Louie had a little issue and we hurried along and so didn’t get pictures up there. Off we went to the Plain of Six Glaciers!

The next part of the hike was less busy as I think more people choose one or the other hike, and as a result was my favorite part of the hike. Once we got to there part of the hike that was the more direct route to the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse it was more crowded, and the sun was high in the sky and it was a tough part of the hike!

But we made it! And ordered more tea and scones. Then we hiked back down, which was crowded, but beautiful. As we got closer to Lake Louise, the crowds were overwhelming, and the last hour or so of the hike we were just dodging people and ready to be DONE. The views were spectacular though—the lake is an unbelievable color and the mountains are just, well, words don’t do it justice. And neither do pictures!

That’s the Hotel Fairmont at Lake Louse—very fancy.

We thought this canoe with a Canadian Flag was just great.

Anyway, we finally made it back to the car, and we were exhausted

This was the hike as recorded on Louie’s Apple Watch. Just over 11 miles.

We got back to our campground around 4:30 and were exhausted! We showered and then made a campfire and relaxed all evening.

In Canada, they call it Kraft Dinner. We enjoyed this with a can of tuna and peas added.

Day 14: We decided today would be an easy day and we would just visit the town of Banff. We started with breakfast at Evelyn’s coffee—the cappuccinos were good but the breakfast muffins were “eh”. We walked along the Bow River then, and around the Fenland Loop, which was in the trees and super full of bugs.

The town of Banff is in the National Park, but is full of shops and restaurants and everything you might need…well, almost. Louie kept trying to find a new pair of shoes but everything he liked was sold out in his size.

We got lunch at a place called “Block”. We had our first poutine, and enjoyed a tofu bao and a delicious salad called the “Zen” salad.

After lunch, we walked the other direction along the Bow River, towards the Falls, and then up to the Fairmont Hotel Banff.

After visiting the hotel we headed back to our car, first making a stop at a grocery store for supplies for the next few days. I was worried about how long we’d been parked—we found a garage for 8 hours, which seemed like a long time when we’d parked there that morning, but then we didn’t remember exactly when we’d arrived! In any case, it was no problem.

Next we decided to drive the Lake Minnewanka Loop and follow a suggested tour in the guidebook I was using at the time. We stopped at a place called Lower Bankhead, which used to be a place where people lived and worked in a mine, and we were walking the loop when an animal trotted right past us, and we think it was a fox..or even a coyote?! Lower Bankhead was also full of mosquitoes.

Maybe it’s a kangaroo?

We next stopped at Lake Minnewanka and looked around for a few minutes.

You can buy tickets for various boat rides, as well as rent kayaks and such.

Then we continued along to Two Jack Lake, and then Johnson Lake. It kept looking like it was going to rain, so we kept moving along.

We saw some bighorn sheep around the lake, but it was too crowded with cars to take any pictures. As we were getting back to our campsite, we saw some elk.

Then we did the usual, fire and dinner, and just after dark, I was headed to brush my teeth and realized there were some elk walking nearby. I went back to get Louie’s attention, and we realized there was a whole herd of elk, dozens and dozens, walking by and through the campground, bugling, and grazing, and just passing through slowly. It was amazing! We didn’t get any pictures, as it was dark, but we just stood then in the dark (at one point moving further away) and enjoyed their presence. That’s one of the reasons we camp—you wouldn’t get an experience like that in a hotel as you wouldn’t be outside! It was one of my favorite moments of the trip, honestly. It was magical.

Later that night there was a storm, and the rain continued into the early morning.

Day 15: We had thought we might get up early, but it was raining, so we waited until after 7 to get up. We decided to hike Johnston Canyon Falls and Ink Pots Trail. The trail was nice, but very crowded! Once you got past the Falls it wasn’t as bad, but yeah…Banff is a busy place.

Did I know my picture was being taken? Questionable. We had lunch in the Ink Pots area.

After the hike, we decided to drive the rest of the Bow Valley Parkway. We saw a bear, then another bear, and then after we turned back around, we saw a third bear that might have the same as the first bear! We did get told by a ranger not to stop alongside the bears and take pictures—they prefer not to have the bears get too comfortable with cars. It’s hard—you want to take pictures and see them, but you know that the bears live here and you want to respect that and help keep them safe. We ended up driving slowly by one of them, then doubling back and doing that again.

I think Louie got some good pictures here of that bear!!

After that, it was late in the day, so we headed back to the campsite for our last night there. We made a huge fire (using up all the wood we’d taken—you get a fire permit, and then you can use unlimited wood—except the wood needs to be chopped generally, and we bring a hatchet with us but not an axe so it was a real adventure) and just enjoyed the evening and the cool weather.

I should say, Banff wasn’t as cold as Yellowstone either, though the evenings were cool enough that the fire was definitely helpful. Oddly, we had internet service at the campsite, so while on the one hand we wanted to live in the moment and enjoy the solitude of the camping, on the other hand it had been two weeks of vacation and it was good to be in touch with the world and neither of us can really go that long without responding to emails and such. It’s also nice to be able to easily keep in touch with family and friends.

The next morning we would be packing up our tent and hitting the road again, but for the moment, we sat, enjoying a drink, perhaps some popcorn, and a fire. (We did do a jiffy pop one night!) It was nice to spend 4 nights somewhere, because it really started to feel like home! And we could have stayed longer because there was so much more to do in the area, but we had our itinerary, and next up was the Icefields Parkway and Jasper National Park.

It’s always tough transitioning from vacation back into real life, isn’t it? The beginning of the new school year brings a whole set of challenges, and I feel like I’ve spent the last week trying to precariously balance my college teaching schedule (which is still in progress) with my private teaching schedule with my desires and need for sleep and exercise and practice time. I’m getting there, but it means lots of emails, waiting for responses, and then realizing you forgot to email somebody else. I’ve also been trying to catch up on things I’d pushed off until “after vacation” and while, I do feel calmer and more under control than in previous years, the beginning of the fall semester is not an easy time to be alive.

It’s fine though, and things are going okay! I’d love to spend a few hours working on my Banff recap blog post, but I haven’t been doing that. I must admit, I’ve been reading a bit during my free time, so it’s not exactly that I don’t have time, but that I just haven’t felt like spending more time at the computer!

(If you are behind, feel free to catch up, especially so you know the context behind the following pictures!)

• Part 1: What Happened to Scott?
• Part 2: This is my {Bison} Jam
• Part 3: There are still a few glaciers left…for now
• Part 4: Tons of Water in Waterton

Louie shared all of his photos with me though, so I thought I’d share a few with you here. He has a really nice telephoto lens so he can get “up close” with animals more than I am able to with my camera and phone camera.

This was the first marmot we saw on the trip, on top of the Beartooth Highway.

Quite the view!

My favorite, bison.

This guy seemed to be chewing.

This was on the hike up to Mount Washburn (in Yellowstone).

The bison like to roll around in the dirt.

At the Brink of the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

At Mammoth Hot Springs.

Our first stop along Lake McDonald in Glacier NP.

Some mountain goats hanging out above the Highline Trail. Later, these same goats (I think) ran by us.

A pika. The pika (pikas?) can only live in high elevations.

Boarding the boat on the Grinnell Glacier Hike.

At Grinnell Glacier. And the Lake formed by the melting glaciers.

Our view hiking back from Grinnell. This was a gorgeous hike.

Another view of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton National Park.

Selfie with Waterton Townsite in the background.

Along the hike to Bertha Lake.

It’s hard to get good pictures of bears. These two I thought looked pretty good! This particular bear was simply along the road on our route to Banff.

I’ll incorporate some of his pictures into my next few posts, most likely. In any case, I wanted to pop in, share a bit, and now I must go off to work. I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend…think of us musicians who are likely playing weddings, events, and other gigs while you have your three day weekend