Archive for the ‘Canada’ Category

A sign we need to start moving south!

Friday, September 13th, 2013

Our RV park in Edmonton is near a beautiful walking trail that winds several miles through the city.  I am enjoying nature right in my backyard.  Duke and I have been taking a nice walk every morning; he pees on every bush and I breathe the fresh air.

Edmonton walk

 

The only problem with this area is I can see this from my kitchen window and even though it is above 25c I am thinking it is time to start heading south!

Ski Mountain!

Ski Mountain!

I almost panicked!

Thursday, September 12th, 2013

We have been in Edmonton this week taking care of some business before we head to Banff and for some reason the internet in the park would not open my blog!  I was sure it was lost.  Thankfully Paul was able to find it although he says he didn’t do anything.  My computer wizard is being modest!  I don’t really care as long as I have my blog.  This is my personal diary of our adventures and I have no other written record and my memory is awful.  I would have to have someone tell me how much fun I have been having if I lose this blog!

Anyway,  Edmonton is a big city and we really have not explored much although we did go to the West Edmonton Mall, twice!  West Edmonton Mall, located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is the largest shopping mall in North America and the tenth largest in the world by gross leasable area. The mall was founded by the Ghermezian brothers, who immigrated from Iran in 1959.  Now we have been to two of the huge malls and I have to say this one is pretty cool although there are not many shoppers here and since it is September a lot of the attractions close early so we didn’t get to see the amusement park or the rope climbing.  We did get to see some life guards doing some kind of drill in the Wave Pool at the water park.  The water park has a slide that does a loop!

Edmonton Hockey

There is a Ice Rink!  Full size and you can walk around the whole thing so watching the skaters is lots of fun. The day we were there there were some young girls practicing their moves.  Then later there were some guys playing a pick up game of hockey!  They were good!

800 stores and I couldn’t find a thing to buy!  We did have dinner at Tony Romas!  We could have had ribs at home and we travel to another country to enjoy them, yummmm!

 

A couple of days of pure nature – Check out the whole post! Very cool!

Sunday, September 8th, 2013

We made it to Jasper National Park without anymore mishaps; I am still not breathing properly while we are moving but I will get over it with time.  The transmission has been working beautifully and the brakes are no longer smelling.  Jasper has lots of places to camp so we didn’t get a reservation although if you made a reservation months ago you could get electricity at your site.  Our site was in an area with only a few other RV’s so it was very quiet.  There are warnings about bears and this is rutting season for Elk so staying a good distance from the wildlife is recommended.  I am wondering why it is called rutting and not mating?

We spent an amazing weekend in Jasper with only a little rain during the night.  The days were warm and beautiful.  You would not even know how cold it is going to be very soon.

Medicine Lake

Medicine Lake

This lake is pretty low right now and will soon disappear as the water disappears through the earth and fills again in the spring.  It was interesting to look at the disappearing lake and see the rivers below the surface.

Medicine Lake disappearing

Medicine Lake disappearing

Jasper has many lakes and rivers and amazing terrain.

Malign River

Malign River

Malign River

Malign River

I love water!

I love water!

Paul stops every time we see a place when there is water!  I could sit by this stream all day but we have lots to see.  So far we have seen a few Elk, but no males rutting.

Malign Lake

Malign Lake

We took a really nice hike around part of this lake.  The mountain ranges are so interesting.

Our secluded hike around the lake

Our secluded hike around the lake

Awesome

Awesome

Jasper 4

We were driving along and there were a couple cars stopped in the roadway and we assumed it was another Elk alert and then Paul says “look, a bear!”  I look over and there he was about 20 feet from the road!

A Grizzly in the wild

A Grizzly in the wild

He was so close!

He was so close!

My camera was making me crazy cause he would look right at us but by the time the camera would snap he would turn!  Time for a newer camera!  The bear had no interest in any of us as he was demolishing the bushes eating the berries.  I tried to get out of the car to get a better photo and a guy in another car had to remind me to not get so close!  I was definitely caught in the moment.  After that we just sat in the car and enjoyed watching him eat.

We drove about 20 miles out in the park to see a glacier except Paul was underwhelmed because he is thinking it will be a whole mountain and it isn’t!  I thought it was a beautiful drive and short hike so it was worth it!

Mt. Edith Cavill Glacier

Mt. Edith Cavill Glacier

 

 

Just cause we can make him do anything we want!

Just cause we can make him do anything we want!

On our way to Edmonton for the week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I really can’t breathe!

Thursday, September 5th, 2013

We were on the road by about 1 pm for our trip from 100 Mile House to Jasper.  We were planning to find a nice spot for the evening and enjoy the afternoon enjoying some of this fabulous landscape.  The Highway out of 100 Mile House, Hwy 5 goes along some beautiful lakes and is a very nice highway.  We stopped many times along the way just to enjoy the views.  Just after lunch we reach a summit and see a sign stating that we are going to be descending a 9% grade over the next 10 km, trucks 8 km per H!  Allright, now we are really going to test the transmission as we descend.  Things are going fine although keeping the RV at 8 km which is about 6 mph seemed unnecessary as we were being passed at 15 mph, but it just keeps going down and it was pretty straight down without many curves.  There was a runaway hill pretty often and then that moment you dread when you are in a big RV, towing a car, burning brakes!

I tell Paul “the brakes are smoking”

He says “those aren’t ares!”

“Yes, they are, I can see the smoke!”

“Fine, I stop and check”  and thankfully he did and there was a runaway ramp right there because as he pulls over to stop he realizes his brakes are almost gone!  We were very lucky as we were going pretty slowly and he was able to get us stopped safely!  The brakes were smoking and it smelled awful, and we were only 1/2 way down this grade!

We sat on the side of the road for 1 1/2 hours waiting for the brakes to cool.  Then we unhitched the car and Paul tested the brakes in the runaway zone before he headed down the rest of the grade while Duke and I followed in the car!

I thank god that Paul listened to me, that I smelled smoke at that moment because if we had missed that pull out there was not another, and the transmission didn’t decide to stop working on the grade!  We made it the rest of the way with the hazard lights on and going less than 6 mph!

Were we sat and relaxed after that little episode

Were we sat and relaxed after that little episode

We found this nice reststop after and enjoyed the calm for awhile before we continued to our evening stop.  We were hoping for a nice spot near the river but only found a tiny little RV Park run by a cute couple living in their school bus near the river!  Some days are better than others!

 

That was close! and we are not out of the woods yet!

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

Back in Canada.  We moved to Abbottsford, BC from Point Roberts, WA on Monday morning and once we found an RV park we took off in the car to Blaine, WA to pick up my prescription and then back into Canada.  We have crossed the boarder too many times this past week but now we are here to stay for the rest of the month.

Tuesday we woke to more rain!  The weather is very confusing as it was beautiful yesterday.  About noon we are heading east and out of nowhere the motorhome decides it isn’t going to shift into overdrive.  Paul notices a warning light on the dash and we decide to exit the freeway.  Luckily there is a large Walmart right there for us to pull into.  As Paul is making the turn off the freeway he realizes the motorhome is in 3rd gear and it is making it very hard to accelerate.  Great!  We are in a foreign country and NOW we have to breakdown!

We limp our way into the Walmart parking lot and find a nice level spot because we do not know how long we will be here.  Paul gets out the manual to figure out what the warning light is.  It says the warning light is warning you of danger, go to a repair facility immediately.  Thank goodness Paul’s cell phone is working.  He calls the manufacture of the motor and they direct him to an Allison Transmission shop within 25 miles.  They can’t take us today and have nowhere for us to overnight so after some talk it is decided we will stay at the Walmart and hopefully we can get this RV moving to the shop tomorrow am.

The technician did give Paul some advise.  The transmission is designed to go into limp mode to enable you to move off the highway and that is what the transmission did.  After the phone call and Paul checking the fuses and the transmission fluid level he decides that we should move to the outskirts of the parking lot since we will be staying.  He starts the RV and the warning light is off!  It goes into first gear and moves fine!  Great! Now what do we do!

Wednesday am we get up at 6:30 to arrive at the shop by 7:30.  The RV is working perfectly!  The shop does a diagnostics on it and sees that we had several errors but no errors now!  It is due for a service on the transmission so they do that, test drive it for 30 minutes at 8 miles per gallon of $5.50 fuel and a tech at who knows how much per hour and nothing!  It is working perfectly, no signs of any damage.

We still don’t know what was wrong other than it might have lost power somewhere and because it powered back up mid start it produced errors.  How did it lose power?  Maybe the rain?  who knows but we are going to be traveling into very remote mountains for the next several days so I insisted that we purchase some towing insurance.  We have not had any up until now but this could have been costly just for the repairs, we don’t need a big tow bill on top of things!

We bought the Good Sam towing service for 3 years but it will not be valid until midnight on Thursday!  Great, for the next 36 hours I can’t breathe.  The bummer is we traveled through this amazing canyon today from Hope, BC to 100 Mile House, BC.  The canyon is called Fraser Canyon and runs along a huge river.

Fraser Canyon

Fraser Canyon

Of course photos are impossible, you just have to see it for yourself.  This is some of the most spectacular highway I have seen!  Every time the motorhome has to shift I stop breathing!

We made it to 100 Mile House, BC and I can breathe again.  Tomorrow we head east to Jasper National Park.  Hopefully the RV holds out and this was only a blimp!

All Aboard! Whistle, Whistle!

Saturday, August 31st, 2013

Once again Paul has talked me into getting up as the sun rises and hurry off to another amazing day in British Columbia.  It rained all day Thursday and Friday was not really a sunshiny day but this morning things are looking very promising.  The sky is clear and the sun is starting to peak over the horizon, It’s 5:30 AM!!!!  We are heading back into Vancouver which requires us to stop at the border patrol and offer up our passports as well as explaining that yet again we are going to go into Canada and spend some more money!  We breeze through, I think he was still asleep.  With a quick stop at Starbucks where for $4.04 CAD I can get my grande nonfat latte except I only have USD so I get to pay $4.21!  Our dollar is worth more but all the stores charge extra.

Arriving at the Train station in North Vancouver by 7:15 am was a breeze as everyone is still asleep! me included!  We get checked in and here comes our Whistler Rocky Mountain Train that will  be taking us on a 3 1/2 hour excursion to Whistler Mtn. Village.

 

Whistler Train

 

All Aboard!!!

All Aboard!!!

Yep, they even blew the whistle and the conductor yelled “All Aboard”  We are on car #2 with David as our guide, meal server and friend for the next 3 1/2 hours.  He also will be our guide, server, etc.  on the 3 1/2 return trip this afternoon.

Very spacious

Very spacious

Traveling by train is definitely move relaxing than  by Air.  The seats are much larger, the seat in front of me can recline and I can still see my lap!  And, the best part is when David is pushing the food and beverage cart down the isle, I can still get to the restroom!  Just in case you are wondering the food was pretty good!

The views on our trip were amazing and David was full of information about what we were seeing and the towns we were passing through.

Whister views2

Whistler views

 

Thats our train on the left and the river on the right!

Thats our train on the left and the river on the right!

Passing through at least 9 tunnels and across the river several times

Passing through at least 9 tunnels and across the river several times

Waterfalls

Waterfalls

Chasms

Chasms

Lakes

Lakes

We arrived in Whistler Village just before lunch.  This village is a very busy place.  In the winter it is a skiers paradise and in the summer they transform the mountain into a summer retreat.  You can stroll the village, shopping and dining or you can opt for the many activities they offer.  There is a gondola ride from Whistler Mtn. to Blackcomb Mtn, a Zipline course and the face of Whistler has been transformed into a mountain bike course.

We watched!

We watched!

We decided to just relax during our 3 hour stay in Whistler where we had a mini lunch of a canadian concoction that was french fries and cheese curds covered in gravy!  Interesting!

We boarded our train at 3:30 for the journey back to Vancouver with David our cabin server and enjoyed yet another awesome afternoon.

Whistler Lake

Whistler Lake

Almost back.

Almost back.

We returned to the station about 7:30 and headed home.  Traffic was not nearly as nice for our return!

An amazing day and an amazing end to our time in Vancouver. We will be heading east tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to British Columbia

Friday, August 30th, 2013

We are just jumping back and forth.  We spent the day in Vancouver, BC doing some auto touring about the city.  We had lunch near Queen Elizabeth Park where Denise tried her first Vietnamese Pho Soup!  Not bad.  I still like there sub sandwiches more.  From lunch as we were traveling towards Stanley Park  I saw this giant Purple building with the words CHOCOLATE SHOP on the sign!  Got to stop.  Paul quickly made a right turn into a neighborhood and we circled around until we found it again.

Just like Charlie!

Just like Charlie!

It was the Purdy Chocolate company and all they had was a gift shop where you could purchase any of their products.  I was hoping for a tour but we did get to taste some really good dark chocolate and of course we had to buy some!

Ok, now we really need that walk!  We made it to Stanley Park where you can walk along the seawall and through the park for miles.  We probably only walked about 3 miles but it felt good to be out just walking.  We watched lots of sea planes taking off and landing in the bay.  Stanley Park is like parks in other big cities, a tiny oasis amongst the cement.

Vancouver Skyline, looking across from the Park

Vancouver Skyline, looking across from the Park

Taking a break in the forest

Taking a break in the forest

Totem Poles, I love the bottom of this one!

Totem Poles, I love the bottom of this one!

Lots of walking, a picnic dinner with dessert and we are on our way back to the USA for the rest of the holiday weekend.

 

 

 

We are feeling pretty happy now!

Monday, August 26th, 2013

We have left the island and still have a bit of money to spare seeing as though Paul had calculated the BC Ferry to Vancouver was going to cost us close to $400 CAD and when we checked in this morning we were only charged $290 CAD.  With the exchange rate we just saved over $125!  Whahooo.  We bought ourselves breakfast at the Ferry building! Yumm.

We climbed the hill to get out of beachcomber and as we were hooking the car up we had some well wishers.

So cute, but mom hurried them away from the big bad RV!

So cute, but mom hurried them away from the big bad RV!

We made it to the ferry terminal just before the 8 am ferry left but because we had a 9 am reservation that we paid $15 US for they said we had to wait till the 9 to use our deposit!  So we checked in and made our way to the cafe to spend some of our savings on a coffee and donut.  About 8:30 they called for us to board our ferry.

All parked and cozy in the hull of a ship

All parked and cozy in the hull of a ship

The ferry is huge.  We were at the front of the boat but because we couldn’t see anything we went upstairs and enjoyed the ride to Vancouver.

Passing in the channel

Passing in the channel

Paul was very interested as to why they had …….

Tanks?

Depth charges?

We made it to Vancouver and disembarked.  Our next stop is back in the USA at Point Roberts, WA!  A funny little town of 5 sq. miles surrounded by water and the only land contact is British Columbia!

 

 

Never saw a gardener!

Saturday, August 24th, 2013

Butchart Gardens is a must see while on Vancouver Island.  It is located about 20 minutes from the village of Victoria so a car or public transportation is necessary.  If you have any interest in gardening you do not want to miss this one.  A bit pricey however we chose to go on Saturday as they put on an amazing fireworks display in the evening.  We have been to lots of fireworks displays and this one is definitely one of the better ones.  They have an huge ground display with moving fireworks.  There was one point where they had two lines of dancing teacups crossing the lagoon to music, all with fireworks.  Very cool.  The only bummer was there was no wind and some of the displays were hidden by all the smoke.

I can not describe the gardens except with some of the pictures I took – The pictures do not even begin to show the beauty here.

Sunken Garden

Sunken Garden

Japanese Lily Pond

Japanese Lily Pond

Glass House

Glass House

Rose Garden

Rose Garden

In the Rose Garden there are 250 varieties and over 2500 plants.

Interesting borders

Interesting borders

Begonia's are everywhere

Begonia’s are everywhere

Sunken Garden upclose!

Sunken Garden upclose!

Sturgeon Waterfall -  Paul's favorite in the Gardens

Sturgeon Waterfall – Paul’s favorite in the Gardens

Even the trash cans are flowerbeds!!!

Even the trash cans are flowerbeds!!!

Beautiful colors

Beautiful colors

Beautiful combinations

Beautiful combinations

and more colors!

and more colors!

They have a boat ride in the harbor for an additional charge - We walked down for a bit of a sunset colors on the water.

They have a boat ride in the harbor for an additional charge – We walked down for a bit of a sunset colors on the water.

I was looking everywhere for that pile of clippings, a wilted bloom, something to prove this was a real garden!  We took a break from the gardens and listened to Tropic Mayhem for about an hour.  Interesting, we are in British Columbia and their opening song is Surfin’ USA!  They were lots of fun and played mostly Beach Boys Music which I enjoyed.

Tropic Mayhem

Tropic Mayhem

We spent about 4 hours in the gardens which Paul would have been bored crazy if it were not for the fireworks.  I will give in on the Tea Party but not on getting to see someones vision for amazing floral displays.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful

Saturday, August 24th, 2013

Made it through customs without losing any food or alcohol items and Duke didn’t bark at the customs man when he entered our RV!  We are parked this week right on the water across from the San Juan Islands and the first two days the weather was perfect.  Victoria is about 10 miles away and we took the ocean view route into town.  Very fancy neighborhoods and the views of the bay are amazing.

We decided to park near Fishermans Wharf and take the water taxi to the downtown area to the Empress Hotel.  The flowers are blooming, and the air is so clear here.  Fishermans Wharf is a bit different than home.  It is a small village of permanently parked house boats and a couple of fish stands with one Mexican Restaurant that is also floating.

 

Lots of cute little floating homes

Lots of cute little floating homes

FishermansWharf Victoria1

This one has it’s very own singing princess

FishermansWharf Victoria2 FishermansWharf Victoria3

  The wharf was crowded so we found the water taxi and for $5.00 each we got a ride across the inlet to the area called downtown.  This is where the Empress Hotel is located.  Last time I was here when you entered the harbor all you could see was the Empress Hotel, now there are lots of beautiful hotels and buildings so the Empress doesn’t look as grand to me.

The Empress Hotel, Victoria BC

The Empress Hotel, Victoria BC

Afternoon Tea is a big draw to the Empress and everyone told me we needed to do that.  But at $59.95 CAD plus CAD taxes each I put a lot of thought into the idea of sitting in a beautiful dining room sipping tea with our pinkies out from a tiny tea cup and eating little sandwiches, pinwheels and scones with Paul, and decided that our money was better spent on an ice cream in the gardens!

$5.00 and he got a little Canadian flag on top!

$5.00 and he got a little Canadian flag on top!

A view of the hotel from the gardens

A view of the hotel from the gardens

Beautiful flowers and a dolphin sculpture from the hedges

Beautiful flowers and a dolphin sculpture from the hedges

The gardens are beautiful and we did get to walk through the Tea Lobby and through some of the hotel areas.  Here is a interesting note:

  • Nearly 100,000 guests are served tea annually with an estimated 500,000 cups of tea.

That is a lot of $59.95’s for a tradition that was started by a Duchess that was a bit tired in the afternoon and needed a pick-me-up!

We are not really very traditional people so I don’t think I really missed something that I will be sad about.  We had a nice walk along the harbor and enjoyed some views of the Parliment building. The giant Sequoia that was planted in the 1800’s is pretty cool,  It looks like more than one tree.  Not as tall as we are use to but definitely a Sequoia and really large around.

Parliment

The official Christmas Tree of BC

The official Christmas Tree of BC

Back to our RV spot on the water.  Beachcomber RV is a very quaint park with only about 30 sites and most are summer permanent sites.  Each site is pretty narrow but we all have a little beach haven set apart from the others.  Many of the summer residents collect driftwood and use it for fences to stake out their area.  We had a fire with several couples one evening and learned more about being Canadian.  They do know how to have a good time.