A starting side note. It seemed that the pictures for my posts of the last two years trips had started to not display when the posts were read. The program I use to create the post was storing the photos on Google Drive. In their infinite wisdom, Google Drive changed and decided that if too many files were being accessed quickly then it would just deny access. Great! To get around this I have moved all the photos to a different site and have gone back and edited all the posts to point to the new location. Going forward the process of creating the posts is a bit more complicated but at least it should work. Let me know if there are any problems.
It is time to head out on our first adventure of this summer.We are going to spend a month exploring Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Waterton Lakes National Parks. We have booked a campground in Banff for 13 days to visit that area and nearby Kootenay National Park. Then 10 days at Lake Louis for that area and Yoho National Park, followed by 5 days at Waterton Lakes National Park. Then finally back to the cottage until late August when we head to Iceland for 3 weeks..
This one is another fill in the blanks trip. In 2018 we toured southern British Columbia and were going to end at these parks before heading home. Then the fires started and we got smoked out. So far on checking the air quality index for Banff we seem to be OK and these are no nearby fires.
Another worry is the weather. In 2018 we were going to be there in September and I remember checking the weather after we got home and there would have been some below zero nights and snow. Currently the nights there are in the low single digits and the days are in the mid teens, both of which we can handle. There is some rain in the forecast but most days seem at least partly sunny. Fingers crossed.
I have told a lot of people about this but I wanted to record here how crazy it was getting campground reservation. The website opened for Waterton Lakes at 10 am on Jan 24. If you signed in before 10, at 10 you would be put in a random place in the queue of all people waiting. If you signed in after 10 you were put at the end. When 10 came around I was told that there were over 6000 people ahead of me. Miraculously, after a 1/2 hour wait, I managed to book one of the last two sites available for the time I wanted.
On Jan 26, Banff was even crazier. At 10 am there were over 24000 people ahead of me. Again miraculously, after a 1 1/2 hour wait, I could book some of the few remaining sites for the time I wanted at both Banff and Lake Louise. I think the only thing that saved me was booking for early June.
It is going to take 5 (approximately 6 hour) days to drive out there.
Our first two stops are Ontario Provincial Parks, Rainbow Falls and Aaron, as there are no free places that I was comfortable with. Then Walmart in Brandon Manitoba and Swift Current Saskatchewan. Coming home we will pretty much reverse this route and stops.
Currently we have been at the cottage since the end of April. Amazingly, for the first time in a long time, everything at the cottage started up from winter mode without any problems. The RV had a few problems, mainly some cracked water line fittings because I guess I didn't blow out the lines at well as I should have. Nothing that couldn’t be easily fixed.
Jennie has been busy planting all her gardens, hoping they will survive our month long absence. She started a lot of plants at home in our solarium to give them a fighting chance. We have an automatic watering system set up and my cousin will check on things.
Jennie has a lot of gardens. Since the ground here is either sand on the beach or very rocky farther from the shore, all her gardens are raised beds.
Two by the RV, mainly for flowers, some fake and some real. My aunt and uncle, that are here all winter couldn’t understand how there were flowering plants in the middle of winter until we told them they were fake.
Two more by the driveway, again for flowers and Hostas. I haven’t quite finished the newest one yet.
A U shaped one at the side of the house for vegetables.
And then 5 at the front of the house along with countless pots.
Everything did pretty well last year when we were away for June so we’ll see.
The highlight for the month was the night of auroras. I hope everyone got to see them. I was a bit worried as the day was somewhat cloudy but everything cleared up and we had great views for about 1/2 hour before it clouded over again.
The whole sky was covered in shade of red and green.
And a very wide panorama.
I called Jennie out but she a little less impressed as the colours are never as vivid as in all the picture you see but still very amazing.
I hope we see more on our trip to Iceland.
Onwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment