Week ending Sep 24, 2015 Banff, Cochrane

Friday morning we woke up to a  beautiful sunrise. 

 

We headed into Cochrane to get mail; Medipac insurance documents finally arrived. We made an appointment to get new tires on the trailer.

Saturday Elizabeth came by and we went for a walk along the Bow River to Sundance Canyon.  We saw a trail ride and a wagon along the way.   

 

We stopped at the WWI Internment Museum which has recently been opened.

Sunday Trev and family came out for lunch. While they were here we made plans for a family Thanksgiving dinner in Regina. They had to leave early afternoon due to obligations. We watched the Nascar race, and rain prevented us from going walking.

Monday we did the hike around the outside of the campground, where we saw a few deer, but the campground bear eluded us.

 

George, John's brother, arrived in the afternoon and had dinner with us.

Tuesday morning we woke up to a bright blue sky and -4 degree temperature. After it warmed up a bit we went for a hike with George to the Hoodoo viewpoints.

Hoodoos

 Along the way Joan had a chat with a couple whose kids were looking for jobs teaching skiing this winter. 

Wednesday we arrived in Cochrane and dropped the truck and trailer at Kal Tire by 9:30 for new tires for the trailer. We headed over to Tim Hortons for a quick breakfast and then to UPS for our mail. After picking up the truck we checked into Bow Rivers Edge. Of course they have rules and even though our site was empty we could not get set up in it until after 1:00 We left the truck/trailer at the park and went for a walk along the river. After 1:00 we came back, got set up and then drove up to Safeway for groceries.

Thursday we needed to try out the new Tim Hortons in Fireside at the top of the hill on the south side of Cochrane. While we were asking if there was a trail down to the valley on the west side of the highway, a fellow told us Towers Road went down to George Fox Trail in the valley. We did stop to ask some construction guys for clarification along the way, and they gave us directions, with a warning that it was at least a 40 minute walk that way.  Although the route was along paved back roads, it wasn't very busy.   Once we got down into the valley, we followed the pathway along the river.  There was an interpretive sign about a Native site in the area.

We were glad to get back to the trailer as we did a much longer walk than we had planned.  We left the trailer about 10:30 and arrived back at 3:00  with sore feet. It amazes us how many areas there are in Cochrane that we have not yet explored.

Week ending Sep 17, 2015 Banff

Saturday after some  shopping at Costco and Walmart in Okotoks we met Trev and family for dinner at Browns Social House to celebrate Trev's birthday.  Again Browns Social House did not disappoint, the food was very good and the service superb.

Sunday was moving day, off to Banff. The rain held off while we packed up, but we drove through showers off and on all the way. We stopped at Cochrane to pick up our mail in hopes that our Medipac insurance documents would be there - no such luck. As we drove into the mountains the clouds started to lift, giving us some amazing views.

While we were setting up the clouds rolled in again and just as we finished we had more rain. Although it showered off and on for the rest of the day, we were able to get a short walk through the campground in between showers. The wardens are on patrol here as a bear has been spotted in the campground and in fact helped himself to someone's granola bars that had been left in the pocket of a fishing jacket on his boat. We were cautioned when we arrived to keep a clean campsite. In fact if you leave food outside you can be asked to leave.  We didn't ask if the fisherman had been turfed.


Monday we awoke to rain, we walked around the campground, getting glimpses of mountains through the clouds.

Tuesday morning was a winter wonderland. The snow seems to have brought out the elk. There were a few female elk wondering around the area as well as a bull elk with a magnificent set of antlers. Unfortunately because numerous campers had their camera out and were out chasing the elk for that perfect picture, we did not get good pictures. By lunch time the snow was gone and we went for a short walk.

Wednesday we walked from the campground to Bow Falls and then came back along Tunnel Mountain drive.  Shortly after we started hike, across from the campground.  We encountered a bull elk a short distance off the trail.  He moved ahead parallel to the trail a few times, then hid in some thicker bush while we walked past.  Once we were down along the Bow River we saw a couple of rafts floating down the river.

John did some scrambling to try and get a picture of Bow Falls, but the best picture of Bow Falls really is from the other side of the river.  However, there were good views of Banff Springs.

On the island in the Bow River there was a bull elk sitting in the trees overseeing his kingdom of females. 

Along Tunnel Mountain Drive we encountered a herd of deer, nice to see so many animals in an urban area.

Mt. Bourgeau and neighbours

All in all out trek was about a 7 km.  We arrived back at the trailer in time to have an afternoon snack with our wine. This really is a perfect campsite;out of one side of the trailer we have a perfect view of Mount Rundle and out of the other side is Cascade Mountain.

Thursday we walked downtown to Wild Bills for lunch. John had slow cooked bison ribs and Joan a Cajun shrimp salad. Both meals very tasty. Wild Bills has been a favorite place of ours for many years and is owned by the same people who own another favorite place of ours The Drake in Canmore. The round trip walk took us about 2 1/2 hours.

Week ending Sep 10, 2015 Vulcan

Friday Joan visited her Dr to review her test results and was given a passing grade, Now we can seriously plan for our winter drive down The Great River Road. The rest of the day was spent in Calgary getting some shopping done, particularly picking up enough Cheezies to last us for the winter. Safeway has our individual packages on sale, so a perfectly opportune time. We arrived back in Vulcan to a very cold trailer, but it didn't take long to get it toasty and warm.

Saturday is cold and rainy, the coldest day we've had since last spring, We spent the day hunkered down with our electric heaters and watching the water come down. There appears to be a wedding happening in the event building attached to the campground, so there is lots of activity, but not the ideal day for a wedding.

Sunday another cold day we amused ourselves by watching the Nascar race.

Except for a return trip to golf at Keho Lake Golf Course on a calm day, we spent the rest of the week in Vulcan, doing fall clean-up,  using the Vulcan  walking paths and watching the first events of the grand slam curling.

On Sunday, we move to Tunnel Mountain Village in Banff, so hope to do more walking.  We can see the snow topped mountains from the west side of Vulcan, so we are hoping the snow is up high and allows us to hike along the trails in the valley bottoms.

Week ending Sep 3, 2015 Vulcan (Keho Lake, Carmangay)

Friday we intended to golf but the smoke from Washington State was the worst we have experienced to date. So bad we stayed in. John brought the air cleaner down from the bedroom to help keep the air in the trailer clean. We spent part of the day golfing and bowling on our Wii. With a bit of luck the wind will change direction and the smoke will ease up.

Saturday again the smoke was bad, our outdoor plans have been put on hold. We did walk up to the store for a few things, but other than that we hung around the inside, checked out some points of interest along our planned trip down the Great River Road.

Sunday after a very windy night, the smoke was a bit better. We headed to the exercise equipment in the park. After a half hour of using the machines we went for a walk and finally arrived back at the trailer just before lunch. It is too windy today to golf, further more it's the weekend and the golf courses are always too busy. Maybe tomorrow we will be able to golf.

Finally golf today. The weather seemed perfect. By the time we got to Keho Golf Course the wind had picked up, but we soldiered on.  It was a nice course. Joan discovered that even a well maintained course doesn't help her game. On our way back to the trailer we stopped and watched the wind surfers on Keho Lake for a few minutes.

Tuesday morning we went to Carmangay to hike on the  Glen G. Mcfarland Memorial Nature trail.

It is a scenic route along the top of the Little Bow River bank.

We watched numerous hawks hunting for their mid-morning snack.  The trail went under the CPR bridge, a landmark used by the Allied Force pilot trainees when they were completing their flight training near Vulcan in WW11 (See our Blog entry Aug 19,2013).

After completing the trail, which took a bit more than an hour we drove out into the countryside to take a closer look at the wind turbines that have sprung up in the area. Carmangay appears to have become another Alberta centre for the generation of wind power.  We noticed that the cows seemed to be enjoying the irrigation system.  

We also saw a flock of gulls  on the gravel road ahead of us, and a bunch in a farmer's pond.

For lunch, we stopped at an Archeogical picnic site which was supposed to have numerous tipi rings, but despite a map showing their location,  we were unable to find evidence of the rings.

Wednesday was another golf day. We started for Stavely, got to the edge of Vulcan, looked at each other laughed and said "oops"  seniors moment, turned around, back to the trailer and loaded the golf clubs into the truck.   The course at Stavely was nice, there is a tournament this weekend, so they are busy spiffing it up. The greens aren't the best, but the way Joan golfs it doesn't matter, John however get's quite frustrated with them.  They were very fast crazy carpet, and had a slope to them that would rival a mountain pass.   It took soft putting to keep the ball on the green.

Thursday morning we had to be in Calgary at the dentist by 11:00, so it was an early morning. Our dental costs were almost all covered by our free blue cross provided by the provincial gov't since we have turned 65.  After the dentist,  we drove out to Banff to scout out an appropriate campsite (ie. one with satellite access between the trees) in their full service campground. After much wandering around with the compass we settled on a site.  The site is not available until Sept 13, (instead of the 8th), so we have to decide whether to stay in Vulcan until then, or go somewhere closer to Banff for a few days.  On our way back to Calgary we stopped in Cochrane to pick up mail and John's prescriptions. Our free blue cross didn't save us quite as much as at the dentists, but it did save us some. By now it is after 6:00 so we picked supper, a Little Caesar's bacon wrapped pizza for John (have to see if it lives up to the advertising) and a sandwich for Joan. We then checked into the Howard Johnson hotel on Macleod trail since Joan has a Dr. appointment at 10:30 tomorrow so it seemed convenient to stay in Calgary overnight.