Just a Hinton of Jasper

First of all, if you travel to Jasper in the summer, make reservations! Our book indicated that they don't take reservations at the National Parks in Canada. They do, at least at the good ones, and if you go during peak season without reservations you will be disappointed.

We had thought we'd stay at the Whistler campground near the town of Jasper. That turned out to wishful thinking. We pulled up to the kiosk and were told they were full. The staff is very helpful and the nice lady offered to see if she could find us some place else to stay. Then Gary shoved his head out the drivers side window behind me and charmed her instantly with just a look. She glanced up and saw him and said "he has people eyes, he's adorable!". She was in love. She wasn't able to find a campsite anyplace else, but she told us she had one with electricity and water, but the water wasn't working. Apparently it had been taken off the list because of that flaw, but she knew about it. So she let us have the space for the price of a just water site. What a relief! It was just one night, but we were tired and it gave us time to find a campground outside of the National Park. Thank you Gary!

She told us something interesting. She said Canadian bears are more polite than American bears, they don't break into cars. They are very rigid about food or food like things being left out and have good bear proof garbage cans. So unlike places like Yosemite, the bears don't see Hondas as snack cabinets.

The next day we drove into Hinton Alberta. It's a town with a lumber mill, and a fantastic KOA campground. It was a longish drive into Jasper from there, but it was the best we could do and at least it was a good campground. They even had a small dog park area with a very nice agility course built into it. All of the facilities were top notch and well maintained. There is a hay field by the entrance, which had a mowed path around it, specifically for walking dogs. It was the most dog friendly park we have been to. We loved our neighbors and had them over for dinner and hope to keep in touch with them.

They have a lab named Eddy who is a therapy dog. During the school year, he goes to school everyday and works with autistic children. Gary loved him! Sookie terrified him. He and Gary romped and played, but the first time Sookie saw him she wanted to kick his fuzzy butt. He was traumatized and would not forgive her, which I think empowered her psychosis more. We eventually manged to call a truce on the night we had dinner together. But it turned out to be a truce only good while inside the RV. As soon as we went outside, it was back to Sookie being a jerk and poor Eddie being afraid of her. In the end, it meant Sookie had to stay inside while Gary had play dates with his new best friend Eddy.

My biggest impression of Jasper is this- they put up lots of signs about wildlife, but most of the wildlife will only be seen on those signs. I really truly desperately wanted to see a caribou. I drove by many many signs warning me that they were likely to cross the road, but never saw a single one. The same is true of deer. We did see one herd of elk, but not where the elk signs were. They were at a busy intersection and many tourists had stopped to let their kids out of the cars to get close to the pretty elk. I was grateful that I could go around the cars stopped in the road and not see what might have potentially happened when the kids got too close to the wild animals. It was a sensation I'd have again and again.

The wildlife we did see in abundance was mountain goats. If there is a mountain goat sign up, you can almost bet there is an assigned herd of them in their assigned location, begging for food. I saw one almost climb into the open window of a car trying to get treats. He had his feet and head inside the vehicle. The goats were shameless in their demands for human handouts. I had to roll up my window when that same goat approached us with what appeared to be the intention to jump into our window too.

The other wildlife we saw was bears. We saw four bears in four days while we were in Jasper. First we saw an adorable small brown colored bear eating berries on the side of the road. It was obviously young and quite oblivious to the 10 cars stopped to watch it eat. Kids were hanging out the windows of the car ahead of us, sitting on the window frame and taking pictures with what looked like very expensive cameras. After a bit, they decided to take pictures of us with all of our dogs standing on the console of the car, looking out the windshield at the bear with us. (Sookie and Gary like to share the console as a viewing perch) We're an unusual sight ourselves, with four big dogs hanging their heads out the windows of the Jeep or appearing to be sitting between us in the front.

This bear was so cute, I wanted one for a pet. Sort of. Truth be told, bears are my one nearly irrational fear. I've drug myself off of at least one mountain after an injury, solely because I saw bear scat and would not give up and be left behind while someone else went for help. Bears scare me more than anything else.

The next bear we saw was a black bear that we saw when we took a doggy potty break. We pulled off at an unmarked turnoff, just a few feet from the pavement, but with an open space in the woods. We leashed up the young dogs and headed a few feet out from the car so they could use the facilities, leaving the old dogs off lead. Not too terribly far from the car, we saw a red piece of plastic tied to a tree. It looked like a raincoat at first, but after a closer look we realized it was just plastic. We thought someone was camping there and took a few steps closer to see the camper- who turned out to be a black bear. A very agitated black bear who was trying to climb the shaking tree. Apparently the six of us were as much of a surprise to him as he was to us.

Paul first figured out what we were seeing was not a shaggy faced camper and we immediately made a hasty, but not too hasty retreat. (I couldn't really see the bear from where I stood) It might have been hastier but the dogs leashes got caught on bushes and small trees. I was in the rear untangling leashes while Paul led us back to the car. Thank god the older dogs were cooperative and went along with us without any problems. I think Gary got tangled in every bush and small tree he passed, but then again, it might have just been a couple of them and felt like a lot more than it was.

Then we saw two bears in one day as we drove through Jasper on our way to Lake Louise. One was a grizzly bear. It was BIG! Much bigger than the black bears. Of course, there was more than a dozen cars stopped to see the grizzly, most of which were empty because their occupants were along the side of the road taking pictures of the grizzly. The bear was easily close enough to do some serious damage if he had chosen too, and he looked agitated. He (or she, I couldn't tell) was not contentedly eating berries, but was watching the people who were watching him and walking at a sort of angle towards the road. It made me very nervous. There is ample signage telling people NOT to get out of their cars to see bears. It strikes me as something that shouldn't need to be posted, but I'm also never going to capture that great shot of a lifetime depicting a charging grizzly bear. I guess it's a matter of priorities.

The last bear we saw in Jasper was another black bear. This one was big for a black bear. It was shiny and beautiful. He was like the first one we saw in that he was just happy to be a bear and eating berries. At this point Paul was just amazed. He's spent more time out in wilderness than most folks and never seen a bear, and we saw four of them in a remarkably short time. It was a remarkable last impression of Jasper.

The upside down picture is Gary- I can't flip it now that it's upside down. Those are the eyes that got us a night in Whistler. The Jeep pictures are one of where we parked and one of where Mr Bear that we scared was. Just an innocuous looking stop for a potty break gone terribly awry.

The bear is the last bear we saw in Jasper as we were leaving.

Last Resort

Internet connectivity has been challenging since we reached Canada. Next year, we plan to solve the problem with a Canadian equivalent of our MiFi that we use when we are in the states. I had hoped to write more about our adventures, but it's harder to keep motivated to share things when they feel like old news by the time I can access the internet. We just spent 6 days at Lake Louise Campground. We had no internet there, and prior to that in Hinton outside of Jaspar, the internet was either completely absent or intermittent at best.

We moved to a new campground this week, in Fairmont Hotsprings BC. We're at the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort. I'm not sure if I'm legally using the internet here or not. It's somewhat confusing, but I think they have free internet and have $8 a day internet. I'm opting for the free internet, although I'm not sure it's supposed to be an option. It's been far more reliable than our recently available internet, so I'm not going to look a gift gigabyte in the mouth.

It's the first time I have ever stayed at a real resort. We've stayed at places that called themselves "resort" but I think their claim was a weak one. I can't say that I think a swimming pool constitutes "resort'' status. This place is somewhat reminiscent of something like the place in Dirty Dancing. They have the hot springs pools, as well as a myriad of other activities, geared toward the entire age spectrum. We, as usual, are taking advantage of none of them. Paul is using the dog's as a reason, but the truth is he has no desire to do any of them. I think the only one that interested me was a horseback ride, but to be honest, I'm not exactly a horse woman. I know I'd come back with a seriously sore tush and probably secretly be thinking it was all incredibly hokey and hating it while I was sort of having fun.

As for the rest, I never have been a big fan of playing tennis or volleyball, and I'm somewhat phobic about public pools. I won't even go into how much I hate any guided activity. (thus the reluctance to do the horse ride) So, it would appear that a real resort is almost as wasted on me as a wanna be resort. Still, at least I can say I've been to one.

The one and only resort thing we have done while we are here was go to a wine tasting. Within hours of arriving here we made friends with some folks who were staying next to us. Really wonderful people. One of those instant friendship things that sometimes happens. They told us about a wine tasting and we went with them. They have two of the most wonderful kids, who are dog lovers. The kids dog sat for us, so we were able to go to the wine tasting.

The wines were mediocre at best and the woman who did the tasting while pleasant and sincere, wasn't exactly an expert. She made some sort of explanation about residual sugar and yeast and alcohol that indicated she had no concept how it all works. I'm not an expert, but I've made enough beer to know that yeast converts sugar into alcohol.

One of the wines was in such desperate need of a decanter that the alcohol almost burned going down. It was wretched. I had just finished my tasting, trying to not let my face show the struggle that entailed, when she asked me what I thought of the wine. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm brutally honest and subtle as a speeding freight train. I try, but I'm lousy at hiding my feelings. I tried to be polite, but all I could do was stammer out something to the effect of "it was good, but it might have benefited from a bit of decanting before serving". I was caught off guard and in all truth thought the stuff undrinkable. It was my best effort at being polite, but I'm a lost cause when it comes to sweet little lies.

This put the woman into a 5 minute meandering monologue about how "no one" has time to let a bottle of wine sit open for an hour before they drink it, and that "no one" knows what decanters are for, and mostly just serve orange juice out of them. Then she went on about some sort of pump action oxygenator that no one has ever heard of. She was rabid about those things, and they must be the most obscure device in the wine universe. Or she mistook the devices used to suck air OUT of the wine for one that pumps wine INTO a wine. I was left squirming in my chair, wishing to god I'd been given a single gene that might have allowed for a hint of subtlety, or the ability to flat out lie on the fly when it's appropriate. In my defense I managed to NOT say "I almost always decant my wine, in a decanter and have not once served orange juice from it!" At least one other person there was doing the same squirm and piped up with a meek, "I've never heard of those, and I just use one of the glass ones you pour the wine through." I interjected the equivalent of a sympathetic "amen" in agreement and prayed we wouldn't anger the nice rabid wanna be wine lady anymore. Fortunately she said "oh those are terrific" and brought out the next wine. I was left with what must have looked like the expression my dogs give me when they are trying to decipher people speak into dog understanding. I was relieved to find the next wine to be at least painless, if not somewhat enjoyable. She didn't ask me what I thought of it.

For the rest of our days here, I'm not sure what we'll do yet. It's quite beautiful, a totally different kind of beauty than Lake Louise or Jasper offered. It's drier here and much warmer. A couple of days ago, we took the dogs for a loop walk on a trail within the resort and by the time we finished the dogs were spent. It was too hot for black dogs to be in the sunshine romping around at full speed and then going for a walk. Yesterday we took them to a river and threw sticks in the water for them. They left exhausted, smelling good, and happy. Water is definitely the best option for the dogs here.

There are some clouds to the west and I think a thunderstorm might be trying to work it's way into the valley. If it does, we'll enjoy the storm, if it doesn't we'll enjoy a walk after it cools off this afternoon. Either way, the view of the mountains from here is spectacular. I think that while I don't have any predisposition for subtlety, or other social graces, I might have more than a few for living like a gypsy and traveling around just to see what mountain peaks can be seen from the next valley.