We are in Canada!

We do have wifi tonight, yay! We are in a pretty little park on the Bow River in Cochrane, outside Calgary. The area we are in seems brand new with shops, grocery stores, restaurants and Walmart (woohoo, campers dream store!) it is sunny and 81 deg, what a difference from MT. Montana finally turned nice our last day, let Mom catch you up:

On Wednesday, we got so tired of the rain, we ventured over to St. Mary ( one of the 3 parts of East Glacier) where the Park Ranger said this was unusual to have this much rain but May had been dry...of course!! We saw a couple of park movies about the history of the Indians in the area and building of the park, both were well done. The area is pretty, but not as striking as Many Glacier.

 Next we ventured back to Many Glacier, to the hotel 

and we found what hikers do in the rain...the same as skiers!!....

We enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate and the hotel views, albeit a bit gray!

The next day we set out for the Canadian side of GNP, Waterton Lakes. this is a beautiful park, maybe our favorite! 

As soon as we entered the Canadian side (uneventful border crossing), we ran into this rather shaggy fox!

The scenery was lush and smelled strongly of pine, so fresh! While the day started rainy, by noon the sun was peaking through although the wind picked up!

The Prince of Wales hotel was quite impressive with afternoon tea for a mere $30 each (we passed but the setting looked lovely).

Behind the hotel the views of the lake and the little town of Waterton were very beautiful, reminded me of the Sound of Music opening scene!

Next we headed up toward Cameron Lake where a young black bear decided to venture out after the rain and climb a tree...The park ranger was quick to move all of us along so the bear could enjoy his little snack!

As we climbed the mountain, all the Falls were running fast as the snow melt ran off

as we got closer to the lake, the snow became quite a bit heavier, even on the ground

Cameron Lake was beautiful, with a real quiet beauty with ice still forming on the lake and lushness all around it and the sounds of so many birds singing was just striking!

Our birder friends and family can help us, but we think we saw mountain bluebirds and blue jays which were everywhere!

and other wildlife too...

Next we ventured down into the Town of Waterton where flooding had hit them hard! cute little cottages were flooded out!

As we left Alberta for the US Border Crossing, Chief Mountain loomed ahead at 9000Ft.  while the crossing was again uneventful, we both remarked that the US Agents always seem meaner than the Canadian Guards, they certainly don't make you feel welcomed coming home!

After we got back to our campground we noted it was still sunny so we were determined to get the 10:00pm sunset picture we had heard about but couldn't get during all the rain...

We will definitely go back to GNP again another year. Out of 7 nights, it rained 5, I think we will try August next time as I believe we only scratched the surface on what we got to see! 

Now we will be in the Calgary area for 3 days then on to Banff and Jasper. If this post makes it through, we should have wifi in this park the next two nights when we will cover our adventure in Calgary tomorrow, then we will definitely go dark in Banff and Jasper!