Salt Lake City, October 2 to ??

After the cold weather and snow in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming (and no cell phone service, electricity, or internet), we were happy to move our home south to the somewhat lower elevation at Salt Lake City in Utah. We stayed at a KOA campsite for the first time. It has all the services, including free WiFi internet access.

Janet went swimming in the Great Salt Lake, which has a salt concentration at least 5 times that of the oceans. (I watched our dogs). She said it tasted like a salt gargle for sore throat. The water was so bouyant that Janet could float on her stomach with her head out of the water, but she could hardly get her feet below the surface to swim!

Yesterday, we went to the Temple Square, which is the number one tourist attraction here. We didn't know till we got there and saw thousands of people on the streets, but this weekend there were over 100,000 Mormons at the Temple Square to hear their current living prophet. We watched a movie about the life of their first modern-day prophet, Joseph Smith, and learned what terrible persecution the Mormons have suffered, in the eastern U.S. and in Europe, due to their different beliefs. The Mormon buildings and people are beautiful. Their conference centre here holds 21,000 people---they held five sessions for each event to get all of their people in! We went on a tour led by a young lady from Finland and a young lady from Brazil. They are both Mormon sisters here in Salt Lake City for two years of training before they return home.

We ordered our mail to be delivered here (from our mail forwarder in Texas). Since it hasn't arrived yet, we're not sure how soon we can move further south.

Edmonton, AB, August 19 to 30

We spent almost 2 weeks in Edmonton, while our motorhome generator was being repaired. We had scheduled the replacement of the fuel pump in our generator at a shop in Edmonton. Fortunately, the replacement muffler finally was delivered from the Belleville dealer who sold us the motorhome, so we were able to get all the required parts into the generator at the same shop. We're very happy with the generator now, as it is quieter than the new generator that we had in our previous motorhome.

We enjoyed our time in Edmonton. We stayed at the Rainbow Valley campground in a lovely park within the city. It was only minutes away from the Whitemud highway (after reading Harry Potter, I had to call it the Mudblood highway), which took us to many of the sights in Edmonton. We finally got to see the famous West Edmonton Mall---it is incredible in its size, variety of stores, and theme areas. We really liked the "Fort Edmonton and Villages" that we visited. We had a ride in an old train pulled by a real, operating steam engine. The fort was reconstructed as it was in 1880. After touring through it, we walked into a village street as it was in 1895, then to a 1905 street, and so on up to 1950. I was impressed that they had the different time periods all in one park.

We managed to get into the Edmonton food bank to do two afternoons of volunteer work. We learned that it was the first food bank in Canada! It was a huge operation, which distributed food to many charity organizations within Edmonton, and throughout Alberta.

We took Precious to a Vet, as she wasn't feeling well and she had stopped eating. We spent a few hundred dollars on tests, which didn't show what was wrong! Precious got better and started eating again (without having the courtesy to wait for the non-results of the expensive tests).

Icefield Parkway & Jasper

Last Monday we started driving up the Icefield Parkway (after a long day trying to catch up on internet activities in a hotel lobby in Lake Louise). After a short drive, we stayed overnight at the Waterfowl campsite.

On Tuesday, we stopped at the Columbia Icefields information centre (maybe the 3rd time we've been there). I knew that the glacier had melting back considerably in the last few years, but I was surprised to learn that its tip had been moving out further from the mountain range up until 1848. It has been melting back since 1848.

We spent 4 nights camped in Whistlers campground, just outside of Jasper. We enjoyed a hike to the base of Mount Edith Cavell, and browsing through the town of Jasper. It appeared that the whole town was given a facelift recently, and it appeared to be much more spacious, in and out of the shops, after being in Banff.

Moraine Lake, AB & Golden, BC

We really enjoyed canoeing yesterday on the beautiful turquoise waters of Moraine Lake with the 10 mountain peaks surrounding the end of the lake.

Today we ventured into BC to explore the town of Golden. The twisty mountain roads approaching Golden were exciting and the scenery was spectacular. At one time we had dreamed of moving to Golden, based on what we saw on the internet. However, the dream faded when we drove around the area. On our return journey we went into Field, BC--it was much more attractive and inviting than Golden.

Holiday in the Rockies - July 31 to Aug 9/07

We camped at Lake Louise for the whole time. We moved from a mediocre site to a lovely one very near the Athabaska River. We loved hearing the rushing river especially at night, and the beautiful walk/bike trails beside the river. We visited Morraine Lake, Lake Louise, Banff. The three went on a thrilling but exhausting hike (on Chris's advise that 750 ft. rise over 5.8 km was easy), but the scenery was spectacular. Katie found a great day excursion which included white water rafting on the Kicking Horse, horseback riding in the mountains to a BBQ dinner,and finishing at the Banff hot springs. I joined Katie, Chris and Diana for the riding and dinner. They had a great day. Chris did some serious mountain biking on an $800 rental and kindly brought it over Paul and me to try. It was fun on the river trail, and gave us the courage to use our folding bikes. Katie and Chris treated us to a delicious dinner in Banff, and Diana treated at the Lake Louise Lodge - how thoughtful and appreciated. One night I started teaching KDC bridge (although I haven't played for well over20 yrs). The 3 youngsters tented at Jasper for 3 days and really enjoyed the Maligne Lake cruise and the Miette hotsprings. All too soon it was time for them to go. We had such a good time together.

Catching Up - From Amethyst Mine to Sara's Wedding - July 20 to July 30 /07

Lots of catching up to do! Rember those gas cans we got - they don't help if they are empty (I'm not going to tell you of my dismay when Paul returned with empty cans, am I?) Another delay. We experienced the heat of a prairie summer with 40C high! The motorhome didn't like it and quit. We were stranded on the side of the broiling highway for some time before limping into a prairie town where mechanics couldn't even look at it for a week. We kept on letting the engine cool, then going until it quit - arriving late in Medicine Hat at the Ford dealer. The fuel pump was dead - 4 days to get a new one, the bolts broke wrecking the gas tank and requiring another $1,000 fix. I wasn't feeling well, so we spent a lot of our time in the cool Ford dealer's office. We finally left Medicine Hat at 5pm on Fri. Set the TomTom for Boswell, but it didn't know "where in the hell is Boswell" either. We stopped at 12:30 am on the road to Boswell. We were very tired and stressed out. Would we make it to the wedding? I crushed my fingers in the outside step and cried for 1/2 hr. (it wasn't just about fingers). Next morning we got directions and arrived around 10:00 am. Hurray! The wedding was beautiful - what a perfect setting. Sara was a radiant bride. We had so much fun at the reception with stories and dancing - Gary's family sure knows how to party! Next day we visited Jeannie and Helmut at their lovely cabin overlooking Kootenay Lake. Then off to Lake Louise with Katie and Chris and Diana.

Amethyst Mine

Janet took us 10km on a twisty, dusty mine road to get to an Amethyst Mine near Thunder Bay, Ontario. The “toad” (RV-talk for towed vehicle) got so dirty that I had to wash the car engine! But it was well worth the drive. Janet was very excited and pleased with her Amethyst finds. They have tons of Amethyst there for all types of “miners” including: (1) an area where you can dig them up for $3 per pound, (2) outdoor racks of Amethyst rocks, and (3) specimens in glass display cases for up to $6,000 each. You know Janet if you guessed she chose method (1). Janet claims that she showed incredible restraint by purchasing only 13.5 pounds of Amethyst. Janet says “Well, the lady beside me bought 22 pounds, and this was her second visit”.

We bought a couple of small gas cans today to carry in the motorhome to help if we run out of gas again. The gas stations can be 100's of km apart in Northern Ontario and the Prairie Provinces.

Tonight we are staying in an abandoned railway repair yard east of English River, Ontario. I have never seen so many stars—the sky view is incredible here due to lack of other light sources.