We crossed the border into Oliver Valley, British Columbia. A sign said that the valley is "the wine capital of Canada." It went on for miles and miles of vinyards and orchards and crops. It bursted with grapes, applies, pears, apricots, peaches, even zuchini, tomatoes and corn! Corn? Ya. After the valley came a lake. A 90 kilometer lake! It's called Lake Okanagan. This lake was the weirdest shade of blue I've ever seen. It was like the died water in a lazy river park or like muffled Caribbean water. That is apparently what glacial run-off water looks like and we saw it over and over again as we passed more northern lakes. We stayed in a town on the shore. The town is surrounded by huge mountains and the twilight reflected off the weird blue lake. Gorgeous! They were having a live music festival in old downtown. So we went to an Irish pub and listened to live music.
The next morning, we got up early and bought Harley shirts that say Canada on the back. whoop. ha. There have been lots of forest fires around there lately, so for the next 100 miles, the sky was so smokey that we couldn't see the mountains clearly at all- they were blue and gray instead of green and the smell of smoke was pretty strong. Geeze. Fortunately, we pulled out of that before we reached Lake Louis and Banff. Lake Louis is astounding! Huge bowl edged with jagged mntns, a glacier in the back ground, sub beams gleaming down into water bluer than that of Lake Okanagon! And the road to Banff was pretty darn sweet. We saw elk, deer, (both a bull and bucks included) mountain goats, foxes, hawks, eagles (and 2 baby eagles), and some guys saw a bear.
We spent two nights in Banff, Alberta. We drove up into Glacier Nat'l Park of Canada and drove through its icefields. We counted like 6 or 7 glaciers and stopped at the intersection of three and hiked around it. So cool! In one place, there was this huge wall of ice. Bright blue and way over our heads and there were just chunks of ice melting and falling into this rushing river below it. They predict that the now mile-long glacier will be completely melted within 100 years. That night, we had celebratory cigars on the lodge balcony. It made me feel special that the guys got me one too and they wanted me to smoke with them. They are all between 45-55 and they picked on me and I picked on them back. They called me princess and they bought me icecream and gave me twizzlers and made me taste scotch and gave me a cigar. haha. I was afraid I was crashing on their man time (only girl), but they said they liked me and called me a trooper for going so many miles and staying energetic.
The next day we got up early to race a storm. We beat it and drove down to Idaho and Montana.
The next morning, we got up early and bought Harley shirts that say Canada on the back. whoop. ha. There have been lots of forest fires around there lately, so for the next 100 miles, the sky was so smokey that we couldn't see the mountains clearly at all- they were blue and gray instead of green and the smell of smoke was pretty strong. Geeze. Fortunately, we pulled out of that before we reached Lake Louis and Banff. Lake Louis is astounding! Huge bowl edged with jagged mntns, a glacier in the back ground, sub beams gleaming down into water bluer than that of Lake Okanagon! And the road to Banff was pretty darn sweet. We saw elk, deer, (both a bull and bucks included) mountain goats, foxes, hawks, eagles (and 2 baby eagles), and some guys saw a bear.
We spent two nights in Banff, Alberta. We drove up into Glacier Nat'l Park of Canada and drove through its icefields. We counted like 6 or 7 glaciers and stopped at the intersection of three and hiked around it. So cool! In one place, there was this huge wall of ice. Bright blue and way over our heads and there were just chunks of ice melting and falling into this rushing river below it. They predict that the now mile-long glacier will be completely melted within 100 years. That night, we had celebratory cigars on the lodge balcony. It made me feel special that the guys got me one too and they wanted me to smoke with them. They are all between 45-55 and they picked on me and I picked on them back. They called me princess and they bought me icecream and gave me twizzlers and made me taste scotch and gave me a cigar. haha. I was afraid I was crashing on their man time (only girl), but they said they liked me and called me a trooper for going so many miles and staying energetic.
The next day we got up early to race a storm. We beat it and drove down to Idaho and Montana.
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