Sunday, May 15, 2016

Bonners Ferry to Banff–Yep, Stopped and Seached at the Border

Mountains near Banff, AB

The Banff area is just lovely.   After the long drive, trouble at the border, and adjusting to Canadian speed limits, distances, and fluid measurements, let alone the blinding beauty of nearly the entire drive…all we did was set up camp, shower, and have dinner.   Along with getting up before 6 am to watch church, and pull out of camp at 8:30…it is now 12 hours later and we are both pretty beat.  As for the border crossing…well, they pulled us over, had both of us go into their building, had to give complete chronology of when we left Florida to when we got to the border (that did give me a chance to mention our blog which details the entire thing), remove the dogs, remove our important papers box after they looked inside of it – they then did a quick search of the motorhome and the HHR.  Oh, and I got a lesson on how to say “Banff”.  We just went with the flow of things, but I did not like the idea that Marcia had to get out, walk in, walk back out, and get back into the motorhome…seemed kind of strange to me.

Near or in Kootenay National Park    Near or in Kootenay National Park

We both agree that this part of the Rockies is much different than other parts that we have seen.  The variety of the look of the rocks, the massiveness of the mountains, and the sharp edges and points that many of the mountains have are amazing.

Kootenay River   Kootenay River 

Kootenay River

There is a silt from the glaciers which turns the lakes and rivers a turquoise blue or green.  All three of these shots are of the Kootenay River, which would go from a blue, to a turquoise, to even a green.  In one area, where we just could not stop due to narrow, steep roadway, the water was rushing so fast, and it was a pretty turquoise green…it is something neither of us have ever seen before.

Black Bear near Kootenay National Park

There were signs up about black bears in the area, and no stopping along the road…which led to Marcia catching the rear end of the one that we saw as she begged me to stop (two other cars had stopped).  Hey, after that experience at the border, I have seen enough people in uniform today as far as I was concerned.  And something tells me that this is not the only bear we will see over the next few months.

Mountains near Banff, AB

All the pictures today were taken by Marcia, and we rarely stopped.  We are here for six nights, so I am sure there will be four or five days of getting many pictures of the beauty of this place.  When we leave on Saturday, we will head north through Jasper and plan to stay in Hinton, only 230 miles away.  I know we can’t see everything, but we will see a lot.  Stay tuned you all…we have landed in B A N I F F (yes, I know it is Banff, aka: “I don’t care how you pronounce it Mr. Border Man)   BTW:  There is a town of Banff, and there is Banff National Park. 

Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court, site 702

We are in Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court, a park run by Parks Canada outside the city of Banff.  We bought a yearly family pass already, and it is good for two years due to the celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Canadian Park System.

Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court

The sites have water, sewer and 30 amp electric.  They are all pull through in a sense, but some are split in half for two shorter vehicles.  We have plenty of room for our car, our motorhome, and another car if someone was to visit.  It is quiet, so far, but we have been warned that it is a Canadian 3 day weekend coming up, so Friday might get a bit crazy.

11 comments:

  1. Welcome to Canada! If I lived out west, instead of in Ontario, I'd be able to see you. Enjoy your time in Canada! Blessings, Lynn

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  2. Oh yes, we will certainly enjoy it. This is so very nice...

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  3. Gosh I'm so surprised they searched your vehicle! My friends and I drove straight through! I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but it's still worth it. BTW we, meaning both our class A's towing, pulled over MANY times for pictures if there was room and many times to let big trucks by since they're on a schedule. Don't worry, you'll see LOTS more animals for pictures!!

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    1. There were/are times we do pull over, but they had it marked as "Bears in area, don't stop" and there were "no stopping signs" up and down the road.

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  4. For some reason, Ron is always searched at the border. We think he must be on some kind of blacklist. Have fun!

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    1. They never told us "why", they said that one of us had a name that was close to a name on their list. I doubt it was Marcia. I have been in Canada at least five times now, this is the first time I have been looked at. We came in last year via ferry to Victoria for the day, no problem. Wondering how it is going to go the next few times we cross.

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  5. When we went through the Canada border in our motorhome and toad, they pulled us over and really shook us down. We had to get out and could not watch them go through our stuff. They were not one bit friendly. A Canadian woman told us later that it was because my hubby had a big beard. When we came home from Alaska into Canada, I drove and they asked me a couple of questions and let us go. Musta been the beard. LOL

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    1. Could be...but they asked some questions after he ran our passports, said, "One of you has a name similar to a name on our 'list', you will need to pull over...". Never did say which one, but the questions seemed to fixate on me. After they searched it (a lady and a man) the lady seemed very apologetic about it all.

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  6. We stayed in this park Sept 2014 when we made our trip there. Our problems was that we visited Banff after Jasper. Jasper NP has much nicer campgrounds and the town is much more quaint. Banff was too touristy and busy for us. But we did awesome hiking in both places. I hope you have planned a little time for your trip through the Icefields Parkway:) Tim Horton's has very good WiFi! Enjoy your Banff visit:)

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    1. We leave on Saturday, and it is a 3 day weekend holiday for the Canadians, so we might just have to keep it as it is. However, we have talked about staying in Jasper, depending upon weather and availability. As for Internet, we are using Verizon, costs us an extra $1 per day for each day used in Canada. They did not have that plan back in 2014. We have 40 gigs of data for the price of 20 gigs, so I think we will be fine. However, I have heard a lot about Tim Horton's and will try it sometime during this long trip.

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    2. That's right! I forgot that Verizon added that new plan for data. Sure would have been nice! We were able to add Canada to the phone for $20 a month but adding data was ridiculously expensive. Glad Verizon finally got it together:)

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