August 23 – Calgary to Moyie Lake

What happened to summer? It was really cold today, from beginning to end. Calgary was forecasted to have a high of 12 degrees today, and I doubt it had hit that by the time we left. It got colder as we left – climbing up into the Rocky Mountains – and also started to rain. I check a thermometer at a gas station at around 3PM and it said 6 degrees, and the attendant told me that it was snowing in Golden, just up the road from where we were. I was not surprised! Two days ago we were sweltering and now it feels like summer is over.

Our route today was to take the Trans Canada highway through Banff, and then highway 93 & 95 south through Cranbrook, and stay the night in Moyie Lake Provincial Park, which was a really nice place that we stayed in on the way out. Once we hit Cranbrook we will be back onto highway 3, the same route we took heading east. This is one of our favourite parts of the province, especially in the summer.

We stopped in Banff to have lunch and see the town a little bit. The mist obscured the mountains a little bit but it did not detract from the awesome beauty. Unfortunately the van was not too happy with the cold and wet. It stalled, then flooded, just as we were planning to leave, so we got stuck there for an extra couple of hours waiting for the flood to clear. There certainly are worse places for that to happen!

It is great to be back in the mountains and BC again. I have almost forgotten how big and impressive these moutains are. The Rockies are perhaps the most stunning part of the whole trip for me. Nothing subtle about the beauty here. Going through the mountains of northern Ontario and Newfoundland was very beautiful as well, but the sheer size of these mountains puts them into a different class. You feel very small looking at them, and the fact that something so huge can exist is difficult to grasp.