Good afternoon

This is from yesterday Sunday

6:30 AM: We awoke to the pitter-patter of rain, heard the wind blowing, and read the thermometer at 50 degrees. So Phil turned on the heater as I upped the dial on the electric blanket and we decided to wait until the sky cleared. We were going to take a shuttle to Red Rock Canyon (road is closed to cars as the parking lot is closed) but have delayed that trip until tomorrow. The other option was to hike from the campground up a trail 1500 feet to a look out. The trail books all say to start at the top and hike down but we do not have two vehicles to do that. I wasn’t excited about starting the hike up in the rain and then mud on the trail.

10 AM: We are still waiting. The only other day that the weather has affected us was our day on the mountain with Kelly and the kids. We are very thankful for the beautiful weather. We also remember to give thanks for our ability to hike. We have seen all types of people on the trail and sometimes I think “a heart attack waiting to happen”. But as Phil learned from his biking club, one cannot judge the ability of another based on appearance or age. I do feel sorry for the numerous people we have seen with their knee braces/ace bandages struggling up the slopes.

This campground is right in the town of Waterton. This is a nice change and hopefully we can do some walking around and see the shops. Deer are everywhere in this town including the campground. Yesterday we had finished a little hike and saw a deer resting in the shade by the corner of a house and the fawn was sun bathing in the yard. Cute sight.

We have had good road conditions all the way, which has made the driving easier for Phil. I have not done any driving when pulling the RV. The highest we have paid for gas was $3.30 a gallon and the highest for milk was right here at $4 for ½ gallon. We or I have brought to many clothes and toiletries but I did pack the right amount of food. I have never been thru a border crossing and it was quite simple. I did find it interesting that the patrolman checked the inside of the RV but did not care about the inside of the car. Everyone is questioned about alcohol and knives but they did not care about the two bottles of wine or Phil’s pocketknife. It would have been traumatic for Phil if he had to give them his dad’s pocketknife!

11AM: Finally a break in the weather. We walked into town, spoke with Chris and left a message for Mark. Decided we could drive to a close by trailhead and hike to a waterfall. So we loaded the packs and headed out.

4 PM: We had climbed steady for 1 hr and 45 minutes and we caught a glimpse of the waterfall. The dark clouds were rolling in and a few drops of rain were felt, so we turned around. That was fine by me as we had another 30 minutes of climbing. Trails always seem much harder than I am led to believe. We reached the car and campsite when it really started raining. It has rained off and on for the rest of the day.

So now it is 8:30 and we have been inside for the past 4+ hours. We played several games of Yatahaz, I read my book, and Phil edited some photos. Now we hope for better weather tomorrow, our last day here in Waterton. We will be driving to Banff on Tuesday morning.

Monday:  the sky is blue with beautiful clouds, still quite chilly.  We drove up to Laker Cameron and hiked there. One trail was along the lake and another trail we hiked up to Summit Lake.  It was a steady climb for over an hour to a small lake.  The distance out was 2.4 miles.  For some reason today I feel like it is the first day of vacation and tough climbing.  I think to much sitting around yesterday.  It's early, only about 2pm so we still have to figure out the rest of today. 

No photos today.  I am at the coffee shop with free internet and apparently it will not upload the photos.  Oh well,  another frustration to deal with regarding this blog.  If possible I will try from Banff tomorrow evening.