After leaving Mission we drove towards the Canadian Rocky Mountains, stopping at interesting places along the way. This was a particularly scenic drive with different landscapes and mountain formations all the time. We used the town of Golden as a base for exploring the area, visiting the wonderful Lake Louise and the even better Moraine Lake.

July 29, Monday

Again we rose at 0800 and had bread for breakfast. John had suggested an itinerary through Canada for us and we were planning to stick to that. We packed our stuff in the car, said goodbye to John and started driving towards Hope.

On arriving in Hope, Tor and Kirsten had a coffee at a cafe there and then we walked down the main street. An interesting thing about Hope was an abundance of wooden sculptures on every street corner. It really was a very nice way to decorate the town.

Continuing further along, we found ourselves driving through a valley with pinetree covered mountains on both side. It was cloudy and rather cool outside today, in fact it hadn't been really hot after we arrived in Seattle. Anyway, the Sylvester Stallone movie "First blood" was apparently filmed in this area, which didn't surprise me as the scenery seemed to recreate some of the atmosphere from that movie.

We stopped for a lunch at a restaurant in a tiny little town. I had a Caesar salad. On continuing we arrived at near an old suspension bridge across the canyon. We walked down there and across it with some nice views of the scenery.

Further on we stopped at a place called Hell's gate. Here there was a cable car going across the canyon to the other side, on which a restaurant and various shops were located. They also had a souvenir shop and ice cream shop on our side, but if you tried to buy anything you were told that you would get a much better deal on the other side! Obviously they wanted people to buy the rather expensive cable car ride at 11$. Well, we decided to ride the cable car despite it being severely overpriced. After browsing the souvenir shops and buying an ice cream there, we returned and continued towards the north.

The scenery now started to change character, with less and less pinetrees, and it wasn't long before the mountains were almost completely bare. Eventually we turned eastwards and drove until around 1800 when we reached Kamloops, a middle sized town. We checked out the price of various motels and decided on two rooms at the cheapest one, Motor Inn (55.20$ each). Apparently, motels were cheaper in Canada than in the US as well.

After unloading our stuff, we drove up to the Aberdeen Mall which we had spotted on driving into town. Unfortunately, it was closed so instead we went to Wal-Mart for some shopping. We then ad dinner at a place called Earl's (chicken with beans and mashed potatos) and finally went to a supermarket nearby to buy some cheesecake for dessert.

On our way back we got lost and drove around for 20 minutes before finding the motel. Time was now 2215, but it was fortunately not too late to eat our well-deserved dessert. After eating we relaxed and I updated our diary.

July 30, Tuesday

We got up at 0800. After showering, we packed our stuff and then for convenience had breakfast at McDonald's inside the Wal-Mart (Egg McMuffin). As we drove on, it was interesting to see the scenery change once again, this time going from being dry and yellow to gradually more pine trees.

Around 1250 we stopped at an "Enchanted Forest" after having seen several billboards advertising it. We hadn't heard of the place in advance, but decided to take our chances since entrance fee only was 6$. It turned out to be not very interesting. Basically we went around on a trail, along which several figures from fairytales had been placed. I think it was probably more interesting for children, although it was quite pleasant to stroll around for a while inside the forest.

Afterwards we were quite hungry, and therefore decided to stop at the first restaurant we came across. This was at the 3-Valley (?) site, which was also the site of a ghost town according to some huge billboards. After having had cheese toast and soup (today's special at 5.95$) for lunch, we proceeded to buy tickets for the ghost town. Unfortunately, it turned out we had to go on a guided tour instead of looking around ourselves, but nevertheless we signed up for a tour scheduled at 1500, costing 7.50$ pr. person. While waiting we looked around the nice garden, which was located at the shore of the lake.

The tour itself was largely disappointing, in particular the first half which had nothing to do with the ghost town at all. On signing up for a tour of a ghost town, you don't really expect to be shown the honeymoon suit of the hotel, however special that may be. After 35 minutes we finally got into the ghost town, though, and that was quite interesting. It was not a real ghost town like Elkhorn, but instead original buildings had been collected from various places in the area and moved here. In addition, several buildings had been reconstructed similar to the originals. We were shown into various buildings and the guide gave us information about them, and when the tour was over we could walk finally around for ourselves.

Around 1630 we drove on towards Revelstoke, stopping there at McDonald's (with an Apple pie) to discuss what to do next. Either we would go all the way to Golden, or we would spend the night here. Revelstoke looked like a nice little town, but in the end we decided on Golden. The drive there was probably the nicest on the whole trip so far, with some really amazing mountain scenery, especially at a place called Roger's pass. One place along the highway there even was a mountain goat(?).

We arrived in Golden around 1950 (losing an hour since we crossed a time zone) and immediately saw several hotels with vacancies. Eventually we decided on ?? Motel, which was the only one to have prices displayed outside. We got two very nice rooms for 49$ and 54$ + tax. After packing out we drove into town to find a restaurant, but first we found a large supermarket and decided to buy some stuff for dessert and breakfast tomorrow since there were kitchen facilities in both rooms.

After unloading the food, we eventually found a restaurant called Apostoles. I had Chicken Souvlaki with Greek salad. Everybody were quite satisfied with their food. We then returned to our rooms to have cookies for dessert.

July 31, Wednesday

As usual we woke up at 0800, but today there was no need to go anywhere for breakfast! Instead we used the microwave to heat the pancakes we had bought yesterday, which turned out quite well. After breakfast we drove up into the mountains, heading for Lake Louise. The scenery was wonderful all the way, but we were reminded how quickly the weather conditions could change when suddenly we drove into dense fog.

Along the way we saw a strange sight that none of us could figure out. A guy was jogging along in training clothes, followed closely on bicycle by another guy in a chef's uniform. Had he attempted to run away without paying for a meal, we were wondering? :-)

In Lake Louise we first stopped at the visitor center. They had lots of information with various hiking trails of all kinds of lengths. Unfortunately, we would only have time for a short trail today, though. But first, we drove to the lake itself. To be allowed to park there we had to buy a permit costing 12$ for one car, which was valid for one day throughout the National park. The lake itself was a stunning sight, but there were so many tourists that it was difficult to walk around without getting in the way of somebody taking a photo!

Moraine Lake was located only 15 km away from Lake Louise. We had a special reason for going there since last Christmas we had spent several days completing a 1500 pieces jigsaw puzzle of that lake! The picture had been extremely beatiful and we were all looking forward to seeing it for real. It was no disappointment, looking fantastic in reality as well. From the picture on the jigsaw puzzle, I had imagined the place to be much more remote than it really was, though!

We had lunch in the only restaurant at the lake. Fortunately, it was not as expensive as one might have feared. I had Biff Stroganoff with egg noodles, which was okay. On driving back to the Lake Louise visitor center, we saw a small deer looking exactly like Bambi in the Disney cartoon!

Shortly after arriving, Tina and me went to walk the Bow River trail. It was supposed to go for a total of 7 km along the bank of the Bow River. Even though the trail was completely flat, it was still a nice walk in the clean refreshing mountain air. However, as we approached the turning point of the trail, the path was blocked with a sign saying that the track had been closed due to danger from bears! We therefore had to backtrack a while before crossing the river and continuing on the other side until we reached a similar sign. Then we walked back to meet our parents at the visitor center. Although we didn't see any bears, there was quite a bit of wildlife, ground squirrels being especially common.

We had earlier talked about going up in a gondola nearby, but while we had been out hiking, Tor and Kirsten had checked out these gondolas out and found them to be not very interesting. Instead we started driving back towards Golden, stopping to look at a train spiral tunnel which however was not too interesting either.

Back in Golden we located a dry cleaner. It cost only 1.25$ for each load and we let the machines do our washing while we did some shopping. On returning, our clothes only needed to be dried before we could get back to the motel.

There was a gondola in Golden as well, and according to the motel owner it was not to be missed. Before going out to dinner, around 2030, we therefore drove up to the gondola, hoping it would still be operating this late. Fortunately it was open, and it only cost 12$ so late in the evening (for two 15 minute rides), which was very good value for money compared with the 11$ Hell's Gate gondola ride which only lasted slightly more than one minute.

The ride was wonderful, seeming to go on forever and when we reached the top there was a stunning view over the entire mountain range. It reminded me of Switzerland. So late in the evening, as the sun was about to set, the lighting was perfect, too. Unfortunately, this also meant that we couldn't stay up there for too long since it was quite cool.

On coming down to the town, we were all really hungry so we decided to eat at Apostoles just like yesterday. I even ordered the same food! Back at the motel we relaxed and watched TV.