Miserable

It is raining. It has rained off and on all day. At least it is not snowing, and hopefully it won't tonight. I am keeping my fingers double crossed. I do want to leave Jasper tomorrow for better places.

Jasper is a miserable place to stay the night at this time of year. There is only one place to camp, and that is a special winter camp ground out of town with electricity but just about nothing else. And it is raining. Everyone is camped on a big asphalt parking lot, and there is one set of toilets and lots and lots of people. Everyone is cheek by jowl. It is like a used RV lot - and it's difficult to park because it is so full. At other times of the year there are lots of camp grounds open, but not now. And you are supposed to self register by filling out an envelope and I don't have a pen. However, the facilities, though sparse, are better than those at the campground yesterday. It's no wonder that the town itself seems full of RVs on the streets - although they wouldn't fit if they all came here. And everyone is happy, and that makes up for it all. The Canadian who loaned me his pen lives 40km from here, and says it's amazing because the trees all have leaves, and they shouldn't fo another few weeks.

My electronic devices are playing up. The phone doesn't like places where there is no reception, and keeps trying different providers every 2 minutes. This wouldn't matter if it didn't give you a buzz and two beeps each time it tries. It has been doing this all day! My GPS doesn't have Jasper, so it thought it would take ten hours to go 250km, and kept on directing me the wrong way. The guy at the petrol station halfway here said it happens to a lot of GPSs - he called it the Bermuda Triangle of Canada. And when I got here it had no streets. In the past, I have been able to ask it to tell me all the campgrounds, and go to them, but the nearest campground to Jasper according to the GPS is 250km away. Like all of the things I had read about to do in national parks in Canada, the campgrounds I saw on the way in were all shut, so I was feeling a bit desperate when I arrived. Unfortunately I got here too late for the information centre to be open. However, the first people I asked gave me a map and directions here, which was wonderful.

Today was supposed to be the most scenic in Canada, and it was pretty good, but with low cloud, grey skys and the time of year (when snow is half melted), places really didn't look their best. For instance, here is a picture I took today of the place that everyone thinks is the most beautiful place in Canada. You've all been there, so you should recognise it - but you may not, because it really isn't anywhere near as chocolate box perfect as all the places I saw only yesterday. The back two mountains had just been revealed, but there should be more in the white gap.

I'll give you a hint. This building is the chalet there - although I think it was built after your time. All guesses can be as comments to this post. Actually, now I look at the picture, it has a beauty all of its own, rather than the chocolate box beauty you normally see here.

And people seem to think that they can do idiotic things when they see a black bear - like park in the middle of the road far too close to it. Even worse, the next person who comes along parks in the middle of the road next to the first person. I saw two black bears today. Both were minding their own business, being very active, grubbing around in the bushes at the side of the road, a couple of metres from the road. The main reason I saw them was because of the cars - the second bear had attracted three cars. I also saw a lot of deer - probably about 30 (but only a couple of people seem to stop for deer, and they had pulled over to the side of the road). Fortunately the Kootenay park has deer fencing on both sides of the road. The active bears might be one reason everything is shut.

So now that I have got all that off my chest, I can tell you about how good today was (and it was good)...

All the roads today were spectacular. The scenery was wonderful.

I saw glaciers!

I am getting used to driving the RV and driving today was a pleasure, as well as seeing stuff that I have always wanted to. Tonight I have a chance to use features of this RV that I may need later. And I can get to sleep early, and leave late (I don't want to leave early in case there is black ice).