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Tuesday – Jasper


Well. Going north certainly did the trick. Sunday night in Banff, the low was 37. Monday night in Hinton, outside Jasper, the low was 61. Balmy weather. Borderline internet, but it’s too nice to leave. We’re going to explore here for a few days before we reestablish contact with the outside world.

No birds at the KOA, but Jasper was nice and birdy. Started off with a common loon and a bald eagle on the drive to the National Park. Took a walk around a lake, Lac Beauvert:


Lots of little birds in the forest, but none of our target birds yet. Guess we’d better go back tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we left Annie in the coach and Miles from the KOA staff watched her for us while we were in the National Park. I think Annie spent most of her time at the office and riding around in the golf cart.

It gets dark late here. It’s not really dark until 9:30. It stays light really late in June. In June, the sun sets at 11:30.

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Monday – Jasper

A drive up the Icefields Parkway. A quick trip out east to Canmore first for fuel. There are gas stations in Banff but we scouted them. Not easy access for us. We need a station with a truck island.


Stunning scenery. Mountain goats. Bighorn sheep. Common Ravens. That’s our bird (singular) for today: the common raven. Civilization tonight. The KOA in Hinton, just outside the park. Full hookups. Fifty amp service.

Our Trip Map:

3,275 trip miles.

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Sunday – Calgary

Day trip. Went the opposite way today. Out of the mountains onto the plains. Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Nice place. Lots of birds to look at. They have wood ducks (in eclipse plumage).

No boreal chickadees, barrow’s goldeneyes, or spruce grouse. Building the Canada bird list though. Nice excuse to drive to Calgary.

Internet was slow again, so we repointed the dish. The dish went way out of whack so we decided to stow it to reboot it, then put it back up again. It stalled. It stalled in the “UP” position. Trouble. Can’t move the coach much with the satellite dish fully extended. A few phone calls from Judy on a Sunday afternoon and Dave, the guy who takes care of our dish when we’re in south Texas, talked our dish into submission. It’s down, but it’s not going up again until we’re in the vicinity of a repair man. Don’t know when or where that will be. Not many places work on this satellite dish. No internet on the air card either. Before we crossed over into Canada, Judy called and asked about cellphone and air card rates in Canada. Verizon said the cellphone will be $.65 a minute and we should take the air card out and put it away so we can’t accidentally use it. If we use the air card from Canada, it and all the other air cards at our office, will go to international rates. We don’t know how much international rates are. I guess we don’t want to find out. So until we cross paths with an internet signal, our trip reports will just go into a holding pattern in the ozone.

Meanwhile, back at camp…

A good size black bear munching his way through.

Still cold, cloudy, off and on rainy. Guess we should head north.
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Jasper

I think we went too far north.  Minimal sporadic internet.  I can send or receive the occasional email, but can’t upload, download, or attach.   Will head south soon.