RV Chickadee

Wow…      Wow…      Wow…      Wow…     And Wow…..

Wait, did you hear me say “Wow?”

Like… people… this place definitely has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Banff National Park is simply stunning! Eye-candy. Glacier National Park times 100. The Picasso of landscapes. God’s Altar. You name it. It was just the epitome of a flawless creation made to please the eyes.

Here’s a quick little blooper that I made on my drive up to Canada. I was contacting various friends and family about an hour or two into my drive. I was texting my dad and faux-mama. I was commenting on how beautiful it was, sending photos and such, and, well, dad wanted to chart where I was. He loves a map, you see. (proof below) My stepmama was looking for me online on Google maps.

Anyhoo, I chimed in that I was coming up to, or had just passed ‘x’. Well, they were charting me, and I decided that I wanted to chart me as well, so I opened Google maps. To my shock, the moving dot on the screen had me going south. (South?!) Wait….that aint right.

So, I looked at a different online current-time map to see if it had me going south. Still, I was going south! (This story does not bode well for me and my directional capabilities regarding another story you will read in another couple of paragraphs….rrrrrrgh!) So, thanks to dad and faux-ma, I realized I had missed a turn and was headed to Idaho!

So are the my adventures… So I ended up with about 40 minutes out of the way. (rrrrrrrrr) Happily,  The Girls didn’t seem too bothered by the detour.

(Dogs rule.)

On to Canada! But, oops, I forgot to research a few things about the country….

I drove into Banff at night, after it was just too dark to see much, yet I COULD still see the silhouette of the gigantuous mountains which were surrounding me. It was a cruel tease… I knew they were there, but I could only make out the silhouette of their size and beauty. Around midnight, I found my campground. Below was an unexpected welcome from the campground… nice touch!

After hooking up my power, we hit the sack for the night.

The next morning, I took the girls out but I did not yet realize what was surrounding me. To my complete shock, as I rounded the corner to go up (down?) the north-south road, I found myself face to face with one of the most gorgeous, tallest mountain faces I have ever seen in my life.

I was really struck by it, as it was just so MAJESTIC ( I know, that’s an overused word, but it really applies here) and powerful. Wow. This is the view from my campground?? Come to find out, this is the view almost anywhere you go in the park! So- I was in heaven.

The campground where the girls and I stayed was just outside of downtown Banff and it was called the Tunnel Mountain Village and Trailer Court. It was a simple grid like layout of north and south, east and west roads. Or, horizontal and vertical lines on a map. Easy peasy to get around, right? For whatever polaric disconnect that happened to me, I could NOT get my bearings at this place! Each time I walked out of my RV, I thought I would know which direction to look for ‘my mountain’, once I got to the north south road.

Nope.

It was as if I was in a geographical area in which my internal compass had been shut down. Usually, I have pretty good bearings in this regard, but I would put money on the fact that there was some polar interruption here that made my directional abilities go numb. I stayed for an entire 7 days, and STILL did not have my bearings, even on the last day. Whatever.

On about day 4 at the campground, suddenly my little Slingshot RV was surrounded by the supermodels of the Rv world- Airstreams! Like a big tease, they surrounded us, and it made every other Rv seem like the ‘trash pit’ of the street.

 

The one spot I kept hearing of, aptly named “one of the most beautiful places on earth” was Moraine Lake.

Moraine Lake was the crowning glory of the park and it was the sole reason I decided to visit Banff. My photos are not going to do it justice as I was not there with the best light available. Also, it was such an expansive area, I needed a wider angle lens to really get a good shot. But I did my best, and had some great weather on my first visit to Moraine. Still, the sun was not at the best spot in which it could have been as I got there so late in the day, and the sun was almost in front of my lens.

My second visit proved to be fairly cloudy. In fact, the last three days of my stay were cloudy. So goes the mountain weather. Needless to say, I did not get the shots I had wished for.

Between Moraine, the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary and a horseback ride through the woods, plus the brilliantly bright color of the water and the mountains which cradled my heart in Banff, this was a trip of a lifetime! I will return someday, and the sooner the better!

Experience what you will see in Banff from the photos and captions below I took from the trip.

Thanks for following along with me!

I visited the Yamnuska wolfdog sanctuary just East of Banff. It was a great learning experience about these animals and it was interesting to learn the differences between dogs and wolves. They were so wolflike, it felt like an honor just to be near them! The white one is a cousin of the Game of Thrones wolfdog “Ghost”. His name is Nova, and he is the ambassador wolfdog at the sanctuary used to help them further their educational programs.