During our stay at Glacier NP we solved a couple of life's puzzles. One is, "does the bear poop in the woods"? The other one is the song "The bear went over the mountain". I have also come up with a question no one has been able to answer in our little group. More on that later.
I need to set the plate a little. Remember the old song and dance man "Scatman Crothers'? It so happens we are traveling with Ken and Debbie Arthur. Ken is a veritable fountain of knowledge especially when it comes to the great outdoors. A hunter and fisherman of immense talent. It turns out he is very knowledgeable when it comes to identifying animals through their "scat" or poop. To say that Ken knows his .........stuff, doesn't do him justice.
While in Glacier NP we came across a Grizzly bear, for lack of a better term, taking a "dump" IN the woods. We have pictures of this event but it is too graphic to show as this is a "G" rated publication. Take my word for it as Ken has confirmed the veracity of the "stuff". Ken now has the nickname, "Scatman Arthur". When we are driving down the road and see "scat", we use the walkie talkie to call back for official identification.
The other question of the "bear went over the mountain" has also been confirmed as YES. When we spotted the sow grizzly with 2 cubs, we saw a tracking collar on her. I questioned a park ranger and he told me they captured the sow last fall on the other side of the park. The batteries on the collar are good for 2-3 years and they can download the info into Google maps and track their progress.
Now the new question. In Houston in the winter, we see "Canadian Geese" flying in for the winter. We have been in Canada for several days and are seeing the same type of geese. The question I have is....If the geese we see in America are Canadian Geese, are the geese we see in Canada, American Geese. Does that make them dual citizens?
It's a good thing they don't have to go through Customs where we processed into Canada. The officer we had made Stalin look like passive man. I've been through Customs a few times in my career, but this guy needs a personality transplant.
Once we made it through customs, we had a very nice drive to Banff, AB. We spotted many different types of wild animals including some mountain sheep. They must have had a really bad winter as I have seen better coats on a homeless woman.
We were able to get 2 spots side by side with Ken and Debbie. We stayed at the RV and didn't walk into town as I had already given them the tour by missing a turn for the campground and ended up downtown Banff. The streets are not real wide and they were packed with tourists. It's amazing how fast they will get out of your way when they realize that the RV isn't going to stop the turn just because they are too busy talking on their cell phone and are not paying attention.
I was able to navigate my way out of that mess and up the hill to the campground.
The next morning Ken and Debbie refueled their truck downtown. Ken said he felt comfortable doing that after yesterdays tour. We went on up the road to Lake Louise to refuel. As I pulled in to the pumps I noticed a car in front of us that didn't seem to be refueling. There were five of them standing around, waving their hands in the air and talking funny. They were Brazilians. I queried the driver and they couldn't figure out how to open the door to the gas cap. They were looking inside the drivers compartment and asked me to help them find the button. I looked for a minute and couldn't find it so, like a man who always will stop and ask for directions, I got out the manual from the glove compartment.
About that time Abby walked up and found out about the problem. She simply put her finger nail in the slot and bingo! Problem solved.
I fueled the beast and as I was walking into the store to pay, I noticed the "Brazil Nuts" were about to back into the front of the RV. I used my really loud "outside" voice and yelled stop. They stopped short by about 3 inches. They decided that they should start the car before putting it into gear. Works for me.
While I was buying the liquid gold for the beast, Abby went to the Post Office to buy some Canadian stamps as you can't send mail from Canada with U.S. stamps. After she paid for her stamps, the postal worker told her the Post Office employees were on STRIKE and she didn't know when it would be over. Could she have told Abby this before she bought the stamps? Noooo. I hope they are collector items.
As I was getting into the beast to leave a construction worker stopped and asked me if I knew how much diesel cost in Canada. I told him, "no problem" as I had sold my kids to pay for the trip. He said he wished he had thought of that himself.
We spent last night in Dawson Creek which is the start of the Alaskan highway.
We spent a good portion of the evening trying to determine why the propane would not feed any of the appliances. We had filled the tank in Glacier NP so we knew it was full. Seems I have a faulty "emergency shut off" switch and it keeps shutting off the valve while we are driving. I'll try and get it replaced in Anchorage.
Tonight we are staying in Fort Nelson, BC. Tomorrow we are going to Muncho Lake for about 3 days of "dry camping" (no external power). This is one of the best places in Canada to fish and we need the time off.
The wifi quality so far on this trip has been terrible so I have been unable to send out regular "blasts". There will not be another post to the blog until probably Tuesday.
Lois and Clark
