Thursday, June 26

Our last night on the prarie at Buffalo Plains campground was within sight of the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, which was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1981 . We visited the interpretive center this morning, where we saw a film showing how the buffalo were lured into stampeding over the cliff, and walked to the top of the cliff, where we got a magnificent view of today's goal: the Canadian Rockies. After a lunch of -- you guessed it-- buffalo, we chose to go forward on a gravel road rather than back to the highway, and just before reaching pavement again we encountered a truck labelled "dust control" that was putting something down on the road. We had no choice but to drive over this road, and when we stopped for gas at Longview we discovered about a half inch of gravelly muck on each of our hree doorsteps and sprays of tar all over the sides of the van. This was our first mishap; we've managed to scrape the stuff off the steps, but have not yet found a way to clean the rest.




At Longview we turned off onto the most beautiful road we have yet encountered, beginning there as county 541 and becoming provincial 40. Suddenly we found ourselves right in the midst of the Rocky Mountains, rising to 7239 feet at Highwood Pass. We saw a number of mountain sheep right on the road, and then the prize: a grizzly bear not far off the road, calmly eating grass and waiting patiently for me to change my camera lens so that I could get a close-up portrait. Back on the trans-Canada, we headed for the Banff National Forest and the Lake Louise campground. Once again we were happy to have a small vehicle, because we were able to camp in the very attractive tenting area rather than with the large RVs.