7/31/1991 - Wednesday

John:  We started the day thinking that we would be in Glenwood Springs with lots of time to kill... but we ran into a lot of road construction along the way that really slowed us down.  Another thing that slowed us up was that somewhere in Flaming Gorge our roof carrier top blew off!!  We discovered this when we decided to stop under this nice big shady tree in a small town in Flaming Gorge... I got out of the truck and looked up and couldn't believe my eye balls!!  The whole top half of the carrier ripped off and was gone into outer space.  All our stuff inside the carrier was still sitting there nice and neat.  (The lid to the box with our bathing suits and towels blew away and the bathing suits were ready to fly off next...) so we had to re-shuffle everything and pack everything into the truck.  What a sight... I wish I would have seen that thing fly off... Guess it didn't make it all the way home like I thought it would.  The Flaming Gorge area was pretty.  We saw lots of antelope in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado...  We also saw a mother moose with a baby in the north/east corner of Utah... so close to Colorado, that I think there must be some moose in Colorado.  We saw a lot (25-30) of deer also.  Our original plan was to camp somewhere in Colorado around the White Nat’l Forest, but because it took so long to get out of Wyoming, our schedule was blown... We got to Rangley and there was nothing, to Meeker... still nothing and getting later... to Rifle, nothing... so decided to go in to Glenwood Springs.  We got a camp spot at the “Hideout” which is out by the new Pizza Hut (where we ate supper).  We drove 358 miles.

ODOM:  31984

Roof carrier lid gone!

Flaming Gorge

Flaming Gorge

Moose & Baby

7/21/1991 - Sunday

John:  After we woke up and had breakfast etc, we drove into the town of Banff.  We did our laundry (bummer) and found a place to park to have lunch.  We went to a free museum in town.  Right in town Kari spotted a giant bull elk.  It had a rack with over a six foot spread!  I was able to get pretty close to take pictures of it.  Guess it’s pretty common to see elk right in the town like that.  We also went on the Sulfur Mountain Gondola... very neat ride which provided super scenery of the town of Banff surrounded by very majestic mountains and rivers.  At the top of the mountain were lots of big horn sheep... some with little lambs.  After all this, it was getting to be late in the afternoon, so we decided to hit the road... just outside of town we decided to check how much Canadian money we had left and found we had about $29.00 left... so I whipped the truck around and headed back into Banff.  We found a money exchange place that does not charge a fee and stayed open till 10pm... (open today also which is Sunday).  So I cashed another travelers check and down the road we went.  We took a dirt road out of Canmore that eventually comes out on Rt. 40.  On this road we saw a mother moose with a baby, some white tail deer, and a coyote.  At the end of the dirt road (about 60-70 miles), we got to a blacktop road (which we thought was Rt. 40)... and took a right turn and found a nice campground called “Elkwood” in Alberta Recreation Area of Kananaskis.  It was a beautiful spot.  Turns out you needed the exact amount of money to put in the self registration envelope... and we didn’t have the exact amount.  The camp host was gone... After supper I flagged a park ranger down and figured he’d have change... but he didn’t.  He said if no one comes around before you leave in the morning not to worry about it.  So being a guy that doesn’t worry about too much, went to bed.  We drove 100 miles today.  

ODOM:  30446

Sulphur Mountain Gondola

View from the top of the gondola

Babies

Just chillin'

Giant Bull Elk right in town!

Giant Bull Elk right in town!

Momma Moose

Deer

7/19/1991 - Friday

John:  We drove to beautiful (major beautiful) Jasper National Park.  We gift shopped in Jasper, had lunch down the road from there.  The mountains here are very majestic... much like the Grand Tetons.  We made stops at the Athabasca Falls and the Sunwapta Falls they are truly awesome!!!  They have so much power they roar and make the ground rumble.  We made stops at some large glaciers.  We also stopped and took pictures of a grizzly bear eating berries along the side of the road... and just down the road a few hundred yards were about seven mountain goats.  They let you get within 3 feet away from them... so I should have some excellent pictures of them.  These are different from mountain sheep 'cause they have straight horns, and they look a little different.  We also saw a mother moose and her baby cross the road in front of us this morning shortly after we left our camp spot.  They were so cute... they crossed too fast and we didn’t get a picture (darn it).  It is very, very scenic here... wow!  The camp grounds are pretty crowded and fill up quickly.  We stopped at several and they were full.  We stopped at Wilcox Creek Campground (which is just past the Columbia Ice Fields).  We drove around and around the camp.  A ranger told us that he had one spot left and said we could have it.  When we got there 5 seconds later, somebody swooped on it... the ranger saw us again at the gate and said we could stay next to the telephones... Sounded like a great idea to us, as it’s very, very private level with a good view.  It’s quite nippy outside as the wind is blowing off the ice fields & glaciers... It even snowed a teeny bit while I BBQ’d our steak supper.  We drove 171 miles today.  The rock guard got another bird...

ODOM:  30247

Mount Edith Cavell

Kari & Susan in front of Locomotive 6015 in Jasper, Alberta

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls

Athabasca Falls

Susan & Kari in Jasper National Park

Susan, Kari & John in Jasper National Park

Glaciers!

(Possibly) Pyramid Mountain

Mountain Range in Jasper National Park

Mount Edith Cavell

Grizzly bear eating berries!

Mountain Goats

Mountain Goat closeup

Scenery in Jasper National Park

Kari, Susan & John at the Wilcox Creek Campground

7/3/1991 - Wednesday

John:  Our main gig today was to take the 8 hour bus tour in the Denali Park.  We started at 9:40 and returned at 6:10.  It was great!  The weather was mostly good, ran into a few rain storms.  We could not see Mt. McKinley due to the smoke & fog.  (Clouds).  we did see some moose. about 8-10 grizzly bears, dall sheep, and caribou.  The moose had a baby moose with her... sooo  cute!  The grizzlies had babies too, one with two babies, the other had three.  The sheep & grizzlies were not close.  The caribou were real close... hope my pictures come out.  The bus tour was long and we were all tired.  We ate out for Karen’s birthday at the Crows Nest.  Karen had baked salmon!  We are camped in Denali Park.  There is moose turds right next to our camp spot!  (The folks around here call them moose nuggets).  We saw Gary on another tour bus.

ODOM:  27534

Kari:  We saw moose with a baby, a lot of grizzly bears with babies, a red fox dall sheep with babies, and caribou.

John, Kari, Susan & Karen at Denali National Park

Dall Sheep

Braided River

Bear

Bears

Dall Sheep

Susan & Kari in Denali

Caribou

Caribou

Susan with Caribou

Red Fox