Vancouver Island (July 22-24) and Olympic & Mount Rainier Nat Parks, Wa (Jul.25-26)

July 22, 2011 : We have arrived in Nanaimo and camp there. We head as early as possible to the Pacific Rim National Park. We ride through Cathedral Grove,

which we had already visited about 20 years ago. We leave for Ucluelet in the only camping with some room left. The price of the campground is outrageous: $ 42.00 for the services we get. Their website in on Facebook and I can't wait putting some comments, once we have arrived home ! When you arrive, they are happy to tell you that the showers are free... they forget to tell you that they are not very clean !

July 23, 2011 : We think that we are back in Chile ! noisy neighbors and a short night ! We decide to stay at the campground anyway and we spent an easy day at the beach, reading. Alain is happy to see 3 times a whale jump ! It's wonderful to see these powerful and elegant mammals !

The following day, we leave already the island with a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington. Yes, we are going back to the United States for a while. In Victoria, we can see one of the largest yacht in the world, which was bought by an American businessman.

We end up our day in Olympic National Park, riding up Hurricane Ridge (5230' with view on glaciers and the ocean). It's sunny with a blue sky, the perfect time to go up there.

July 25 & July 26 , 2011 : Port Angeles to Mount Rainier National Park: our trip will be done under a threatening sky with some showers and in the evening, we will stop in Cougar Rock campground. Tonight, the weather forecast is not great, but our camp fire will heat both our body and our spirit. The next morning, after folding the tent quickly and all the rest between showers, we leave to visit the Paradise Henry Jackson Memorial. We will arrive at the center, which is still surrounded by snow and after enjoying a coffee, we will ride the loop. We will be lucky enough to see a cute little fox, blue and black !

We then head to Sunrise Visitor Center. The weather has now completely cleared up and we can see the Mount Rainier in all its strength and awe. Once again, we realize how little and insignificant we are. With binoculars, we will see its glaciers and its crevasses.

It has been a great day and we reward ourselves with a night in a motel. We have not slept in a real bed in about a month !!!... and this time, we sleep well !

On the Road Again...

Vancouver, BC - Canada (July 19-21, 2011)

Vancouver brings back many memories to both Alain and myself. This is the place where we chose to immigrate in Canada in 1988. We will always remember our arrival at Vancouver airport on June 4, 1988 with a clear blue sky and a great temperature. Awesome for 2 relatively young people to see the mountains in the back and then, the ocean !

This time, when we arrived on July 19th, 2011, via Whistler, we were slightly moved. We found a campground on the North Shore, very close to the highway, actually any closer and we would have ended up on the pavement!

It is obviously noisy but nothing will affect our mood, not the noise and not the rain. After all, the train does not whistle here and it's not pouring cats and dogs. The temperature is mild at 20 degrees. So we are back tracking our steps in Vancouver, we ride with our motorcycles through the Stanley Park, take the traditional pictures of totems in the Stanley Park

and downtown

With the weather being slightly overcast, we have the same feel as 20 years ago. There is just an atmosphere in this park, joggers, bikers everywhere, like in San Francisco. We spend some time in Grandville Island where we enjoyed shopping in the past. Later during the day, we go to see our first appartment, then second townhouse, then our third house (which does not exist anymore) and our final townhouse on Lynmoor Place. Downtown has changed a lot, but apart from that, we find our way fairly easily. Vancouver is still the beautiful city we have left ! We stop by the office of TheMIGroup in Richmond to say hi to Tyler and May. We then had supper with my former colleague and friend, Steve and his lovely spouse, Kitty !

Enough nostalgy ! On the Road Again on the ferry to Vancouver Island !



and we did not forget that you can eat an excellent clam chowder on the ferry !

Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, Canada (July 9-18, 2011)

... and yes, we are now back in Canada. We feel weird being back in Canada. Although not quite home yet, our minds are drawn back to work and Montreal. But we have another month or so to go. We visit our son, Thomas, in Calgary, who has been living here on its own for 3 years. Alain has helped him buy a car, his first one, a Jeep Laredo 4x4... He wanted a big car, he is getting it... well, he is the one who will have to pay for gas, insurance, maintenance. Let him have his experience !

Now that Thomas has his car, we think we have probably invaded his space for enough time and we leave after four days. We take the road to Banff National Park. Alain and I have lived in Vancouver before, from June 1988 to April 1992. At that time, we had visited the Canadian Rockies. We must say that we had forgotten how beautiful this part of Canada is. The Canadian Rockies are breathtaking with their summits, glaciers, lakes with different colors (blue, green, white), wild open spaces without any houses on the horizon.

Lake Louise and Glacier in the background in the above picture

Real colour of Lake Morraine above

Paint pot above

 Picnic on the side of the road !

And the wild life is present too...

Our days are so filled up with walking, visiting, riding the motorcycles, that by the time, we come back to the tent, we are too exhausted to write our daily notes. It is not a joke. We find it sometimes difficult to have the discipline to keep up with the blog every day. We are glad that during our trip, we have shared as much as we could and as often as we could. Hopefully it does not get too boring for our followers, as in the United States and in Canada, we are mainly visiting National Parks with many different sceneries. In all cases, we have documented our memories. Alain and I are already talking about reviewing all the pictures. Sometimes, we just loaded them on Picassa without even having the time to really look at them. We keep on meeting wonderful people on the road, sometimes just for 10 minutes and sometimes we end up on the side of the road talking for an hour or more, and sharing our different experiences. There are many travellers nowadays and it is fascinating to meet and talk with them.

Time to go. On the Road to... Vancouver !

Glacier National Park, Montana (July 2 to July 8, 2011)

After Yellowstone National Park, we rode north to Waterton-Glacier National Park. It took us two days to get there another 850 kilometers or so from Yellowstone. We stopped first in the western part of the Park and as the road crossing the park through Logan Pass (Going to the Sun Road) was closed, we then moved to the eastern park of Glacier National Park.

Every time we camped about 30 kilometers away from the park entrance and rested for an extra day. It's July 4th, the American National Day. The campground celebrates with fireworks and we are stunned by their length, approximately one hour and a half. It would put to shame our village, Saint-Lazare.

Coming back to the the park, it is jaw-dropping at times and we savor the scenery which was carved by glaciers.

Last picture above is a beargrass.

Our last night in the campground was busy. The wind started to blow and the wind gusts were so powerful that twice during the night, Alain had to get up to tie up the tent. The week-end is approaching and we are tired after our night, but we are On the Road Again to see our son, Thomas, in Calgary. Below is the map of our trip in the United States.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (June 26 - July1, 2011)

Nowhere in the world are there as many geysers as in Yellowstone. We spent a day watching them in different areas of the park, but mainly around Old Faithful. The majority of the world's active geysers are here and some of them are predictable, which is great for the tourist as you can schedule more or less your day according to the different eruption times. Old faithful erupts more frequently than any of the other big geysers, although it is not the largest in the park.

We ended our day with watching Riverside Geyser erupt. The eruption lasts about 20 minutes, every 6 hour or so.

As we were walking on one trail in the park, we encountered bisons. First, there was one on its own, who was peacefully eating grass, but he was really close. When he lifted his head up and looked at us, we gently backed off.

Later, on that same trail, there were 3 bisons together, one on one side of the trail and two on the other side, very, very close. We were too far from the beginning of the trail and decided to walk right in the middle. We held hands and tip-toed on the trail. We did not want to disturb them. This is a little bit scary !

The park present portion collapsed forming a 30 by 45 mile caldera. Mammoth Hot Springs look like stone cascades in different colours (white, yellow, orange, brown) that contrasts with the surrounding vegetation.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone has breathtaking sights.

Yellowstone's wildlife includes bison (buffalo), elk, grizzly (and yes, we did see one)

 and black bears, coyote, American white pelicans and more wild animals like snakes.

We also went to Teton National Park. It's very pretty too, you feel you could extend your hand and touch the mountains.

We camped three nights in the Park. Fairly primitive, without showers but with a beautiful view. One evening though, after returning from one of our day trip, we had the bad surprise of finding our tent laying flat. There had been a storm in the afternoon. No problem though. We re-set it up and it was okay then for the next night. At night, it nearly froze and we had everything we could on... pyjamas, socks, hat, sweater, fleece in the sleeping bag, and extra blanket on top of the sleeping bag. We survived another cold night !...

Time to leave again. On the Road Again to...