Jasper or bust……

Hinton, Canada

The drive from southern Alberta to northern was uneventful and really that’s the best kind of drives. It was a nice day, no rain, very little construction on a straightforward highway (Hwy 2) for the most part and White Spot for lunch in Leduc. White Spot is one of the things I miss about the west coast. Legendary burgers. Hmmm good.

The Edmonton area was my next stop. Well Stoney Plain to be precise. Here I stayed at possibly the nicest campground I’ve encountered so far, appropriately called Camp’n Class. The location wasn’t terribly inspiring (just off 16A west of Spruce Grove) but it was convenient to all sorts of shopping and just a short distance out of Edmonton. It is obviously a relatively new park, and so the facilities are fresh and sparkling clean. Showers are roomy and bright, with a couple of accessible washroom/showers that are by definition huge. One nit-picky negative is that they charge $1 for each 6 min for the showers which is a pain. The park itself is really well laid out and even has hedges between each site to hide the utility hook ups. Each spot has a gravel pull through with a concrete pad for a patio. The grounds are meticulous and they have grass that is so green that it doesn’t look real. I actually went up and touched it to see!

My mission in the Edmonton area was to have dinner with my niece Lisa, and her daughter Amber, so that we could celebrate our birthdays belatedly. We’re all Leos, along with Lisa’s twin sister, Lara and her other daughter Victoria. We decided that it’s amazing we all get on so well. Lisa and I are even willing to fess up to being bossy and so fitting the Leo stereotype.

Lisa and Amber stopped by the park before we departed for dinner to see my trailer and we got all wild and crazy and shared some bubbly in birthday celebration. (Thanks Janelle and Elizabeth!) Unfortunately it had to be consumed out of plastic glasses since my champaign flutes were excess baggage.

Then it was off to do a drive-by of Lisa and Doug’s new home in Spruce Grove. It’s in a lovely neighbourhood and has plenty of room for all their “toys”. We checked out the pub at the nearest intersection to their place called “The Beer Hunter”. If you know Lisa and Doug you know how appropriate that is. It’s really comfortable with good pub food and I expect it will become a regular haunt. It was great to be able to get together in Edmonton area, since we’re not sure when we might run into each other again and where.

All evening the clouds were gathering and darkening and we had another thunderstorm with rain overnight.

Tuesday’s dawn brought clear, blue skies and cool temperatures, which warmed up to 22 degrees throughout the day. The drive today was a really easy one as I just meandered west down the Yellowhead highway (Hwy 16) to just west of Hinton. I didn’t get on the road until 10 am I arrived just after 1 pm and after a quick set up of the trailer, I headed into Jasper National Park to Miette Hot Springs.

I’ve been to Radium Hot Springs and the ones at Banff but this was a new one for me in this area. It’s up a pretty, meandering mountain road with lots of twists and turns, 17 km into the valley and up the other side, It’s the hottest of the hot springs in the Rockies and the water comes out of the mountain at 54 degrees, but they cool it down to 40 degrees in the hottest pool and then have others cooler than that and one that is absolutely frigid.

I lazed around in the middle temperature one that was just warmer than body temperature and had lunch on a beautiful patio overlooking the pool and the mountains surrounding the Fiddle Valley (something about the wind making fiddling sounds coming down the valley). Not a lot of more perfect ways to spend an afternoon which was only enhanced by a nap back at the trailer to sleep off the effects of the warm water and chemicals.

Tonight I’m at the Hinton/Jasper KOA and it’s a lovely park, built in 2004 after many battles for the owners. The local land owners were not keen about a trailer park in this upscale area of homes on acreage. They finally got over the legal hurdles and have done a great job of making it as attractive as possible, and the facilities are really well maintained. The one downside is they have to rely on satellite wifi which is definitely not high-speed. I’ll try getting this uploaded but it may be Wednesday before you see it.