Banff

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A new country! After seeing all of Glacier that I could, I headed north into Alberta. Going through customs took about a 1/2 hour because I had to declare the shotgun I brought with me. It went just fine, just took a bit longer than with nothing to declare. (Special thanks to Joe, who convinced me not to try to smuggle a handgun in.) Being tired from the previous night's activity, I figured I'd get to Calgary and find a motel. Well, I screwed up and got caught in the evening rush and decided I just had to get past Calgary. So, I pressed on to Banff, the town inside Banff National Park. Boy, am I glad I did.

Driving through the part of Alberta south of Calgary and east of the Rockies is reeaaal flat. I decided to start listening to my third audiobook of the trip, Jack London's "The Sea Wolf." God, I love Jack London's storytelling. It may be a bit overly dramatic for today's readers, but I love it. I'm saving my other London classics for the Yukon and Alaska. On the way from Yellowstone to Glacier the book was "One Second Later," by Wlliam Forschten, a new novel that I think is on the NY Times bestseller list. It's a doomsday kind of story about nuclear detonation in the upper atmosphere that creates something called an ElectroMagnetic Pulse, EMP. All it does is knock out all electronics on it's horizon; doesn't kill a living thing. That's all, until he lets you know what would happen to the USA if we lost all electronics in one second. It's a novel, but he says the science is true and the threat is very possbile. Highly recommended reading.

I was really wondering how much speeding would be tolerated in this province because after Montana's 75 MPH limits, Alberta's 100-110 KPH seemed mighty slow and most of the other traffic wasn't going too much over the maximum. The road was 4 lanes and the terrain was so flat you could safely drive it at 90+ MPH (IMHO). So I crept the speed up with the cruise control to about 15 KPH over the max and wished for more.

Another incredibly beautiful ride once you get 20 miles west of Calgary. Man, was I bushed when I got there. I've now driven 2500 miles. Banff is a perfectly lovely town, totally surrounded by massive mountains. Back at Glacier, Zoe told me that I must go through Jasper Park north of Banff, so I've added that to the itinerary since its pretty much on the way in getting to Dawson Creek where the Alaska Highway begins.

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