Drive to Alpaca farm and feeding Alpaca

Today we drove from Red Lodge to an Alpaca Farm where we would spend the night. Last night we has snow on the mountain tops, beautiful. Probably roads are closed for today.

The drive was beautiful with the fresh snow. Only problem was the wind blowing hard from the south east. By the tim we arrived at the farm my shoulders were sore. I had to kep the wheel cocked at about 20 degrees from parallel for the entire trip. 

Once at the farm we had a great time watching the Alpacas and are looking forward to a tour. Alpacas are such sweet, quiet animals.

Here are the pictures from our drive and the farm tour.

So quiet and peaceful

Tehn we showed up with the food bucket

I became a very popular person, so much fun

 

Beartooth and Chief Joseph Scenic Drives

We are now in Red Lodge, MT. The entrance to Beartooth Scenic Highway and Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. This town has single campground, Mom and Pop type, our favorite. We checked in, left payment open until we decide how long we are going to stay. The weather forecast isn't the greatest.

Since today is clear we decided to take an hours rest and then head to the Beartooth. We sure didn't know what we were getting into. We climbed, via may switchbacks, from 6500' to 11000'. Sometimes we had to turn the car around to be able to get the door open to get out due to high winds. This is a wonderful drive, not to be missed, put it on your bucket list if you are out this way. We felt we could touch the clouds and sky.

The Beartooth Scenic Byway:

A few switchbacks, drove this road 3 times!!!

The Beartooth

Wonderful Valleys

Well above the tree line

A glacier lake

We were surprised by the number of lakes and glaciers

We were following a motor home down the Beartooth. There are signs at the beginning saying no large motor homes or trucks but he ignored that. He was afraid of the road, it is narrow and twisty kept to the center and would almost come to a stop if anything came toward him. He rode his brakes. Finally he let us pass, I guess he made it down but when we passed him we weren't even at the switchback portion of the road. Hope he learned his lesson. 

The next day we drove the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, not as spectacular as the Beartooth, not as high, but still a challenge.

In the middle of all the granite, a sandstone hill appeared

At one of the turnouts was this sculpture of Chief Joseph

Our Road

Glaciers all over

Open range, lots of cattle wandering around

The steer wins!!

We have had 2 days of rain so we will be moving on soon. An added incentive is new snow on the peaks, time to move a little more south. The challenge is which way to go. We can't take the motorhome over the Beartooth so our only option is to head north, go across Montana to get past Yellowstone and then head south. We don't like repeating roads but we don't have much choice since campgrounds are closing down.

I did some checking on places to stop and our first night from here will be an Alpaca Farm. We joined an organization called Harvest Hosts and they provide free overnight camping at wineries, museums, farms, restaurants and golf courses. There are no hookups but with the motor home that is not a problem. Looking forward to this stop.

Waterton Lakes National Park

Today was a travel day to Waterton Lakes National Park. The town was a total mess with construction and very poor signage. We went in the same loop 2 times before we stumbled across the temporary National Park visitor center on some back street. I went in and was give a map of the town and how to get to the campground. The town is only 4 blocks by 4 blocks but what a mess.

Not one sign leading to the campground. Without the map we would never have found it. 

The campground is brand new. Canada is putting money into their parks and rebuilding the parks for todays campers. Canada is rebuilding a 400 site campground in Jasper, was suppose to be done this year. We had driven past it and thought they were dreaming. Today it was announced that the campground would be closed another year.

The location of the Waterton campground and the town is right on the lake. Views of the mountains all around.  

A waterfall next to the campground

Some of our daily visitors

The next few days we had planned to do a few nice drives and small hikes. Plans are useless. There was a major forest fire last year that melted the roads and they are closed until rebuilt. Then we decided to go for the boat ride on the lake, high winds had that closed down. We need to put this park back on our list for future years.  

Waterton Lakes Lodge

Driving to Banff from Jasper

Today we left for Banff from Jasper. The weather looked pretty good, encountered some fog 5 miles down the road but the weather cleared up at 50-75 miles. Once we were out of the fog the scenery really improved. Drive was easy, not much traffic which surprised us as this was Monday of Labour Day weekend in Canada. Once to get to Banff we need gas, dump the tanks and get water. There was a long line in our Jasper campground so we decided to wait until we were in Banff.  

The drive down the Icefields Parkway to Banff was not as spectacular as it was 17 years ago, so much has changed.

Low clouds do add some interest

Always need to watch for animals

We call this glacier poop, looks like the rocks were placed

We arrived at Banff and went into town to get gas. The one thing we don't understand in both Banff and Jasper is why the only gas stations are in the center of town, not much space for any RV. If we were in an area with few RVs I could understand, but there are RVs coming and going on a constant basis. We filled up, stopped traffic across 3 lanes so we could get out and proceeded to the campground. 

We asked for a better site for our solar than what we had reserved. No problem and we ended up in a pretty good site, still with a lot of trees so our solar worked but we still had to run the generator during generator times.

After we checked out the site we dropped the car and drove back to the  RV dump. This is always a 30-minute process so we were happy there was no line. Did all this and called it a day.

9/3

Laundry and a local drive to Bow Falls on the Bow River. Both Jasper and Banff is tourist land and is no joy to drive around. Traffic all over, not much parking, hard to get around, etc. etc. 

An Elk on our drive

Bow Falls

Fairmont Banff Springs

With the number of RVs you would think it would also be more RV friendly for gas and diesel, it is not. 3 gas stations, all downtown and all tight to navigate.

Even the laundromats in both towns are downtown with no parking. Luckily I found one in Banff that was on the outskirts. Restaurants are the same, all in downtown, none on the outskirts.

Banff is gorgeous. It is nestled in the mountains with high peaks surrounding it.

9-4/7

Today we drove up to Lake Louise via a secondary road. Thought we would stop at Johnston Falls, no parking, and this was early. Lovely day for a drive. Lake Louise had no parking so we just turned around. We will stay out of tourist areas from now on, plenty of other things to see and visit.

9-8/9

Today was a travel day to Waterton Lakes National Park. The town was a total mess with construction and very poor signage. We went in the same loop 2 times before we stumbled across the temporary National Park visitor center on some back street. I went in and was give a map of the town and how to get to the campground. The town is only 4 blocks by 4 blocks but what a mess.

Not one sign leading to the campground without the map we would never have found it. The campground is brand new. Canada is putting money into their parks and rebuilding the parks for today's campers. Canada is rebuilding a 400 site campground in Jasper, was suppose to be done this year. We had driven past it and thought they were dreaming. Today it was announced that the campground would be closed another year.

The location of the campground and the town is right on the lake. Views of the mountains all around.  

The next few days we had planned to do a few nice drives and small hikes. Plans are useless. There was a major forest fire last year that melted the roads and they are closed until rebuilt. Then we decided to go for the boat ride on the lake, high winds had that closed down. We need to put this park back on our list for future years.