Alaska -- Day 18

A work day, normal life, just living. All of those describe our Sunday. No travel, no sightseeing, no tourist activity. Instead, John celebrated Holy Eucharist for us in the trailer. We drove downtown to a coin laundry and found there was a Food Court in the same place with free wifi. Yea! We didn’t even have to buy anything to eat while we used the internet.

But I did suffer sticker shock. I hope Canadians make really good wages. I paid $4 a load for the washers and the dryers cost 25 cents for 3 minutes. Up until now, I thought $2 for each washer load was awful. After we finished the laundry and I posted yesterday’s blog, we visited the local Safeway. More sticker shock. At least I could get the club card discount. We paid $4.00 for a box of Raisin Bran—after a $1.99 club card discount. One can of vegetables was $1.66. A dozen eggs cost $3.31.

The only thing that hasn’t been as expensive as we expected has been diesel for the truck. Before leaving the US, we paid between $3.89 and $4.09 per gallon. Here we have been paying $1.069 a liter ($4.04/gallon) to $1.279/liter ($4.84/gallon). Most often we have paid $1.139/liter ($4.27/gallon). And, amazingly, diesel is less expensive than regular unleaded.

Another interesting fact here in Canada—we have crossed several Texas Gates. That means a cattle guard.

We both enjoy days like today. We feel we have accomplished something on work days. And everything is fairly familiar (OK, maybe not the cost). Nothing new to figure out or take in. Work is relaxing. We also walked around our campground for 8,000 steps.

Alaska -- Day 16

Today was a travel day, from Lethbridge to Banff National Park. We are in the same campground area we stayed in 8 years ago. Then I saw a grizzly bear walk through the campground. Today John saw an elk as we drove from the park entrance to the campground. Hopefully, we will continue to see wildlife here.

I guess Alberta farmers have happy farms.



The farms must be very old, since we see lots of old buildings like these.





As we drove through Calgary, we saw the Calgary Olympic Park, built for the 1988 Olympics. We have both downhill skied and so have Doug and Eric. But I don’t know if any of us would have tried going down one of these.



Again today, we saw lots of beautiful mountain scenery.





The entrance to Banff National Park is old and quite attractive.



We thought we were here very early in the season, at least until we walked around on the downtown streets.