Our motel was super comfy so we had a great night sleep and even slept in a little. We had to take showers and pack up and are still getting adjusted to the one-hour time change, but we were on the road about 10:30. The drive was beautiful coming into the park. David even got to enjoy it since we were following four motorhomes, a bus, and two trucks. The rivers here are all amazing colors; some are milky white while others are radiant aqua and turquoise.
We stopped at the information center inside the park. They assured us we could get a campsite and gave us all the info we needed for things to do and see - about a week's worth of stuff. Another half-hour of gorgeous riding and we were at Lake Louise campground. There was a huge line, but they have a campground just for tents and there were mostly motorhomes in line. The site they assigned us (A4) is right across the street from the river so there is the peaceful sound of rushing water, which would come in handy although we didn't know it at the time.
After setting up camp, we decided to start out with a gondola ride with great views of Lake Louise. The lodge was incredible� build with entire logs like an old log cabin only enormous. We had lunch there on the balcony overlooking the mountain and the gondola, which was really just a chair lift with some gondola cars. For our ride, we opted to take an open chair. The ride was nice and slow with incredible views. The temperature was perfect - warm with mellow breezes. At the top there was an information center with all sorts of scary details about bears and bear attacks� like, if you are attacked by a black bear you should play dead, but if attacked by a grizzly bear you should never play dead but should run and fight back, however it is difficult to tell the difference between the two bears and often bear experts are unable to distinguish them. The ride down the mountain was the best. We had a view of the entire valley, Lake Louise in the distance, and the glaciers on the mountaintops. Half way down we even saw a bear in the grass below.
On the way back to our campsite we ran a few quick errands and returning to the bike, David noticed a gas leak. He spent the afternoon and evening in our wonderfully soothing campsite trying to identify the cause of the leak. There was another motorcycle camper (on a Triumph) who came over to help and lend supplies. He was equally baffled by the leak. For those of you interested, here is my best attempt at an explanation� there is gas leaking from the carburetor from an unidentifiable location. David took out the carburetor and checked all the float bowls and float bowl valves, but everything looked okay. He then found a way to keep the carburetor attached and level to try to pinpoint the location of the leak, but to no avail. He really wishes we could find a phone line to email the COG list since someone out there must have been through this before.
I spent the afternoon cross-stitching and listening to the river rushing by. The campground we are in is really interesting - there are no cars. Two of us have motorcycles, a few groups on bikes, and the rest are backpackers. One guy is from Switzerland and there are at least four groups from Germany. We are by far the oldest of the group, and I don't think my cross-stitching did much to help us look hip.
For dinner we walked to the store for some mac and cheese. We made a go at a fire, but weren't very successful. I think we are going to buy an axe. We had to stash all of our food from bears and in the process discovered that a shampoo bottle had exploded and there was shampoo everywhere. We cleaned up and decided to call it a day. Not a good day, but not a bad day either.
We are hopeful to find a solution for the bike tomorrow.
Janet.
�
Get your own Free Home Page