We're home!

Good day everyone! Jon and I are home! We bought some peaches in Kamloops before we left. It just so happen that they have a farmer's market every Saturday. While we were choosing the peaches, it started to downpour. Fortunately, we weren't far from the car. As we were driving the rain cleared up.

Thank you for following us. We hope you enjoyed the blog as much as we enjoyed our trip!

Lots of love,

Jon and Lily

Kamloops

Good day everyone! Jon and I had a driving day. We drove about 4 hours from Golden to Kamloops. It took 4 hours because there was lots of traffic. It was interesting to see the landscape change from forest-filled to desert-like within the same province. We stopped by Tim Hortons to get a cheese bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese and 6 strawberry powdered donuts.

Icefields Parkway

I hope everyone slept better than I did yesterday. If you remember, Jon thought Hi Winnipeg was the worst hostel. Well this one is my worse. I could barely sleep yesterday. In fact, when I don’t get enough sleep, I start getting headaches. The bed was quite uncomfortable. Jon and I woke up to go to the washroom in the middle of the night when it was still dark. It was not fun. They did have little lamps but they didn’t help much. So when we went to the port-a-potties, we talked loudly and made lots of noise. I was stomping my feet and talking to myself like a crazy person.

When we woke up, we used the water pump to fill up a container to brush our teeth. I think this place is a hiker’s paradise but it was truly my worse nightmare. I guess I’m not the camping type.

We did have an enjoyable day otherwise. We drove to Sunwapta falls on the Icefields Parkway. It was quite nice. Then we drove to Columbia Icefield where we took an Ice
Explorer tour onto the Athabasca glacier. We went into this special vehicle that was designed to travel on glaciers. The wheel was almost as tall as me. The glacier was pretty cool. When the glaciers are blue that means that there are minimal air bubbles. The Athabasca glacier used to be close to the road, but it has receded quite a bit. The tour was very cool but expensive. It was $50 per person. I’m glad we did it once.

We then continued our drive along Icefields Parkway. We made so many stops along the way because the scenery is just breath-taking. We saw lots of snow covered mountains, turquoise lakes and canyons. Our first major stop was at Peyto Lake and Bow Summit. Peyto Lake is suppose to be the bluest lake in the area. Bow Summit is the height of land between the Bow River and the Mistaya River. Then we drove by Crowfoot Glacier where it used to have 3 “toes” but the lower toe has melted.

We are now staying in Golden at the hostel we stayed in before. It is quite nice here. I can shower, use a flushing toilet and not have to boil water to wash dishes!

We’ll be heading to Kamloops tomorrow. Then we’ll be home on September 4th. Have a good evening!

Jasper

Hello everyone!
Jon and I are having a reat time in Jasper. We may not have internet at our hostel so I'm writing to tell you we're safe. Will post tomorrow.
Have a wonderful day!

Edit:
Good day everyone! Jon and I had a wonderful time in Jasper. When we woke up, we immediately left to visit Jasper Tramway. The tram took us to the top of Whistler’s Mountain. It’s called Whistler because the marmots that live there whistle when they’re scared or want to mate. When we got to the top, it was very foggy. We could barely see anything. Jon and I decided to hike to the top of the mountain. We didn’t make it quite there because it was too foggy and the ground was covered in snow.

When we came down, we had something to eat at Treeline Restaurant at the top of the tram. We ordered a poutine, smokie wrapped in bacon and hot chocolate. We were able to use a 15% off coupon which expired yesterday. After we finished, the foggy clear up a bit and we saw some of the landscape. You could see the town of Jasper as well as the surrounding lakes and mountains. It was such a nice view.

After we came down the tram, we drove to Maligne Canyon. Along the way, we stopped by beauvert, edith and Annette lake. These lakes have four different colours that do not mix: light and dark green, and light and dark blue. It was very pretty. The Maligne Canyon was quite nice also. We walked past the fourth bridge to see the underground streams. As we were heading to our car, we walked by cliff pothole which are circular shaped holes carved by water and sediment.

Then we drove to Medicine lake which had the largest underground drainage system. In October, the lake is completely drained. Boat owners didn’t want the lake to drain so they threw sandbags, mattresses and piles of magazines to block drainage. Afterwards, we drove to Maligne lake. It had mountains in the background and was very picturesque.

We picked up milk, salad and apples for tonight. We began driving on the Icefield Parkway. It is so beautiful. The mountains are so majestic.

We arrived at our hostel. It has electricity and that is it. Jon and I have enjoyed using their outhouses as well as boiling water from water jugs to wash dishes. We’re a little upset that we haven’t had the opportunity to use the water pump located in the parking lot. Maybe we’ll use it tonight when we shower or wash our clothes but we’ll have to boil it before we use it.

We watched Transformers 2 tonight. It wasn’t as bad as people said it was but some parts were kind of silly. Anyways, have a good night!