What I Did on My Summer Vacation

It's long past time to document our brief summer vacation trip. I apologize up front that some of you may be afflicted (or inflicted, if you don't prefer) with this more than once as I could be repeating myself in different venues.

I am also biting tongue that I have spent a week or more trying to get Blogger, AOL, and Picasa to even minimally cooperate with each other. I'm having to settle for what can only be most flatteringly described as a piss-poor job. There is no obvious way to meld text and pics. Support facilities almost make the famously laughable Microsoft Help(!) screens suddenly only stupid instead of obnoxious. What is it with you "service providers"?? I'd be fired if what I came up with at the end of the day was as offensive to the customer as your products!

After counting to 1,000, I will move on.

My scheme for our trip was to get back to Banff and Jasper parks in Alberta. We'd seen the first briefly a decade or more back with the kids, but Jasper was more of an undertaking than we could manage. This time the strategy revolved around bagging Jasper, doing as little mega-highway and as much two-lane or blue highway as possible.

Since a co-worker had extended gracious invite to visit them at Flathead Lake in Montana, we elected to do the loop route I was working up in counterclockwise direction. Prime goal was Banff/Jasper. And I was determined to see for the first time at least a bit of the Okanagan Valley, a famous British Columbia valhalla.

Trip summary starts with I-90 to cutoff to Flathead Lake, significant diversions limited to bkfst in Cle Elum and futile pursuit of rumored Black-back Woodpeckers in same general vicinity. My limited involvement in the last few years in reviewing materials related to the Coeur d'Alene Superfund site made the passage through that tremendously scenic and historically fascinating locale intriguing in ways it never was before. You'd never know that the freeway you are driving on is in many stretches built on mine tailings laced with nasty heavy metals like lead. The mind reels at the toxic implications of mine debris for folks living in this otherwise entrancing (at least in summer) mountain vale. Cleaning up a huge site like that is an almost incomprehensible challenge.

Secondary roads to Flathead deserve a trip of their own. Eagle spotted taking off from riverside with large fish was joyous.

We greatly enjoyed several hours with said co-worker and family at Flathead Lk, including a terrific spaghetti feed and circuit of nearby Island. Many thanks, Jill and John!

Our motel reservation was in Kalispell, worth staying in even if just for the name (which admittedly was about all we had a chance to appreciate this time). Glacier Park was as always fantastic, but so much so that after the predictable agonies of being patient with trailers and RVs on the way up, there was a 30-minute wait for parking at the top. We'd planned a short walk at Logan Pass, repeating the one we took with kids that yielded wildlife sightings. Alas. Instead, we plunged down the east-side descent.

From there we were mostly onto new turf. We'd never visited Waterton Lakes in Alberta. Even the approach highway was entrancing, featuring incongruously steep and scenic roads with great mountain vistas and an intriguing border crossing (prior convictions? mace? alcohol?). If you could ignore the large wheeled vehicles, it was possible to feel like you had moved outside the envelope of commercialized civilization. I.e., not at all what you find on entry to Glacier NP and at this time of year at Logan Pass. However, Waterton proper was more in the category of GNP. Scenery fantastic, but tourism at full throttle. Not my normal thing, but Waterton is an incredible spot. The Prince of Wales hotel, while in my book not in the top echelon of such park buildings (to me, Mt. Rainier, Banff, Mt. Hood, and Yellowstone among others feature more stunning structures), is still very impressive, and its site is to die for. We were there for a mere first brief look, but I hope we can go back for something more. Famous hike involving boat ride, tunnel crawl, and vertiginous catwalk is irresistible!

I'm going to call it (i.e. your reading tolerance) quits here. Further episodes possibly to follow - depending on interest/feedback and my ability to juggle priorities - and, oh yes, ever so critical, my patience with the sad disfunctionality of the "service" providers.

pj