July 16: Oh no...

July 16, 2013:  Oh no...

Why won't they let me-owt?  I wanna go owtside!  There are things to chase I must patrol.  Why won't they let me-owt?  Sometimes they take me-owt but they have me-ow tied to my collar.  I get to sniff, but I need to run free.  Me-owt!  Why can't they understand?

Last night, Spouse started the fire in the fire ring at about 4:00 pm.  It was cool and we had firewood so why not?  It smells so good.  Apparently, there is a black bear that roams through here.  We saw the juvenile bear when we were in Banff.  I guess they stake out their territory, and campgrounds are the best!  The old Yogi and the picnic basket thing...

 Rudy was glued to me last night, and I was glued to Spouse.  It was cold.  Spouse wants me to get up, close the windows, and turn on the heat.  I want him to do it as I can't disturb Rudy.  I win!  Spouse checks the thermometer:  35 outside, 47 inside.  We stay under the covers until it heats up a bit.  Spouse gets up, gets shaved and dressed.  It is about 8 am.  He decides to make a good breakfast for us all.  I wait a bit longer for it to warm up.  Eventually, I am up and Crew is up.  An hour later, it is 32 outside!  We eat breakfast and ready Hannah for departure.  It is now 31.2 outside.  Needless to say, we dressed warmly for the ride across the icefields.  Rudy is whining to go outside.  Spouse has taken him on a leash.  He really wants to be an outside cat, but we don't want to risk it while we are on the road.  After all, that is probably how we came to own him!

We turn north onto highway 93.  Every turn is a breathtaking vista.  The Icefields Parkway runs at about 5000 feet.  It is set in a high valley, with towering mountains on both sides.  There are 25 glaciers that live on this stretch of the highway.   The tree line ends about halfway up the mountains so the rocky peaks are totally exposed.  Add the rivers with the glacial runoff, and every moment is an 'wow'  moment.  We stop at the Athabasca glacier visitor center.   We could go up to the glaciers, but I must admit, I am a skier...  Snow is not a novelty to me.  I love looking at it, but hiking in it is not big thrill!  So, we continue on till we hit Jasper.

 The first campground had no full service spots.  We could get electricity, but we would be in a parking lot.  Not too appealing.  We got to the next campground.  Full hook-up spots have been booked for a year, but there are other spots.  Oh well, we have a generator.  We back into our spot, and as the males are adjusting Hannah's setup, I hear words I really don't want to hear... 'Oh, crap.  Something is broken'.  Huh?  The hydraulics for the forward legs to brace Hannah are not working.  At first, Spouse thought it was a fuse, but it is more than that.  Here we are in the farthest outreaches and we have a problem?  Based on our loose agenda, could we have been any farther from civilization?  Jasper is a village the size of my pinky finger.  RV repairs are not done here.  So we do not want to disconnect the truck from Hannah as we might not be able to hook it up.

Hmmm, this is one more time we remind Spouse that this would be a perfect time to have a smart phone... You see, he thinks that since I don't want to futz around with his GPS, that a smart phone would be useless on me.  And I tell him, I don't give a crap about his GPS and the two have nothing to do with one another.  And Crew jumps in supporting my position...  And the force field around his head thickens...

 Spouse keeps looking and thinks he might be able to jury rig something for Hannah.  So after artistically backing in to our spot, we pull out heading to town.  As we leave our site, there are elk all over the place, even a baby.  We found RV parking and Spouse got his clamp.  While we were here, we figured we would walk around the town.

The town is small with cute shops and lots of eateries.  The mountains tower in the background and the train station dominates the south end.  There are loads of hiking trails, but if we cannot unhitch Hannah, there may not be parking for us to hike.  But in the meantime, we are enjoying the scenery.

When we leave, we pass some more elk, this time males.  We get to our campsite and we not so artistically backed into our spot again.   Spouse tried his fix and decided we should not detach.  So as of now, we will be severely limited as to what we can do.  I cannot complain.  I was hoping to get to Jasper, but really didn't expect to.  So we made it, and even though I will not be able to enjoy it as much as I would like, I am happy to be able to enjoy what we have seen.  And I certainly enjoyed the ride here!

 As we ate our dinner, an elk with a collar was grazing outside of Hannah.  Rudy sat on the back of the couch, his eyes transfixed on this big critter. Or was he admiring the collar?  Hard to tell.

So now, since we cannot detach Hannah, the nature of our trip will change.  Maybe we can get this fixed when we get to a big city.  Or maybe we just learn to deal with the beast behind us.  Or maybe we are home early.  Who knows...  Tomorrow, the game plan is to leave on the early side, take a hike somewhere in Jasper, then head out on the long road to...