In the morning, we drove to Jasper town and stopped by Tim Hortons for some donuts and free WiFi. After that was a long day of driving down the mountain. We stopped by the Wal-Mart in Grande Prairie, where we stocked up on supplies and picked up some dinner.

Our campsite was Camp Tamarack in Grande Prairie, AB. There are a lot of mosquitos here. The WiFi is pretty good though.

In the morning, we stopped by Banff town for some breakfast at McDonalds and a nearby shop for beaver tail shaped fried pastry called a “beaver tail”. Yay for free Wifi at McDonalds!

Then we were off for a long day of driving. Our first stop was Lake Louise, which was mostly frozen. (It looks nothing like the postcard!) After being cold for a while, we walked though the public areas of the nearby Fairmont hotel and returned to the RV. Our next stop was the Columbia Icefield Centre, from which one can see at least 5 glaciers with the naked eye. The company running the centre also offered tours that drive out onto the glacier in a bus (which looked pretty cool) and something called a glacier skywalk (which seemed less fun). We declined to participate in either activity as we still had a lot of driving to go.

Around 20:00, we arrived at our campsite, Whistler’s Campground in Jasper National Park. It’s a long walk to Jasper town. However, there is a big RV parking lot just outside of town on the other side of the train tracks on Highway 93A.

In the morning, we decided to take a scenic drive to Red Rock Canyon by way of a tiny mountain road. After that harrowing adventure, we headed off to Banff National Park.

We noticed that the Parks Canada rangers always greet us by saying “Hello! Bonjour!”. In addition, the signs in the parks are bilingual, while the regular road signs in Alberta are only in English. The Canadian park rangers are as helpful and friendly as the American park rangers.

Our campsite was the Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court. It is a pretty long walk from the Trailer Court to Banff town. There is a shuttle from the for $2/person that runs fairly frequently, but we decided it would be more time-efficient to just drive into town and park our RV outside the downtown area.

I’m beginning to worry that this trip is too long. I think 5 days is a good length for an RV trip. Any more than that and I fear that I may slowly go mad. Only ~2500 miles to go…

Today was our first day driving the RV into Canada. The Canadian border agent mentioned that he saw a lot of the Great Alaskan Holidays RVs passing though his tiny border checkpoint on Chief Mountain Highway.

Since we drove directly from Glacier National Park to Waterton Lakes National Park, we didn’t stop by an ATM to pick up Canadian money. Luckily, this was no problem as Parks Canada/Parcs Canada takes Visa for park entrance fees and campground fees.

Our campsite was just outside of Waterton town. Unlike American national parks, Canadian national parks have towns inside of them with homes, restaurants, and other stores. We walked to a nearby restaurant called Wieners of Waterton that sold tasty hot dogs, sausages, and poutine. Afterward, we made a quick loop of the town. We found a WiFi hotspot near the playground and Valerie purchased our plane tickets home.

In the morning, we called Bison Ford in Great Falls, but they were too busy to take a look at our RV today (or even tomorrow). They recommended that we call Ford dealerships in nearby towns.  So, we called Courtesy Ford in Conrad, MT. They were kind enough to squeeze us in between 11:00 and 12:00 to take a look at the RV. The miracle workers at Courtesy Ford were able to fix the AC in about 1.5 hours (for free under warranty). Huzzah!

Today’s sightseeing stop was St. Mary and the east side of Glacier National Park. Even though the St. Mary Visitor Center wasn’t scheduled to open for 2 days, USNPS rangers helped us plot a course for tomorrow’s drive to the Canadian border, answered our park-related questions, and demonstrated the proper use of bear spray. We hiked along a trail near the old ranger station in St. Mary.

Our campsite was KOA in St. Mary. I would not recommend this campground.

Today was a long day of driving from Sheridan to Great Falls, MT. During today’s drive, we became convinced that our truck air conditioner (as opposed to RV air conditioner) was not working. We called Great Alaskan Holidays and they advised us to stop by a Ford dealership to have the AC fixed.

Our campsite was Dick’s RV in Great Falls, MT. The staff at Dick’s were friendly and capable.

The only sightseeing stop on today’s drive was at Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. It is a large pillar of stone protruding upward. We walked around it on a paved (but not handicap accessible) trail for about an hour before heading back to the highway.

Our campsite was Peter D’s RV Park in Sheridan, WY. Pete maintains a very nice campground with full hookups. The showers were spotless and there was a laundry room available. He even lent us a coaxial cable so we could hook up our TV to the included cable TV. If you need to park an RV in Sheridan, Peter D’s is the place to go.