Twofer, and out of adjectives

Canada is everything I expected and more.  The weather has been great, in the 70's and 50's at night.  Some thunderstorms come through most afternoons but nothing we're not used to.  The scenery is just beautiful, very green grass and trees.  Since we're right on the Bow River there are some mosquitoes but not bad at all.
Each night we've been enjoying dinner with Tom & Darlene, Clarke & Elaine, and Jim & Gayle.  Usually we eat about 6:30 and tell stories until 10 or so.  The sun doesn't set until 11pm so the time just slips away from us.
Today we all took a drive west along the Trans-Canada highway to the Kananaskis highway.  We only made it about 30 miles to where the road was closed due to the flooding.  We stopped for lunch at Kananaskis Village the site of the 1988 winter olympics.  The area reminds me of the Swiss Alps it is so lush and green.  Today there were low clouds around the mountains.  Unfortunately the only wildlife we saw were a few deer.  I was really hoping to see elk or moose.
Tomorrow is pants day so we'll go to church then probably eat lunch in town.  Monday we plan to drive up to Banff and Lake Louise.  Then on Wednesday we leave Cochrane and will drive up to the Columbia IceFields.  There is a large parking lot there so we'll dry-camp for a couple days and drive up to Jasper and explore the area.  After that, well we haven't planned that far ahead.  Maybe drive back down to Montana and see Glacier National Park

Running out of adjectives

Well it has been an interesting week.  Tom's refrigerator quit working.  He has the same Amana full-size double door residential fridge as we do.  He found a couple parts he thought might fix it.  So we left Cochrane and drove 46 klicks to Beaver Dam RV & Golf Course in Madden.  Really nice golf course and they just opened an RV park in the course.  It was started by a local farmer and passed down to his 2 sons who are running it.  Very nice people.  They helped us get the old fridge out and the new one in.

Think it'll fit through the door?

Late one afternoon we saw a doe with 2 spotted fawns about 100 feet from our coach.

 Yep, the compressor was bad so Tom spent 3 days trying to find a replacement.  With the flooding the supply of appliances is scarce.  We drove to Calgary in my truck with the old fridge and got the new one.  It took a couple days to get it installed correctly.  Success!
Then it rained hard one night and we had a leak in the front slide.  So we spent the next few days trying to find where the rain was coming in.  The factory gave me a suggestion so we spent all day trying to adjust a hanger bracket.  No luck, looks like a trip to Miami, OK is on our agenda.  Thankfully it only leaks when the slide is out.  So if the weather looks bad we'll pull in the slide.
Madden is a "hamlet" with 15 residents.  But the surrounding countryside is just beautiful green farmland in the rolling hills.
Wednesday we departed Beaver Dam and while we were hooking up the cars Tom noticed a coolant leak.  It looked like it might be a radiator hose or clamp.  Since we were heading up steep mountain grades far from repair shops he decided to head down to Lethbridge where he could park at his brother in law's shop while he got it fixed.  So Clarke and I continued up to the Columbia Icefields, finally.  Cindy saw a black bear on the side of the road but didn't have time to get a picture.

It's really nice not being on a schedule, having to sit and help a friend repair something is not a problem.  Actually it was fun since each night we would have a dinner and a movie.
The drive was through spectacular scenery.  We stopped at a lake for lunch then continued driving.

At one point we had to stop for what we thought was road construction but was actually rocks that had fallen:

Once we had parked in the parking lot for $15.70 per night thank you very much we took the trip up to the glacier.

YES, it's COLD!

Our coach from the glacier

Today drove up in the truck to Jasper.  Another day of just incredible scenery.  We almost ran over a young grizzly.  He ran across the road in front of us and as I jammed on the brakes and yelled "grab the camera" he ran up a steep embankment.  Cindy managed to get a couple shots but you'll have to wait until the next update.

Unfortunately that was the only wildlife we saw today but Jasper was a nice touristy town.  While there we managed to get 2 campsites at Lake Louise for Friday night.  So we'll leave about 9am and take a leisurely drive down.