In Canmore and Dry at last

St. Mary finally got to wet. I tried pleading with the gods of weather, “Rain, Rain, go away...” but it had no effect, it kept on raining. I shook my fists at the rain filled skies an implored the gods of weather to banish the rain clouds, I was ignored. I can take only so much rejection, so we decided, since the rain wouldn’t go away, we would.

We left St. Mary, and Glacier Park Thursday morning and made our way to Canmore Canada.

From our back door The Three Sisters

Southern Alberta stretches for mile after mile of rolling grass land. This is cow country, and we did see a few large herds, but In my minds eye, I could imagine the vast herds of bison that must have once grazed here. As an incorrigible romantic, I think that’s the way it still could be.   

After about an hour of rolling grassland, broken up by an occasional grain elevator or small town, I got a bit bored. The only observation I could make is that Alberta looks much like the US. There are A&W root beer stands, Subways, Chilies, and on and on. I did notice that store fronts, apartments, and buildings in general, are painted with more vibrant colors than in the states. 

Our only problem for the day would be making it through Calgary without getting lost. The original plan had us picking up HWY. 22X and going around Calgary to the west, swinging north to TC 1 West, and on toward Banff.

We missed 22X and had to stay on HWY. 2. We were saved by a small sign posted every few km’s pointing the way to TC 1 West. It took about 30 minutes to wind – and I do mean wind –  our way through suburban Calgary, but was easier than I would have thought, thanks again to that small direction sign. Unlike free way signs in California, most directional signs in Canada are helpful and even logical.

Calgary is big; It spreads out for miles. I kept remarking that it is much bigger than Salt Lake. Not so, Johnna looked it up and the population of Salt Lake is bigger by more than 100,000.