To Jasper

Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Day 41
12,919 km ridden so far

My site at Grande Cache Muni Campground was nice, but the messy habits of some of the campers, especially the young ones, made the atmosphere seem a hybrid of hostel and homeless shelter, with trash and food strewn about, filthy bathrooms and showers, abandoned derelict luggage, firewood pilfering. But all said, it worked for me for the night I was there and even had a fire which kept the mosquitoes away.

Blocked up the bike on some of that strewn material so I could get the rear wheel up to do you know what
chain maintenance

The impressive Canadian Rockies

Road to Jasper, a national park adjoining and north of the Banff National Park

Wonderful is wonderful. I'm not so sure about the Formidable

 Fortunately, I was able to secure lodging in Jasper in a home "B & B" (but without the second B part) for $60 USD, which, thinking back to the advice of the guys at the Yamaha dealership, seemed quite a good deal. I stayed at the Greenwood Lodge, which I would recommend: http://greenwoodlodgejasper.homestead.com. Joelle does a good job there and gave excellent advice on restaurants.

Walking the streets, I was admiring this BMW GS with a lot of stuff on it...

...including this great sticker...

...when owners Sarah and Mike showed up. Very nice couple, we chatted for a while about their adventures. Everyone here has an interesting story. Hearing these stories has been one of the most enjoyable features of my trip.

Back on the Canadian pricing theme, this is representative. This is the "happy hour" price for Corona beer, A WHOLE BUCKET of FOUR, count them, 4, for only $19 CD. Such a deal! You might want to do some drinking at home before you go out to soften the blow.

Gasoline prices in Canada vary widely, from a low of about $1.10 CD (Canadian dollar) per litre to about $1.90 per litre, or about $4.16 to $7.20 USD per US gallon. I think the highest I've paid in the US so far was actually along the Coast Highway in Big Sur, CA, at ablut $5.70 per gallon.

A Jasper towne view

I finished out the day with some new friends. Did you know that ice cream is an excellent ice breaker? Well, it is. After dinner I went to the grocery to get food for the morning and could not pass up the freezer case, and the big container was same price as the small, so I went big... and shared, with Maik, a teacher of framing carpentry, and his wife and daughter from Germany, and John, a rancher from down under, all of whom shared passion for this cold desert.