Today we left Kamloops and headed off to Lake Louise. We hit the road at 8:45 after saying bye to Norm and Charmaine. It was so nice for them to come all the way from Quenel to visit. Next time they need to come East!

It pretty much rained on and off all day and the clouds were very low. The mountains were covered by them and so it was hard to see the great majestic views we were expecting. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

We stopped in Salmon Arm and had our breakfast at the Salmon Arm Marina Park. We walked down to the water and out on a long wharf. Lots of house boats for rent there. It started to rain and was quite cool so we headed back to the car and got underway again.

We had to go over several mountain passes and unfortunately they don't have highway signs telling you the names but we know that we went through Rogers Pass and Kicking Horse Pass which was 1650 metres high. The temperature dropped to 7 degrees there - I thought the rain would turn to snow.

Just past the summit of Rogers Pass we had to go through several tunnels that were pretty short. Just as we came out of one there was a huge black bear on the side of the road with her cub. We couldn't stop because someone was on our tail but it sure was nice to see one.

We also stopped at the location of the "final spike" in Eagles Pass. This is the location where the final spike was entered for the cross nation railroad. We have noticed that in BC and Alberta there are a lot more trains in use then in Ontario.

We also saw 3 bighorn sheep along the side of the road. Actually today we saw road signs for deer crossing, moose crossing, elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats.

We pulled over in Glacier Park as the brakes were getting pretty hot. While they cooled down we had lunch.

The time changed just before we arrived at Lake Louise so we "lost" an hour. At this time of year (until June 20th) you can not make reservations at the Lake Louise Campground so it is on a first come basis. There was a lineup when we arrived and we were about 6 trailers back but we all got in and there were still folks coming in when we got back from going to see Lake Louise. We have electricity at our site but there is no water or sewer - there is potable water over at the washrooms as well as a trailer dump site though.

After setting up we drove over to see Lake Louise was is beautiful. My only wish is that it had been sunny out or at least the clouds had been higher. We will probably go another day as well. The water is an amazing colour of blue from the silt that the glacier water brings down from (I think it said) 6 glaciers.

We also went into the Chateau Lake Louise - a Fairmont Hotel - where apparently the rooms run from about $400 - $650 a night (that is what the man camping next to us said). We walked through their shops and in one of the shops there was wood, bronze, soapstone carvings. The bronze carving of a Native in the window was $58,000! No I did not put in too many zeros. Now we really do wish we had bought the wooden carving of an Indian we had seen in Coombs!