We drove right beside the Yates Mountain that we hiked up yesterday. It's in the middle of the picture below. When we were at the top, we had looked down to see this four-lane highway as a tiny line. Now we look up at the mountain to see that was quite an accomplishment to make it to the top.
We are headed to the center of the national parks part of our trip, and we knew that fuel would get more expensive and less available. So we stopped to get diesel on the drive today. What a zoo! Diesel costs five cents per liter (that's almost 20 centers per gallon) MORE at the truck lanes, so we pulled into the car lanes which were already backed up because two pumps weren't working. We're in our fifth year of motor home travel, and this was one of the most difficult fuel-ups ever.
The sign outside said diesel was 1.109. That sounds pretty good until you know that is the price per liter, not gallon. At 3.785 liters per gallon, that brings the price up to $4.20 per gallon. We're glad for the foreign exchange rate in our favor. The American dollar is strong, as each Canadian dollar equals .76 in our currency. So that brings our actual cost for that gallon of diesel back down to $3.22 per gallon. And that is your mathematics problem of the day!
In addition to converting liters to gallons, and kilometers to miles, we also must learn to recognize the Canadian coins. The smallest bill they have is $5, so we are carrying more coins these days. They are pictured below in descending value. The first large coin is worth $2 and is called a toonie. The second is a $1 coin and has a picture of one of our favorite birds--the loon. It is called a loonie. The rest of the coins are similar in size to American quarters, dimes, and nickels so that is handy. But Canada doesn't make pennies, so all the prices are rounded to the nearest five cents.
If we flip all of those coins over, the other side of each has a profile of Queen Elizabeth II. What's that about? According to the Canadian guide website, "Though Canada is an independent country, Britain's Queen Elizabeth remains the head of state. She doesn't play an active role in politics and her powers are mostly symbolic." Another source says that she is Queen of Canada as a matter of constitutional law, but most Canadians aren't crazy about supporting the Queen's lifestyle. We were surprised to learn that Canada didn't have its own constitution until 1982. And that is your history lesson of the day!
After our stressful diesel fill-up, it's a good thing we had the mountains to look at to calm us as we continued down the Trans-Canadian highway to our destination in Banff, Alberta.
We pulled into our site at Tunnel Mountain Village II, one of the coveted national park campgrounds in this area. When we were making reservations in February, we could only get two nights here, so it will be a fast stop. We are surrounded by mountains, and it's a beautiful place to be, as Denisa is standing at an intersection inside our campground.
It's a strange set-up, with wide roads that have electric pedestals on both sides. One of the reviews described it as the Canadian national park's version of Walmart parking. So we pulled into our camp site and plugged into the electricity. That's when we experienced another first in our five year journey--the power monitors inside the coach registered that we had no electricity. Mark started trouble-shooting immediately. We pulled into another open site, to make sure it wasn't our power pedestal. Nope. When we started our generator, we did have power in the coach. Mark started making phone calls to Tiffin, and they determined that the control board for our electric transfer switch was going out. Perhaps if Mark rewired the panel we could use the transfer switch that was working with the generator to transfer the pedestal electricity. Denisa is clue-less as she writes this, but again she thinks that Mark is remarkable. He managed to get the electricity working, and got the new part ordered. The only way Denisa could be helpful in all this was to find a place that the new part could be mailed to us as quickly as possible. That is a challenge in itself, as international shipping adds a layer of complexity and time to our need for a part quickly.
That last paragraph of information actually took hours to unfold. So our trip to Banff was actually a very stressful day. But now we had electricity (at least while Mark's rewiring temporary fix holds), so we headed into town to do a little exploring. We had already visited here a day with Denisa's mother and sisters, but we had several more stops to make. One was the national park museum, filled with stuffed examples of all the animals in the park. We arrived ten minutes before closing, so it was a quick tour.
We also walked to the famous Banff Springs Hotel. It looked quite close on the cartoon-like map we got at the visitors center, but it wasn't. It was starting to rain as we finally walked up the long drive-way.
Taking refuge inside its huge lobby, we took our first wildlife picture of the day--an oversized painting of a bear.
After the rain stopped, we made the walk to the Bow River that glides through the town of Banff. We followed the signs to Bow River Falls, which is actually a steep section of the river where the water roars downhill for close to a kilometer.
These were places that were hard to visit with our guests earlier because parking and driving in Banff can be a real challenge. So we walked to all of them today. Driving can be slow because there is so much car traffic, and so many pedestrians to dodge. The intersections downtown have very long lights, as first the cars are allowed to move in one direction, and then the other. Then the intersection is completely empty momentarily . . .
until the pedestrians get the green light, and they can cross in all directions or diagonally at the same time. It looks like chaos!
Once we found a parking place, we walked the miles in between these sights and got some exercise on this hectic moving day. Some days we think that traveling to Canada is too complicated. Between counting change in loonies and toonies, and figuring gas prices from liters, and dealing with international shipping, traveling here is a new experience. But the views out our motor home windows of those Canadian mountains still make us glad that we are here.
When we were traveling thru that area in 2014 the exchange wasn't so great nor were the diesel prices. I figured we paid over $7.00 a gallon. A couple of weeks ago Leonard came across some Canadian money we had kept. A $5.00 bill and lots of coins. Convenient because the granddaughters were here with us for a 5 week visit. They leave today with their parents for 17 days in Nova Scotia, etc. They each got to take $5.25 in Canadian money with them.
ReplyDeleteBanff is quite the tourist area. Wish we do have done more walking. That mountain you climbed looked to be a good hike.