WILDLIFE - 11 ME - 0

Once again our routing took us through two of Canada's most beautiful National Parks, Kootenay and Banff. We spotted wildlife at least eleven times. There were deer, elk, eagles, and bears, all of which avoided my camera like I wish I could avoid border crossings. Although, I have to say this border crossing went like clockwork. We got to the border quite early, parked and went inside, answered a few questions, got the Customs stamp on our paperwork, and we were on our way to the dealership in Airdrie, Alberta.

As I mentioned, the wildlife was out and about, but much more incognito and camera shy than the last time we passed through here. I saw a couple of little black bears, but look at the photo. You see the officer pointing? As we passed by, I leaned forward to look around Craig and my eyes fell upon the biggest grizzly bear I have ever seen. It was along side the highway, in a defensive stance, standing up with a big old paw up in the air. It reminded me of my traffic cop stance stopping traffic in Salem, but much more menacing. The people in the cars going the opposite direction from us got a much better view as they slowly passed by. We, however, had a delivery to make.

The dealership we delivered to needed a crane to off load the boats. An hour after arriving, a forklift drives in. Hmmmm, okay, we'll see how this goes. The driver tries to take off one of the boats and comes to the conclusion that, yes in deed, he will need a crane. No problem, another little wait and he comes with the crane and the four boats come off. We spent the night in Calgary before heading back to the States Thursday morning, where we were told to drive towards Moses Lake to pick up a Genie.

Back to the border again, we had the pleasure of having a cattle truck in the next lane to us. Let's just say there were not enough pine trees to mask the aroma coming from that truck. The USA border crossing at Eastport is set up strange. Although it is a 24 hour port of entry, it is small by comparison. They make all the trucks park and go inside while your truck is searched outside. This makes for a backup, which we experienced when we went through, but thankfully, without incident, we were cleared to continue on our travels.

As far as this leg of our journey went, I was disappointed that the wildlife were a bit camera shy, and I wasn't able to get any good photos. At least the weather was nice for some great viewing of scenery without it hiding behind too many clouds. The wildlife might have won this round, but the views we got............priceless