Glacier Park to Calgary

Snow in September?!

Day 16

Just before we retired for the night, the rain had turned to snow in the mountains. What a sight. During the night the whole campground loses power. The electric portable heater doesn't work well without electricity. The power came back on at some point, probably at the same time it started to snow heavy. Yes, we fully wake to at least 2" covering the ground and still counting. I often wonder how it can be 80 degrees out and still snow. We change our plans from going down - west over a mountain pass to heading directly toward Calgary.

As we drive out we continue to have snow for 2 to 3 more hours. The snow lets up a bit just as we hit the Canadian border. We are stopped at the Canadian border to show passports. They proceed to ask us numerous questions about purpose, liquor, guns & mace. We answer no to all except the mace. They tell us that it is illegal in Canada & tell us to pull over. When they see what we have is actually "dog" spray, we are sent on our way. It is a good thing they didn't check our criminal history.

Just before we reach Calgary we run into another small problem, the gas gauge breaks. The cruise control went out a couple of days ago. We were getting a little over 200 miles per fill up. So, we decide to be on the safe side from now on and fill up every 150 miles. If the speedometer breaks, we could be pushing ChelseaExpress.

We park at a train station and head to Calgary. A bank calls us to change US dollars to Canadian. We convert $600 US and get $590 Canadian. (Thank you George for your economic policy.) We roam around a bit and have lunch in Chinatown. Yes, you have heard that before, big cities draw us there. We then spot "The Calgary Flames" sports bar, which is in a converted old movie theater. It is quite a place with at least 100 TVs of different sizes and channels. The Red Sox was on one of them, so we pull up a chair and have a beverage. We stay for 1/2 of the game.