Our time in Canada is rapidly drawing to a close as we head into our final leg through southern Alberta. And what a delightful few days we’ve spent heading for Montana. The past 5 days we’ve been in what is called Kananaskis Country—a long valley directly below Banff Nat’l Park and extending down to the northern tip of Glacier Nat’l Park. A diverse area from the Ice Fields and the upper Rocky Mountains. These mountains are distinctive and awesome, and abounding with wildlife—although we’ve gotten to see very little of it. Approx June 25 of this year a massive flooding occurred throughout portions of Alberta from Calgary south – and the Kananaskis Valley was devastated with massive damage throughout; and you can catch a glimpse of that through the pictures included here. Canada Day (similar to our 4th of July) normally occurs July 1, but due to the flooding, was pretty much ignored this year. So people around Alberta decided to celebrate that day on Sunday, August 4 instead. You can see the small parade and pancake breakfast put on by the camp host, the campers, and the local Mounted Police from the area. We were designated honorary Canadians for the day! In keeping with the theme of our travels –living the mystery – it occurs to me that our differences of whatever nature can be resolved as easily as these delightful northern neighbors expressed their hospitality to us this weekend. From everything I’ve encountered within my exploration of our evolving human nature, the only absolute is that of making a moment-by-moment decision to react to each other with hostility or hospitality. It harkens back to one of the primary principles of evolutional science—the most cooperative gets to propagate! While we’ve enjoyed almost a month within the borders of this marvelous country I have to admit to looking forward to crossing the border back into the US again! Much of that is simply the effort required to adapt to the differences—which are generally little more than my own laziness at work! But it will be good to be “back home” again in a few days. Oh, yes, it does also entail easy access to and use of my cell phone and internet “hot spot” again! So, call me spoiled! OK, slight change of itinerary: we crossed the border last evening and spent the night at a delightful campground on a lake just outside of Eureka, Montana, enroute to Kalispel. It is nice to think non-metric measurements again!
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:42:36 +0000