I am awakened early this morning by thunder. Stu didn’t hear it at all, but heard the pouring rain that came after. We are meeting a friend, who has recently moved to Banff, for lunch (at the restaurant she is now running with her brother, in Banff), sooooo we have some time to kill this morning. A rousing game of hearts gets the day off to a good start. 🙂
The weather report for the Banff area is calling for thunder storms for most of the day. Not what we wanted to hear. We are looking forward to enjoying the mountain views on our trip through the Rockies!
The sun is shining now as we pass by these paddles along this fence. I am not sure what they were advertising as I missed the sign. They look very cool though.
It is still shining as we approach the Rockies.
And still as we arrive in Banff.
We are meeting Lori. My friend who was our run leader for many years with the Running Room Run for the Cure Clinic. She has recently left the Running Room to buy a restaurant in Banff with her mother and brother.
We have lunch with Lori and catch up on all the news before we head of west again. We have traveled a little while from Banff when the traffic comes to a halt. There are people parked on the left side of the highway, most of them out of their cars looking at and photographing something that we can’t see from our car. Not too long after that we begin to move and see what the commotion was. These guys were just hanging out on the road. They move pretty fast, so this was all I could catch of them.
We have been following the news about the wild fires that are burning across so much of B.C. just now. We have a motel booked in Sicamous for tonight and we think the road will be OK to there. There are route options in Sicamous, so we will re access in the morning. We are losing our sunshine, but we have seen a lot of great scenery. Now we are having a downpour.
We are starting to see and smell smoke.
As we get closer to Sicamous the air gets smokier and smokier. We discuss our options as staying in a place with such poor air quality is not ideal. We have missed the cancellation window for the motel we have booked, so we will pay for it no matter what. Traveling another hour or two will not likely find us clean air. Continuing on to home, another 5 hours or so, is also not a smart option. So we decide we will stay in Sicamous. The motel is an older motel, but it is so clean and comfortable. We are glad we decided to stop. We find a nearby pub for dinner. This is the view we have of the mountain across from us. That is the sun beginning to set in the west.
We have our dinner and head back to the Pines Motel for an early night.