Jasper - August 15

We left beautiful LaSalle Lake to drive into the small town of McBride for fuel and propane. While we had been at the Lake we met a fellow named Bob Elliott who worked for the town of McBride overseeing the parks. Delightful man and I whined to him abit about my shock at prices in B.C. especially for a box (small) of wine. He told me that B.C. stands for BRING CASH and that Alberta - AL stands A LOT (of cash). Oh Boy!!!  We had asked him where to get propane, etc. and he said that if we were going to stop in McBride that we should stay at the Beaverview CG. He knew how much we had enjoyed our  2 days at the lake and he thought we would like that CG better than the one we had planned to use in Valemont. His advice was excellent. This CG had the usual Showers, laundry, etc. but I was pleased to find the showers were FREE and the washer was only $ 2.00 and the dryer $ 1.50. We felt like we were simply parked in someones backyard. We had full service but the sites were grassy ( not mud/dirt) and there was a lot of space between each one of us so we had room to put out our awning, chairs etc. We had a quiet afternoon. That evening as we were having dinner we see an old  beautifully restored 1957 Chevy truck pull up to our site. We were so surprised to see that it was Bob and he had brought his girlfriend Dierdre with him. It seems that before she moved to McBride she had owned a wine store in Vancouver and she also made a lot of wine.  When she sold the business she had 100's of bottles left and she still makes wine for fun.  We were so surprised when she handed us 2 bottles of a red wine. She refused to let us pay for them. She said that after she heard about us from Bob she took pity on us and wanted us to have these bottles. What wonderful people! They have somewhat made up for our ( so far) negative feelings about Canada. Bob said he hoped we had taken his suggestion about coming into that particular park when they took off to find us. He probably wouldn't have driven all the way to Valemont looking for us. Amazing.

Anyway we then left for Jasper the next day. The Rockies are big. unfortunately there is hardly any snow visible and they are very barren looking. Guess I have been spoiled by Alaska. Garry ( who has been here before) says it will improve as we head South. We had hoped to meet up with my friend Gail yesterday. Unfortunately she is coming a longer way and without cell phones we are having trouble communicating.  We went to a place that our friends John and Karen had mentioned but you had to buy airtime at $ 2.50 for 30 minutes. We usually take over an hour if we try to do the blog so we said no and moved on. The Visitor Center sent us to a pizza place that was suppose to have WIFI but you had to buy something to get it. We had thought we would get a PIECE of pizza so sat, ordered a complete pizza as they would not sell it by the sloce  and  then found out that the band width wasn't very strong and we couldn't even get to our emails to see if Gail had sent us something. Great. So then we went to a bakery cafe who again said we had to buy something to get WiFi. I don't mind buying something I want to get the service bit I get steamed when I feel that we are not getting what we paid for.  We really needed to get in touch with Gail so we bought a piece of apple pie and yes we finally were able to get the internet. We took the pie home for dessert last night. We were out at a site called Snaring River ,last night. Dry camping near the Snaring River. Garry bought a fishing license and had hoped to fish the river but the current was too swift and he wsn't able to catch anything.
So this morning being Monday the library is now open and that is where we are after paying $ 2.50 for the service. We are now off to explore the area. Hopefully we will be meeting up with Gail tonight. The townsite of Jasper is very nice although RV's are the cruise ships here. Weather is beautiful but they too need rain. interestingly there was an absolute ban on campfires in B.C. while there were campfires all around us in the campground last night. Hopefully everyone will be very diligent with their fires.