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| Bill and Susan Host Us in Their Self-Built Retirement Home in Kila, Montana. |
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| Susan's Elk and Moose Stew with Homemade Fresh Ground Wheat Bread. Amazing! Served in Her Grandmother's Dishes. |
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| Watching Bill and Susan on Their Homestead. |
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| View From The Moore's Barn. |
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| Beautiful, Sweet and Helpful Pet at the Moore's |
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| Phone Call with Son Jeremy and Grandson Quinn in Brazil. |
Saturday. 12. In Kila, Montana at the home of friends for 3 nights. We woke up at the Moore’s house that they built together since 2016! They lived here in an RV for a couple of years before beginning the build on this house. Susan was working under contract as a nurse in Atlanta when Bill moved to Montana to begin working on their land and designing what they have now in 2025. Susan came later and lived in the RV through at least 1 or 2 Montana winters while they worked toward getting their house built. Susan continues to work as a nurse while Bill is always busy at their home. When Susan comes to and from work, she always has some homemaking to do or farm and animal care to manage. Their son Zach is living in an attached apartment after his Navy career. He works around here with everything and he is discovering his next phase of his life and work. At dinner, Susan made a family meal of elk and moose stew! It was delicious!!
Sunday. 13. Today we went to worship with Susan, Bill and their son Zach. It was a group of over 100 people. That was a nice surprise. At lunch 4 of us went out to eat and Bill went to do other things for his afternoon. We all met up at dinner time at their house. Susan cooked us all a wonderful dinner of frittata and waffles from her fresh ground wheat. During the afternoon Susan took Darrell and I on a walk up the mountain on their property. She told us about the spring bears, the elk and other mountain stories.
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| Drive from Kila, Montana to Calgary, Canada. |
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| Big Truck on Display in Canada. Amazing. |
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| Details on the Big Truck. |
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| Picture Stop. |
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| Driving into Calgary, Canada |
Monday. 14. We got up this morning after our 3rd sleep at the Moore’s house in Kila, Montana. It’s been an amazing weekend visit with them. Today we do our regular morning routine of ddp yoga, have breakfast, pack up our truck and drive to Calgary, Alberta Canada. We say our goodbyes to Susan because the guys are sleeping. Lol. Our drive to Calgary is super-scenic! We stop to see the biggest truck in the world on display. We also drove through the Frank Slide area. I looked it up online and read it’s history which is very interesting. The mountain had a major slide, either the biggest or one of the top slides in Canadian history. In 1903 the slide happened. It covered part of the town of Frank and killed many people. The rocks are still where they fell. I was astounded as we drove through the pile of debris and looked at the mountainside!
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| Vintage Pictures of Darrell's Dad. Holding Our Youngest Son Samuel (now age 32). Second Picture Shows Grandpa with the Back of Our Son Jeremy. |
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| Darrell's Family Reunion in 1994. Remembering Darrell's Dad. |
Tuesday. 15. We woke up at our Calgary Holiday Inn. Texts overnight were letting us know that Darrell’s Dad had passed away around 1:30am in Texas. He had been on Hospice for several days. We did our morning exercise routine, dressed and walked a couple of blocks to Denny’s restaurant for breakfast. We came back to the hotel and Darrell completed packing his overnight carry-on for his flight at 1pm today. He’s flying back to Huntsville, Alabama for his eye treatment. Tomorrow at 4pm I am to arrive at our house-sit here in Calgary. Darrell’s return flight is on Thursday. The weather is sunny and mild today. It’s beautiful. Darrell catches the airport shuttle at 10am. I drive to a health food store and then to a bakery for a box lunch. I get back to the hotel before noon and eat, then get online for our weekly Bible class.
Darrell had called his mom and sister this morning and learned that they are making plans for the funeral next week near Mt. Vernon, Illinois. They haven’t yet got the exact day, but are hoping for Tuesday as their first option. We checked on flights for next week, but we can’t confirm until we get the funeral date and I also need to talk to our house sitting host about this 3 day/2 night trip!
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| Me with Birdie at Calgary House Sit. Darrell Flew Back to the US for His Eye Treatment. |
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| House Sit in Calgary. Tank and Birdie. |
Wednesday. 16. Today is our oldest (of 5) son Eric’s birthday. He’s 40! His smile still gets to me! Love him dearly forever. I’m checking out of the Holiday Inn in Calgary today. I have a few hours to go shopping before arriving at the house sit at 4pm. Darrell is in Huntsville, Alabama getting his eye treatment today. He is flying back here tomorrow. I got tired and stressed today while driving in Calgary traffic, shopping and getting to our house sit. I didn’t trust myself to drive in the evening and stayed in for the evening. In the morning I spent some time with the cats because Birdie especially wants attention. I finally got my exercises done and had breakfast. I had a call with my son, Eric and grandkids Owen and Esther. We were discussing travel to grandpa’s funeral and meeting up next week in Illinois for the funeral in Dix..
Thursday. 17. Darrell arrived on his flight around noon local time. We stopped by the store for a few items and made lunch at our house. We finalized all of the details for travel to his Dad’s funeral in Dix, Illinois on Tuesday, just a few days away. Whew. It’s a lot. Our son, Jeremy, is coming from Brazil too. Other items to do today: I’ve cooked a turkey breast and pork tenderloin and got potatoes baked for dinner.
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| Picture Stop in Banff National Park |
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| Picture Stop in Banff National Park |
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| The Famous Lake Louise in Banff National Park. We are Too Early and the Lake is Frozen Over! |
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| Other Less Famous Lakes in Banff are Thawed. lol. |
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Banff Delivers a Sunny Day and Gorgeous Mountains
Friday. 18. We drove to Banff on this sunny day. We carried our picnic lunch with us. Before leaving Calgary, we lingered with our morning coffee. I investigated our drive and potential crowds. The drive is about 1 ½ hours or a bit more to the entry gate. There were a couple of bottlenecks along the highway. We had a snack from our picnic basket during our drive. At the entry there were 3 lines of cars going through the ticket purchase with cashiers. It took us maybe 20-30 minutes to get our day pass and drive on toward Banff town and Lake Louise, our two decided destinations. We drove to the town of Banff with our first order of business finding a public restroom. The town was packed and we drove through and around as best we could with the free map from the entry point. All parking lots around the obvious washroom were full. Pedestrians were thick. Darrell was paying attention to all of the signs, the driving, pedestrians, cyclists and looking for a free space. We drove a big circle with no luck. We could see that if a spot opened up, there were pay kiosks for the privilege to park anywhere and everywhere. We guided Darrell through the downtown area to the Visitor Information center. Their parking lot was full, tight and slow to get around while drivers in front of us waited for spaces to open up. We circled that lot and turned back down an alley toward the last public restroom we saw a block away. We came to the road and I see a free 15 minute space straight across the road and next to the public restroom!! Yay! Darrell pulled into the spot and we got to relax for a few minutes! Lol. Then we made our way through the busy streets to the gondola up the mountain. We were following a line of cars the closer we got to the gondola parking. There were two attendants talking to each driver as we approached. He told Darrell that the parking is full and unless we have a timed gondola ticket within 30 minutes, then we have to come back. We drove on down the mountain and decided to head toward Lake Louise while looking for a lunch picnic spot. Once we were back on the highway, we took a scenic byway 1A, Bow Valley Parkway. About 1:30 we found a sunny picnic table and stopped to eat our sandwiches. There were other families at the stop too. Also a toilet was available here. After our rest here we drove on toward Lake Louise. We made a stop at Morant’s Curve parking and viewing area. This was by far the best viewing we had so far. There were a few others there with plenty of space for the amount of people there. People were sunning next to their van and others, like us, were getting pictures of the river and mountains. Stunning. We drove on to Lake Louise. Since it’s April, the internet stated that parking is for a fee from May-October. In my mind I can see the pictures of the stunning blue glacial water of Lake Louise with a couple posed in front of the snow capped mountain surround. We drive with the other cars to the parking area. I had seen the crowd pictures online this morning of the July-August crowds around the lake front. We have free parking. The lot has been plowed with the snow mounds deep. We take a short walk through shoveled pathways to Lake Louise!! Yay! We made it! But as we arrive, we see that the lake is snow-covered. It’s frozen over and people are scattered out onto the frozen lake! It’s solid white with snow and ice, not the beautiful summertime blue. We both laugh about it. Get our picture and go back to our truck for the drive back to Calgary. Neither of us wanted to try for a gondola ride at this late afternoon time. We were ready to drive the hour and thirty minutes back to our house. On the drive back there were a couple of large and slow traffic bottlenecks along highway 1. There was an alternative route, but many cars were going that way too. We stuck to highway 1 and arrived back to our house before 6pm. We greeted our house cats Birdie and Tank and made our dinner and relaxed for the evening. It was a beautiful day in the Canadian Rockies. My overall impression was that the crowds in the two locations we went were not worth the time to visit the towns on this day that we went. It is Good Friday and maybe more people were in Banff because of the holiday today. I think we would enjoy Banff town with fewer people. It looked like there was a lot of shopping and restaurants with walking in and around very nice. There is a beautiful looking walk next to the river too. Maybe a weekday would be a better day to go. For Lake Louise, we wanted to see the blue water of summer. We were willing to pay the high parking fee if needed to see that. I would go back for that moment and that picture, but I realize that it comes with a lot of other people and cars. I would also want to look online to see if getting reserved parking is possible because I wouldn’t want to drive all that way and get turned around at the entry point. Taking a picnic was definitely the way to go! We were able to pick the sunny day and this was very nice as most of the day the temp was between 50-60 F. There are several other parks and scenic byways to explore all very close to each other too. We may also get our day fee ticket online to avoid the entry gate line next time we go. One more tip: don’t go on Good Friday! lol. |
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