ISO Edmonton's Elusive Trolley Busses

We begin with Unohu's search for the perfect coffee:


We arrived in Edmonton last night in the middle of a huge rain storm. The clouds had been threatening during our trip down from the Icefields Parkway along the Continental Divide between Alberta and British Columbia. They followed us through Rocky Mountain Home and Red Deer (those are really place names in Alberta) and began to dump their rain on us as we waited for our hosts to arrive from work to let us into the BnB.

The Icefields Parkway is a trip. In many ways it was one of the most impressive mountain experiences we have ever had. Not only did we see more bears,

but we drove above the tree line and at every turn experienced glaciers that appeared about to drop their tons of snow as they retreat up the mountains into non-existence.




Edmonton, set in the flat prairies, but on the banks of a huge ravine where the Saskatchewan River flows north to Hudson's Bay, is a pleasant city of many parks and gardens. The architecture is somewhat non-descript late 20th century office modern downtown, and mid-century sprawl elsewhere with wide streets. Very reminiscent of Dallas, though perhaps with more trees.

Throughout the city the streets are hung with trolley bus wires. Edmonton is one of seven North American cities with a trolley bus system. It's the only one I haven't ridden. And probably will never ride.

As far as we can tell from the bus drivers and inspectors with whom with talked, the busses have been put away for the summer because they are hampered by light rail and road construction. So I can report that we spent $7.50 each for day-long bus passes, that we rode the light rail system (nice, but still an overgrown tram system), saw the ancient tram that rides over the river, and rode a heckuva lot of trolley bus routes under trolley bus wires, but on busses with diesel engines. Oh, well.

City council is debating abolishing the entire system, claiming the busses are old and none of the drivers like them, but it would be sad for North America just to have six remaining systems...and Edmonton's appears to be fairly large too.

Our Bnb is very nice, a sprawly mid-century ranch with a pool. Dale and Alfredo, the hosts, are very pleasant and the bed is good. We had dinner at one of their recommendations last night, Il Forno, nearby. We had nice calamari to start, followed by a blackened arctic char for Ben, and a small veal steak for John. Both done perfectly. A southern Tuscan sangiovese to go with that was nice, but wine in Canada, like all booze, is very expensive in restaurants and quite pricey in stores.

We spent part of the afternoon at the Royal Alberta Museum. We had passed it to see that it was hosting a show on "Dragons" from Paris and thought it might be fun to visit. Ben enjoyed the totem overlooking the city, where the god has the world on his shoulders.

Yes, it was fun but we enjoyed the show on the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence with over 1000 dead in 1914 more. Besides discussing how a certified ship could sink in 14 minutes after being rammed by a coal ship, it went into the accomodations on the ship, including how primitive, for us even First Class was. (You went down the hall to the loo or for a bath). And how third class had to wash their own dishes! It interested Ben because that's how his father and grandparents came. I could relate to the size of the vessel, but 40 years later when the Crosses came from the same British port of Liverpool, the accomodations in first class were more like a Marriott, with bathrooms with bidets ensuite and full staterooms, not bunks.

Tonight we think about Thai fusion for dinner on Jasper, the main drag. Tomorrow we leave for Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Off to the Prairies

Last night at Silver Dragon was fine...not as good as the first night because our menu choices were not so interesting. However, chicken balls with honey were fun, eggplant stuffed with chopped shrimp very nice and a ma-po tofu, tofu with chopped pork in spices was good. Better than the Irish at the next table or the Arkansans behind them who had chow mein, chicken with peanuts, and for the Irish, a bottle of Mateus. We have come a long way baby!

With the thought that we may not have internet access for a few days--possibly a week or more, we wish you a pleasant few days. We leave Banff this morning for Edmonton via the Icefields Parkway. Thence to Regina in Saskatechewan and Winnipeg in Manitoba. In about a week we'll arrive in Ontario after the Great Lakes. However, we may be pleasantly surprised to find coffee shops and BnBs with internet access.

Rocky Alberta

We drove down to Banff village from our place on Tunnel Mountain, looking for dinner. None of the menus we had found in the rack in the lobby really appealed to Ben so we walked a bit on Banff Ave to find something of interest.

Banff is very pretty, somewhat quaint, but not much as Jackson Hole. It's surrounded by mountains, quite close in, mostly still with snow, but not on the ski slopes. It has a broad range of visiting nationalities: We have heard English in a variety of accents, including North, London, Scots, Ozzie, Kiwi, a variety of American and Canadian and even East African. Add in French both Canadian and European, a few other Euro-langues, Hebrew and then a variety of Asian like Hindi, Mandarin and Cantonese, and Tagalog, with some African languages and you have the salad that is Banff, and I suppose Canada.

Dinner: The Silver Dragon, on the third floor with a view of the mountains in a small downtown building. Order: A Kokonee British Columbian beer, then wor won ton soup, mu-shi pork with pancakes, and salt and pepper squid--with hot spices deep fried with white rice. We enjoyed it so much we will return tonight. We figure we can get caribou and elk in Edmonton or Winnipeg, but we aren't sure about good Chinese.

We had a good coffee at a local coffee shop this morning, Evelin's, which also makes sandwiches that we had later this afternoon along with more coffee because Unohu liked it so much. Got a bit of a ribbing from the barista and the sandwich maker; it was close to 4PM when we arrived for lunch.

We drove up to Lake Louise to see the blueness of the lake and the distant glacier. It lives up to expectations.
The glacier has receded significantly in the last 150 years but it is still impressive at 7 meters thick. It did NOT drop a piece off into the lake even though I thought about stamping my feet hard. I guess it just didn't realize the importance of seeing ice drop hundreds of yards. Shux. No matter how long we looked, it didn't drop.

For those who enjoy esoterica:

Moose, Elk and Bears, Oh My...

Of course we spent time in Helena finding an appropriate coffee—not perfect, but the General Merc, an old store turned coffee shop, novelty and game emporium—filled our cups with cappucino and latte. Not bad, but not perfect. However the bagel that Unōhu had was good, as was the bearclaw that Unōhu-gōzalong enjoyed. Last Chance Gulch is a hoot, and Helena will go down as one of our gems.

The run from Helena to Glacier is lovely. Through serious canyons and over serious prairies, occasionally narrow two lane roads at 70 mph, and at the end very winding roads through the Blackfoot Reservation (poor—only a few thousand live here) leading to Glacier.

Glacier National Park is grand. It's been difficult for us to categorize the various aspects of the Rockies. After all, we have seen them in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and now Montana. In each place the geologic structure is different, the snow and treelines move up and down the mountains, the flora vary a little, and some regions are more populated than others. Some have more wildlife. Moose and elk abound. Some special wildflowers abound in Glacier, particularly the glacier lily.
In all, we tend, as of today, Saturday night, June 14, 2008, to think Glacier is the grandest.

We took a Red Bus tour, really a kind of char-à-banc bus, dating from the 1930s. Fine, very chatty driver and a group of tourists, mostly in their 60s and 70s from all over the country. We ventured through the park's eastern side in this bus; regrettably much of the Going to the Sun highway over the park to Lake McDonald is still under 20 feet of snow so we could not see the more lush scenery of the western park.



Instead we saw magnificent lakes, glaciers, flowers and yes, BEARS!

An awe-inspiring day, full of mountainous wonder.


Now, the Many Glacier Hotel: If you think these old hotels are long on luxury, forget it. The rooms are comfy enough but spartan. The food is adequate, the wine list is sort of adequate, the service is basically college students who try hard and do well enough. It's the site that makes up for the hotel drawbacks. Forget dressing for dinner--in sweaters and slacks we were overdressed. But the views in every direction, meeting a mountain sheep outside before breakfast, seeing the lakes, the snow, and the flowers, makes up for it. Like Yellowstone, you don't come here to be pampered, you come here to view and see and enjoy the mountains. I do hope the condo in Banff is more comfortable for a couple of days. I don't hold out much hope for the BnB in Edmonton.

We've arrived in Banff; it's a long drive from Glacier,in part because we detoured through the cener of Calgary--interesting big city with lots of tall buildings and rapid growth.

We also were delayed for the first time in probably 20 visits to Canada by a "random" check at immigration. It was a small port of entry and it appeared that the Canada Immigration was stopping everyone for checks who was not a returning Canadian. That of course meant mostly Americans. Part of getting back at the US for our silly passport rules no doubt. It's time we did something about them. The Bush Administration continues to think we should make life difficult for Canadians coming to the US and I don't blame them for doing the same. I just don't deal well with it when it's Ben and me.

Anyway, we're in a pleasant condo where we can cook breakfast with a view of mountains and pine forests about a 15 minute walk downhill to the center of Banff. We will explore this evening.

Wireless in the condo! Yippee...of course it was down when we arrived and the maintenance guy had to work on it to get it up. That's been the story of today! Except for the very fine rhubarb pie we had for breakfast at a pie shop in St. Mary's, Montana.

Unskedded Sidetrip Finds a Gem

We left Yellowstone yesterday once again having cleaned off the car covered with four inches of snow. We'd decided with the weather so poor that after we had seen the "must sees" we just didn't want face more cold winds and faces full of snow. However, the sun as shining and the snowy, wintryvistas were spectacular--a perspective most visitors to the Park don'have. We did a quick stop by Yellowstone Falls, which were clear of storm for a while.


So we decided to break our trip to Glacier NP with a stop in Helena, Montana.

What a wise decision. Not only is Helena a delightful gem of a little city, but it gave us a chance to do a bit of exploration around Butte and continue the Search.

Let's talk the Search. As you may have noticed, most mornings contain a sidetrip to find a perfect XXXtraDryCappucino. Yesterday's search took us to the junction town of Livingston. There in a parking lot, amidst western clothing stores, in a valley populated by emigrants brought in by the Northern Pacific was a lovely drive-through Java Joe, which made an excellent XXX for Unohu. And of course a good double shot skim latte for Unohu-gozalong. Sipping it through the rain on the way to Butte.

Butte was the richest hill in the world. Now it has one operating mine and a suburban style town attached to the 19th century old historic district. Mine heads are visible all around the valley and two great big pit mines remain--similar to Bingham.
One is still operational. Butte has seen better times, we guess, but now there are no operating polluting smelters that ruin the valley air and the place appears to be picking itself up. Most of the deep mines closed about 50 years ago. The old downtown has the air of a decayed steel town in Pennsylvania. Ah, the detritus of uncontrolled Industrial Revolution.

Then on to Helena. It was founded in the 1860s as a silver town. We stayed in a new hotel built in the old Last Chanch Gulch, which was the mainstreet of the silver miners and is now a pleasant walking mall of mostly 1890-1910 office buildings and stores nestled against the hill valleys. With only 25,000 or so inhabitants, it's not large, but we found the hotel, with pool and gym, and a fine restaurant last night. It also doesn't hurt to be six floors up and viewing the entire valley and distant mountains.


The restaurant, Benny's Bistro, serves a variety of dishes, well. Patty, our waitress, had her recommendations, and since there were only two other couples in the place on a thursday night, had a chance talk.

We discussed the wines of the day (I had one, a glass of Oregon Pinot Grigio, a bit on the sweet side, but what I wanted), the specials and and Idaho wine. We also had a good bit of politics at the end...she being an Obama supporter who said she expects Montana to go blue this election.

The special I had, the world's best meatloaf, was better than mine. I was impressed. Nicely bound with mushroom gravy, sauteed kale and garlic mash. Lovely. Ben had two crepes florentine stuffed with spinach, made by a local crepe maker! For starters we split a smoked Montana trout with cream cheese, capers and cucumbers and a selection of breaded and fried fresh Northwest oysters. And the wine...we learned something: The Columbia Valley in Idaho makes a nice chardonney: Coeur d'Alene Vineyards chardonnay. Very European in taste. Not quite a white burgundy, but very nice with the mains. Not the best with oysters. For them we decided we needed a sancerre or entre-deux-mers, but these were not to be had.

Today we head to Glacier. Depending on hookups it is possible the next posting may not come till we reach Edmondton, Alberta next tuesday. Not sure about the availability of connections in Glacier or Banff. More to come. Happy Father's Day.

Holes, Fumaroles, Geysers and Snow

One thing that you can say about the Rockies is that weather can change and be totally unseasonable at any time. It'sa Tuesday and we're in the middle of Yellowstone National Park, in a cabin, by the lake. The cabin's heater is inoperative because the pilot light isn't working. It's about 40F outside and maybe 50F inside. And it's snowing and already accumulating.

We expect that tomorrow will be wintry. Whether this is better than sweltering in 95F heat and humidity in Washington is debatable. We expect a service man soon to fix the pilot light. Of course, the cabin is 1930s primitive, but the bed appears to be OK and the towels are only cold because there is no heat. The plumbing works just fine.

We had a fine drive from Salt Lake to Jackson Hole, Wyoming Monday. We crossed the Tetons through a 9000' pass that ended us up in Jackson where the BnB, the Alpine Lodge, was friendly and comfortable. We walked about the town, which is very touristy but in its own way cute. We had dinner at Blu, a sashimi-sushi-tapas type of place, with many of the dishes raw. A glass of white each, pinot grigio Washington state and sauvignon blanc from Argentina and a fine light Oregon Erath pinot noir. They went well with the food: starters were a tuna sashimi for Ben and thinly sliced octopus for me. The other small plates that made up the meal were red deer with macerated dried cherries, bison sausage, toro albacore and green lipped mussels. All outstanding, but the venison was the best.

This morning a huge breakfast. Omelettes aux herbes fines, croissants. Because the Grand Teton mountains were invisible behind a veil of clouds we did the washing. Laundromats are scary places. To get around carrying quarters and dimes, you buy value cards that you insert in the machines. The cost of the load is deducted from the card. Everything is totally mechanized. Oh, what a brave new world that we aren't part of. Some other tourists gave us their card with some value left; we gave ours to a couple of students.

And then through the Tetons, magnificent as they broke through the clouds in their snow- covered glory. We lunched beside Jackson Lake, a man-made reservoir with a small dam. And into Yellowstone.

We spent at least an hour exploring the geyser basin at West Thumb on the shore of Lake Yellowstone. The colors of the fumaroles and hot springs varied from black to deep blue to ochre to rust to copper. Many of the colors are caused by thermophiles, microorganisms that live in the hot waters. Just incredibly beautiful. And the moose welcomed Ben, antler-less, though.


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The maintenance man arrived, we are a slow-warming cabin and we look forward to a good dinner at the Lake Yellowstone hotel.

Wednesday, June 11

We arose to four inches of snow on the ground, covering the top of the car. Hope I can find a scraper in the trunk. I know I took out the winter brush, thinking I wouldn't need it. The snow looks gorgeous and I am looking forward to Mammoth Springs in the snow today.

Dinner last night was excellent. We started with crab and asparagus soup, then Ben moved on to lobster ravioli. I had a small prime rib of bison with Yorkshire pudding. Very good, but I couldn't finish it all. Too much. Bison is a bit stronger taste than beef, but less fatty and very good. Not as gamy as venison.

We got snow off the car, got down to the cafeteria for breakfast and discovered that several of the mountain passes in the park were closed. Too much snow for travel. We also realized that if we did all the things we specifically wanted to do today, which could be done despite the weather, we wouldn't have to deal with bad weather tomorrow because we would be on our way north. So we cancelled Thursday night's reservation at Old Faithful, and headed off to Mammoth Springs and Old Faithful in fairly miserable driving conditions...let's say like Washington when it snows.

The mountains were invisible, the roads slush covered, but we did manage to get a good view of Yellowstone Falls at Artist's Point, magnificent;Mammoth Springs, disappointing; and Old Faithful, a must-do if there ever was one. All in the cold, the wet and the snow. But still a change for us...the mountains are not snow capped peaks in the bright sun, they are fog-shrouded, covered with pines that look like they are weeping wth their white snow covering, and give you a totally different view of the Rockies. The weather changes very quickly as you drive. When we got close to Mammoth Springs on the northern edge of the Park, it was dry and 45 degrees F.

We dine tonight at the Yellowstone Hotel again and then head off in the morning for Helena, a new stop in the itinerary.

Pride and Brine Shrimp

Remember that Salt Lake City is not as conservative as you think. Today it proved it. The Gay Pride parade down State Street included the mayor, several city councilmen and other elected officials as well as representatives of major churchs (including a very small contingent from the LDS church) and lots of interest groups and cute young things.




We thoroughly enjoyed the parade but did not go to the Festival itself. We just aren't into fairs like that.

Instead we headed out of the city to see Antelope Island and the Great Salt Lake. The island is about 30 miles north of the city and a state park with strong controls and few roads. We took a picnic and enjoyed the barely 60F temperatures. The scent of brine shrimp, the major food for the gulls, is quite strong, to say the least, on the causeway out to the island.


We also made a quick stop at the This is the Place Monument.
Erastus Snow, one of Brigham Young's apostles and founder of the southern Utah town of St George, and daughter Anne's ancestor, is prominent on the monument, which is now the center of a theme park. No!

We took a recommendation from Anne, the Red Iguana, for real Mexican food. It's in a non-descript industrial neighborhood, does not take recommendations but does have a license...and the food was exquisite. I started with a peppered marguerita, rimmed with salt and very good. We nibbled on home-made taco chips with lovely hot salsa and then to the main courses. Ben had scallops cooked in a white wine, olive oil and light jalapeno pepper sauce with white rice, black beans and sauteed veges. I was a bit more traditional, a mole with stuffed roast loin of pork. The stuffing was mangoes and very kinds of raisins and currents. Served with the traditional refried beans and rice. We have enough leftovers for lunch today! Including tortillas for Ben to dip into the leftover wine sauce. Mmmmm.

We need to add an aside about the Stewart Ranch in the Uintas. We saw a most magnificent crane amidst the aspen. The black birds were attacking it, but it seems unmindful. A glorious feathered creature of brown feathers with red trim. Wingspan must have been at least six feet.

Tomorrow, Monday, we head to the Tetons and Yellowstone. It's been chilly here, completely like the 100F weather on the East Coast. We can look forward to temperatures below freezing at night and highs in the low 40s for the next couple of days.