Trying to catch up...

Part of the glacier in the Columbia Icefields

See all the snow? See the sun?  How does that happen?

This is where it starts to get windy and snowy

Athabasca Falls

We were without phone service and wifi for a few days as we "ferried" to Juneau (arriving on Sunday morning at 4:00 a.m.) so my apologies for the lack of updates.  When last we talked, we were driving through the Columbia Icefields amid wind and snow.  It was so quiet - not many cars, no tourists - and the scenery was (again) incredible.  The icefields are covered with glaciers, many of them you can walk on if the weather cooperates (our weather did not) and as we left the Canadian Rockies we realized that we were in the heart of the mountains, as close to heaven as we could get here on earth.  We wanted to make good time to Prince George, our next stop, but I wanted to stop at one more waterfall, closer to Jasper, at Athabasca Falls.  A series of walkways took one across the canyon to the falls.  While not a high waterfall, the water rushes through a narrow gorge and makes a stupendous display of power.  I was glad we stopped.  The rest of our trip today would take us to Prince Edward, our stop for the night.  We were now winding our way out of the mountains (even though most of this part of Canada is mountainous) into a more "temperate rainforest" similar to Juneau.  Here there were many turn-offs for campgrounds and hiking trails, most closed for the season.  We did see Mount Terry Fox, which was a mountain named after the canadian who ran across (most of) Canada after loosing a leg to cancer.  If you haven't heard of his story, you should look him up.  It was a very inspirational young man.  We found ourselves in Prince Edward, a rather large town but we didn't have a room reservation for the night, thinking that it can't be busy in the middle of the week at the end of October.  Well, three hotels later, we were still looking.  The "full" hotels were helpful, giving us ideas on where to try.  Finally - success!  The Sandman would be our home away from home tonight even though we didn't need the full kitchen in our "suite".  This chain is somehow connected to Denny's restaurants, since there seems to be one at every Sandman we saw hereafter.  You know how you never see a red car until you buy a red car?  That is the way it was with the Sandman - we noticed them in each and every small town we drove through from here on out.  The next morning, since we had over 447 miles to drive to Prince Rupert, we left in the dark (6:45 a.m.) with a quick stop at the local Starbucks.  There breakfast sandwiches are surprisingly good!  On our way again - except this would be our last day of driving!