The scenery through the Jasper National Park to Jasper was nothing short of spectacular; as it was all through the Rockies and the nice winding roads made me wish we had a nice powerful Mustang convertible for a day although it would have been a tad chilly
We reached Jasper (about 4500 people) mid afternoon and took a B & B type accommodation for the night, we were due to depart the following afternoon on the train for Toronto so had a full 24 hours to look about. It was a pleasant place and we did the tourist bits that didn’t involve hiking, canoeing, going to high places and in general had a quiet relaxing time. The Fairmont Hotel, a few miles out of town, was a very grand establishment where we had a half decent coffee
in a proper cup, AND with our first metal tea spoon which became a souvenir when we noticed it had the Fairmont logo on it
‘She’ was upset that the shops were empty undergoing renovation but I was relieved
One of the pubs in town had a local Blueberry Ale which we found very tasty too
There was a lot of RV and rail traffic in town so I had a bit of a field day with the camera again, the most interesting item being a little fiberglass Scamp which is the modern derivative of the Boler. A cute little van with an older couple who weren’t too talkative, I think his lunch was ready.
An older Ford F200 with a slide on had some character and a Winnebago and Adventurer RV looked nice with a Rockies backdrop and VIA Rail scenic coach in the background.
RVs had their own parking areas at several places we went to and they were just filled up with rentals. There was an old Kombi van for sale on the roadside near our B & B but it was very considerably lightened by rust!
After an ale we returned the rental car to the station with a bit over 2500km for our 7 days drive from Vancouver and prepared to board the train. The next 3 days found us confined to the rail with not even a caravan sighting. It was an interesting trip but not one I would recommend. I’d baulked at doing the Ghan or similar in Aus because I figure there is only so much red dirt and Spinifex you can look at and thought the Trans Canada trip would be OK. It turned out to be flat green plains, trees, rocks and lakes, still a desert just more colourful desert in my view. Some miserable wet weather didn’t help and neither did the fact that when we initially planned it we had planned to go a month later which would have been in the Autumn but we had to bring the trip forward so it was the last week of summer and the trees had not started to colour. Otherwise I’m sure it would have been very spectacular.
Toronto and the west coast didn’t provide much interest from the caravan/RV point of view with hardly any on the roads compared to the east. We saw our first Airstream on the road in Niagara on the Lake, the only large van we saw on the road being towed by a car. Airstreams don’t do it for me though, this one was a more modern one with a bit less character than the old styles. (photo in next post)
After we had booked the trip I decided we might be able to make a detour to Detroit and look at a 1934 Vauxhall roadster
an Aussie built one that escaped our shores back in the 70s. It is identical to my restoration project and I thought I’ll never be closer so we bit the bullet and headed down the 401 on the Labour Day weekend for a flying visit. The 401 around Toronto was a shock to the system, a freeway with
SIX lanes in each direction.
It was well worth it for me to see the car, the only intact going one I know of
while Barbara had the opportunity to see how the ‘retail therapy’ stacked up by visiting a Meijer store
an absolutely massive thing with just about everything under the one roof and their own petrol station. If they ever come to Australia I don’t think we could have one here in Campbelltown, there isn’t a piece of flat land big enough
And, we had a visit to a Wal Mart for the fun of it
but I think we were the strangest people in it, I think those emails must be dodgy. We also found our first Tim Horton’s coffee and donut store
someone on the train told me to try them after my complaining about the coffee. They turned out to be not half bad, coffee in a proper mug if you wanted it, which I did, and good value with a great range of donuts, about 30 types
Our west coast experience was much better thanks to Tim Horton’s who had stores in most big towns and signposts on the freeway to tell you where they were, as did all the major food, petrol and accommodation chains. Signposts were a couple of km before the exit, at the exit then at the T intersections to show which direction and how far to what you wanted-great set up. I digress.
So, I’ll include a photo of what my long suffering restoration will look like when finished, in the next couple of years, I hope. It will even be almost the same green, apart from the wheels. Then I’ll be looking for a suitable van to tow with it, well I’m looking all the time really.
So that’s about it for our trip, we went from Detroit to Niagra Falls for a couple of days then onto Montreal as we had booked to leave from there. The Vauxhall detour to Detroit left us a bit short of time so Montreal was a flying visit the evening we got there after an 8 hour drive. We had to fly out at 8am the next morning. A strange place though, everything was in French and they spoke French, road signs all French and not displayed in English so apart from the airport sign and a stop sign I had no idea and was glad to be out of it. A “G’day mate” response to “Bonjour” got some English happening every time though
Oddly the rest of Canada is required to be bi-lingual in their signage, all the food packaging and so on but Montreal doesn’t seem to comply and is just French. It’s like going across the border into the ACT and having them speak another language, just weird
I’d like to do the Rockies by train on the Rocky Mountaineer, it would be entirely different to the driving experience, maybe one day.
As for the coffee, I was surprised that during the entire trip we never once even saw a sachet of instant coffee, anywhere
I never thought I’d be so happy to have a cup of the stuff but it was the first thing I had when I got home, and really enjoyed it
Plain old instant coffee, I had to wean myself back onto the long blacks
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
George
Q.E.D.
George
so it was off to a motel once more, where for the 1st time on our trip we managed to score a jug 
Back at the motel there was a large Dodge pickup with a Yellowstone 5th wheel outfit out the front and I managed a photo of a combined people/horse trailer at the lights. Advertising for the big Dodge, GMC and Ford pickups stated their 5th wheel towing capacity as around 28,000 lb or 11 tonne 
so after a lot of messing about with two cameras I just took mostly video so no photo of the van. I decided I’m not an Airstream fan, maybe because they just aren’t something we are used to seeing but I would have liked to bring the Chrysler home as a tow car