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In October we took a trip to New England and Atlantic Canada. We had not flown since before the pandemic but we decided to do so this time, since Atlantic Canada is such a long drive from California. We flew to Boston and spent a couple of days there seeing the sights. Carrie had never been to New England so it was a treat to see new things. We discovered some great Italian restaurants in Boston’s North End, a neighborhood favored by Italian immigrants during the great migration of the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are literally a hundred Italian restaurants within an area of less than a square mile. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

From Boston we drove north and spent a day in Acadia National Park in Maine. The Atlantic Coast scenery is beautiful there, and we had some great lobster in nearby Bar Harbor. The fall colors were spectacular throughout all of New England and Atlantic Canada.

We crossed the border into New Brunswick and then over to Halifax, Nova Scotia. About an hour’s drive down the coast from Halifax is Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and we spent a day there. Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is one of the best examples of planned British colonial settlement in North America, as it retains its original layout and appearance of the 1800s. We strolled around town and saw lots of beautiful historic buildings.

After Nova Scotia came the purpose of the trip – the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Fibre Festival, a knitting and fabric event that Carrie was looking forward to. We crossed the eight-mile-long bridge to PEI and settled into our hotel in Charlottetown for a few days. PEI is Canada’s smallest and least populated province, so it’s an out-of-the-way destination. On our first morning we toured a sheep and flower farm on PEI, about a 45 minute drive from Charlottetown. We saw lots of sheep and we got to observe one being sheared. Over the course of three days we also visited the festival’s vendor booths and Carrie took a couple of knitting classes.

A highlight of the Marketplace was when Carrie met Celine, the owner of Cactus Yarn Studio in Quebec. Last year, Carrie joined knitters from all over to knit a 20th anniversary Clapotis shawl, an event hosted by Knitty.com. The Clapotis was their most famous pattern downloaded and knitted when they first opened Knitty.com 20 years ago. Knitters who submitted an entry last year voted on their top 5 Clapotis, and the top 50 were able to choose hand dyed yarns from vendors who sponsored the anniversary. Carrie’s Clapotis #74 was one of the favorites, and she chose her yarn from Cactus Yarn in Quebec. Celine and Carrie were happy to meet!

PEI was the setting for Anne of Green Gables, one of Canada’s most famous works of fiction, published in 1908. Parks Canada has established a small historic park on PEI’s north shore, preserving the house that was the inspiration for the novel and also maintaining a visitor center with historical artifacts related to the book and its author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. The author had spent part of her childhood around Green Gables, and it was interesting to learn how her own experiences influenced the characters and settings in the book.

After PEI it was back to the US and the drive through New England to Boston. Along the way we had a great lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Portland, Maine. We spent our last night in the hotel in the Boston airport and we had a panoramic view of the city from our hotel window.

We were back in Sacramento in late October, just in time to see the Halloween decorations in our neighborhood. The folks in our neighborhood love to put out elaborate decorations for the holidays.

We spent July 2025 in Sacramento, enjoying our new neighborhood. A tradition in our East Sacramento neighborhood is a Fourth of July parade on some of the local streets. It’s a very low-key parade, with a fire truck, kids on decorated bikes, and dogs wearing bandanas. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We spent most of August and September house sitting and cat sitting in Sutter Creek, in the Sierra Foothills of Amador County. We had watched these cats a couple of times before so we knew their personalities. We enjoyed the beauty and slow pace of Sutter Creek.

The annual Ragtime Festival was held while we were there, hosting several famous Ragtime pianists. One, whose back is pictured below, played on Main Street in Disneyland for about 10 years. He knew traditional Rags, but also treated us to Disney tunes in Ragtime style, inviting us to sing along. So fun!

We headed back to Sacramento in late January and we encountered some rather surprising high desert snow north of Palm Springs. We spent February in Sacramento and then in March we returned to Sutter Creek, in the Sierra Foothills east of Sacramento. We had watched five cats in Sutter Creek last summer and we were invited back to watch them again. The cats seemed to remember us and they were less skittish and more friendly. We had gotten to know Sutter Creek in the summer, and early spring is a different environment. A little creek runs through the property, and what was a trickle in the summer became a raging torrent in the winter.

In early April we spent a week in Carmel with a group of long-time friends. We rented a beautiful house that was roomy enough for the nine of us. We enjoyed our companionship and we took several long walks along the beach, as well as touring the nearby old mission. We spent Charlie’s birthday back in Oakland with Andy. We went out for both brunch and dinner and in the meantime we went to the wonderful Oakland Museum of California.

We returned to Sacramento for a couple of weeks and stayed at a house in the beautiful Elmhurst neighborhood, an area that we had not explored before. Then, in May we went to Ojai and watched two cats, Buff and Bama, that we have watched before. Our friends were on vacation for a few weeks so we took care of everything for them. They have a beautiful yard with several bird feeders so we were serenaded by birds every day. They also have cameras in several places throughout the property, and let us know that they saw a racoon raid their owl box one night and took 2 owlets while the mama was out hunting. Unfortunately, the racoon returned to finish off the last owlet the next night. We discovered the tamale vendor at the weekly Ojai Farmers Market, so we had delicious tamales every Thursday. While we were in Ojai we had several opportunities to visit family in nearby Camarillo.

We are now back in Sacramento and we are changing our approach to travel. We have rented a small furnished apartment for a year and we are going to use it as a home base. We found that we were doing more and more pet sitting and returning to Sacramento between sits, so it makes sense to have a place to land where we can keep our things. We will still be doing lots of pet sitting and travel. We are already scheduled to spend August and September back in Sutter Creek, and we are planning a trip to the East Coast (New England and eastern Canada) for about a month in October to attend some sheep and wool festivals. After that, who knows? We really like our apartment. We have stayed here several times before and it is right at the edge of the Fabulous Forties, one of the nicest neighborhoods in Sacramento and a great place to walk. An added plus is that our place is within walking distance of CVS, Trader Joe’s, the local lab for drawing blood, an independent grocery store, and a Fedex office. Pretty nice.

We spent most of November 2024 in Sacramento, taking care of some dental appointments and getting the car serviced. We spent Thanksgiving with Andy in Oakland. In early December we spent some time with our friends who live near Paso Robles. We have watched their cat and house several times so it was good to get together with old friends and with one of our favorite cats, Purrkins.

We spent the Christmas and New Years holidays in Camarillo, getting together with our family there. We viewed some of the devastation from a wildfire that had come through the nearby hills in November. A number of homes were lost, including some owned by friends. The fire area was not far from where we lived in Camarillo Heights, but the fire did not involve our old neighborhood. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We left Camarillo in early January and spent a few days in Las Vegas, getting together with Carrie’s extended family there. We had a nice visit and we got to become acquainted with a new baby. We left Las Vegas and drove south to Tucson, where we then spent most of January. We were in Tucson to sit for a dog and two cats that we have watched several times before. The dog, Rox, was very happy to see us and was especially glad that we discovered a regular play time at the local dog park. Rox enjoyed romping around with his dog friends, and we enjoyed visiting with the other dog lovers. Tasha, one of the cats, still enjoys playing fetch with water bottle caps, which Carrie taught her when Tasha was a kitten. Smart kitty to remember how to play it. We enjoyed Tucson in the winter. The weather was cool and pleasant, which makes Tucson a prime winter resort.

 

We began the summer with a visit to Tucson to watch a dog and two cats for a friend while he was away. We had watched them before so we were all familiar with one another. Tucson is hot in the summer so we took our walks and walked the dog very early, soon after sunrise, to avoid the midday heat. Later in the day we enjoyed the backyard pool or just stayed inside where it was cool. One day we paid a visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where we attended a demonstration of several desert birds in their auditorium. It was interesting to see these beautiful birds up close. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We left Tucson at the beginning of August, on our way to Zion National Park and Las Vegas. We had spent part of our honeymoon there in 1974 and we were returning to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. On our way we spent the night in Page, Arizona, and we stopped to take a look at Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell. We also stopped at Pipe Spring National Monument in northern Arizona, originally a Paiute homeland and later the site of a fort established by Mormon settlers. Pipe Spring has a reliable water supply so it was of great value to those living in the nearby desert.

We enjoyed our return to Zion. It is one of the most beautiful National Parks and we had a hotel room with a patio with a great view of the red cliffs, which we enjoyed. We took a morning hike in Zion Canyon and were somewhat alarmed by how crowded it had become, not like 50 years ago. The next day we ventured out to Kolob Canyons, a more remote section of the park, and we were greeted by much smaller crowds and more serenity. After Zion, on our way back to California, we spent a night in Las Vegas and had a fancy dinner. We had been to Las Vegas on our honeymoon, as well, and it, too, has changed a lot in 50 years.

When we returned to California we spent a long weekend in the Bay Area, visiting with Andy and enjoying one of our favorite walks along the waterfront at Crissy Field in San Francisco. We also did some exploring in Petaluma, an old town in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. Then from mid-August to mid-September we were in Sutter Creek, an old Gold Rush town in Amador County in the Sierra Foothills about 50 miles east of Sacramento. We were petsitting for five cats, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. Every cat has a unique personality so some of the cats warmed up to us quickly and others kept their distance. We enjoyed frequent walks through the interesting and picturesque old town.

After a brief stop in Sacramento we headed east again to spend October in Raton, New Mexico, to watch a cat for friends while they were on vacation. We traveled through northern Arizona and made a stop at Ganado, a small town near the center of the Navajo Reservation. While there we visited Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a restored trading post dating from 1878. From there we spent the night in Chinle, Arizona, just outside Canyon de Chelly National Monument. We spent much of the next day exploring Canyon de Chelly, known for its natural beauty and for some well-preserved cliff dwellings. Leaving Canyon de Chelly, we climbed up, then down, 8800 feet in the Chuska Mountains on our way to northern New Mexico. Near the end of the day we traveled past Shiprock, a volcanic feature that early settlers thought resembled a sailing ship with its sails unfurled. Shiprock is striking in part because it is accompanied on two sides by volcanic curtains that erupted through cracks in the earth’s surface. Traveling along, as we approached the town of Shiprock we came to realize that we were there on the weekend of the Northern Navajo Fair. Traffic was heavy and for several miles the highway was lined by stalls selling crafts, food, and almost anything else you could think of. It was a big deal. The next day, on our way to Raton, we stopped in Chama, New Mexico, to visit Tierra Wools, a well-known sheep fiber, wool, and weaving store. We had tried to visit them a few years ago but they were closed for the winter at that time, so we didn’t want to miss our chance this time. Their products are beautiful.

 

We arrived in Raton in early October to begin our one-month stay. We were watching Rosie, a small Manx cat with a short bobtail typical of her breed. Rosie was an independent cat but she could also be affectionate when she chose to be. She had the odd habit of wanting to be scratched and petted while she ate. We stayed in an old ranch house on a working horse ranch just outside of Raton. The lady in a nearby house took care of the horses but we saw them every day in their pens and pasture. They were beautiful quarter horses. Raton is an old town that was a thriving mining town about a century ago. Nearby mines supplied coal for the Santa Fe Railroad. The mines closed around 1950 so now the Raton economy is based on ranching and tourist travel along I-25. We had previously spent most of our time in New Mexico around Albuquerque and Santa Fe, which are heavily influenced by the Pueblo and Spanish cultures. Raton was interesting to us because it is more of a cowtown, influenced more by nearby Texas than by central New Mexico.

Our friend grew up on the CS Cattle Ranch near Cimarron, about 40 miles southwest of Raton. Her family still runs the ranch so we had the opportunity to visit the ranch and see what a large-scale cattle operation looks like. The ranch was established in 1873 so they had a big celebration last year for their 150 year anniversary.

Having been intrigued by the ranch, on another day we took a drive back out to Cimarron to check out some of the old buildings in town. We had a printed tour map that described some of the buildings. Cimmaron was thriving about a century ago but is now a rather sleepy little town.

On another day we drove out to Capulin Volcano National Monument, about 30 miles east of Raton. Capulin is one of a series of small extinct volcanoes scattered across northeastern New Mexico. It was preserved as a National Monument because it is a good example of recent volcanic activity (recent by geological standards, anyway). We drove along a road to the top and walked along the rim trail.

We left Raton in early November to return to California for a while. We took a southern route to avoid possible snowstorms in the Colorado mountains, which turned out to be a wise choice, as snow throughout the region followed just a few days after we left. We took an extra day to visit two National Monuments between Grants and Gallup in western New Mexico, El Malpais and El Morro. El Malpais roughly translates as “The Badlands” in Spanish, and it preserves several rather recent (again, by geological standards) lava flows. Farther down the road, El Morro is a large cliff or rock outcropping that has a large pond at its base. Because it was a reliable water supply it attracted inhabitants of the region as well as travelers, from the early time of the indigenous people through the time of the Spanish explorers to the later time of the settlers moving west from the East Coast. Because the sandstone is soft, people were able to carve their names and other text into the rock, hence it is known as the inscription rock. You can still see petroglyphs from the early period, Spanish and Latin inscriptions from the explorers, and names and hometowns of the American settlers. We had a light dusting of snow at El Morro, but nothing to slow us down.

When we left Borrego Springs in February 2024 we went to Sacramento for a bit so we could go to the dentist and take care of some medical appointments. While we were there we made a quick trip over to Reno to attend a lecture by two of Carrie’s favorite knitting designers, Arne and Carlos. They are from Norway and were on a North American tour. They are funny and entertaining, so even non-knitter Charlie enjoyed it. We left Sacramento for Winslow, Arizona, to spend a few days with a group of close friends. We stayed at La Posada, a beautifully renovated old Harvey House hotel next to the railroad tracks. In the days when rail travel prevailed travelers would stop at Harvey Houses all along the route. We made day trips with our friends to Walnut Canyon National Monument (Native American ruins), Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest National Park. The hotel also has a small museum that contains the world’s largest Navajo rug. Finally, we enjoyed wonderful group dinners at the hotel restaurant and at the great little Mexican restaurant across the street, the Brown Mug (great sopaipillas!). Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

From Winslow we drove to Austin, Texas, to spend a few days visiting with Carrie’s brother’s family. Andy came down to Texas for a few days, as well as two other family members, Theo and Rachel. We rented a house in Dripping Springs that was big enough to hold us all. We enjoyed visiting with our Texas family and spending some time in downtown Austin, a big and vibrant city.

From Austin we headed northeast to Crofton, Maryland, near Annapolis, where we settled into a condo for about ten days. Carrie wanted to attend the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, one of the premier knitting and fabric festivals in the United States. The weather was rainy all weekend but we had our umbrellas and made the best of it. Fortunately, most of the vendor booths were indoors in the county fair buildings.

We took advantage of being in the DC area and made a few day trips to local attractions. Carrie wanted to see the special exhibit titled “Woven Histories” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It featured a large and varied collection of woven artwork from all over the world.

On the way to the art gallery we drove past the United States National Arboretum which looked intriguing, so on another day we spent the afternoon in the arboretum. It was a weekday and not very crowded, and we enjoyed several hikes through the bushes and trees with springtime flowers. We arrived past peak azalea blooms, but perfect for the dogwood trees.

On another day we drove over to nearby Virginia and spent the afternoon exploring George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. We were able to tour the main house, several workshops, and the slave quarters. It is always interesting to get a glimpse into what life was like in the past.

We left Maryland headed for Raleigh, North Carolina. Along the way we traveled through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Shenandoah is an interesting and unique National Park because it is long and thin, about 100 miles long but only a few miles wide. It was established to feature Skyline Drive, a scenic highway along the crest of the Appalachians. We were heading to Raleigh to housesit and dog sit for friends while they went to France for a month, but when we arrived in Raleigh we learned that their trip had been cancelled. Hence, we stayed in Raleigh for just a few days, but we did have a chance to see a special exhibit on Native American art at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Like the textile exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, the NC Museum of Art Native American exhibit also melds past Navajo style with new artists’ techniques.

Since we weren’t going to be staying in Raleigh we decided to spend a couple of weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of our favorite places. Heading west, we spent part of a day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, one of the most beautiful parts of the Appalachians. Great Smokies is the most visited National Park in the United States, but we were there on a weekday during shoulder season so the crowds weren’t too bad. On the Tennessee side we passed through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and we were somewhat horrified by the crass commercialism of all the tourist traps. We were on our way to Nashville to visit a friend who lives there. We had brunch with her at a great Southern restaurant and then we went to the Johnny Cash Museum in downtown Nashville. We’re all fans of Johnny Cash so it was fun to see the mementos of his great career. Later we walked down Broadway in downtown Nashville. It’s an amazing street. For about five blocks it is lined with music clubs, each with a live band playing, and this was midday on a weekday. At one end of the strip is the big hockey stadium, home of the Nashville Predators.

As we neared Santa Fe we took a slight detour to Las Vegas, New Mexico, to take a look at another old Harvey House, the Castaneda Hotel. It is being restored by the same people who restored La Posada in Winslow, so we wanted to see it. The Castaneda is smaller and sleepier than La Posada, so we were glad we had spent our time in Winslow. We made our way over to Santa Fe and settled into a little house in Tesuque, about six miles north of Santa Fe but way out in the country. It was a pleasant, quiet spot to spend a few weeks. While we were there we visited the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the adjacent Santa Fe Botanical Garden. Coincidentally, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture had a textile exhibit displaying modern indigenous artists’ work which draws on centuries-old themes and patterns. Our third textile exhibit of this trip! We also enjoyed frequent walks in Santa Fe. We had spent five months in Santa Fe at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 so it was fun to revisit some of the neighborhoods that we had gotten to know so well.

In June we spent a few days in Camarillo to visit family and friends. We also spent part of a day walking around campus at UCLA, where we both went to college in the early 1970s. A lot has changed in the ensuing 50 years, but a lot is still familiar, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we left Alberta in October 2023 we have been doing a lot of pet sitting for dogs and cats. We didn’t exactly plan it that way but that’s how it worked out. Right after Christmas we drove to Jacksonville in southern Oregon (near Medford) to spend two and a half weeks watching two big dogs, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. We had never watched big dogs before and we weren’t quite sure what to expect but it was a lot of fun. Willie is some sort of German Shepherd mix and Max is an Australian Shepherd mix. Max loved to play ball, even in the snow, and Willie loved running around barking at squirrels. The house was out in the woods on a fenced 10 acre property so they had the run of the place. Both dogs were well-behaved and affectionate, and they waited patiently while we slowly learned to respond to their communications. The town of Jacksonville was about a 10 minute drive away. It was a gold rush town in the mid-19th century but was largely abandoned with its buildings intact when the railroad bypassed the town and instead went through nearby Medford. Hence, downtown Jacksonville is full of beautifully preserved old buildings. We enjoyed several walks in the old town. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

After Oregon we returned to Tucson to once again watch Rox, the dog, and Tasha and Trill, the two cats. We have watched them several times so Rox gets very excited when we return. The cats not so much, but they’re cats.

After we left Tucson at the beginning of February we had a gap in our schedule so we decided to spend two and a half weeks in Borrego Springs, a small and isolated town in the California desert east of San Diego. Along the way we made a brief stop at the Robert J. Moody Demonstration Garden in Yuma, Arizona. Borrego Springs is one of eight international Dark Sky Communities – the first in California. We had taken a day trip to Borrego Springs a few years ago and we liked it so we decided to return. The town is surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest state park in California. Our house had beautiful desert and mountain views and we enjoyed walking in the nearby neighborhoods and desert.

 

We left Alberta in October and traveled west across the Rockies on the Trans-Canada Highway into British Columbia. We passed through three Canadian National Parks – Yoho, Glacier, and Mount Revelstoke. All are beautiful, and Mount Revelstoke hosts an old ski jumping venue that was used for competitions in the first half of the 20th century. We then passed through the Okanagan Valley, BC’s principal wine region, and we crossed the international border into eastern Washington. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We made our way through Washington, Oregon, and California en route to Paso Robles to sit for one of our favorite cats, Purrkins. We were watching Purrkins last year when we were stranded when the road washed out during a big flashflood. But this time we had perfect fall weather and a relaxing visit.

After Paso Robles we traveled to Roseville, just outside Sacramento, and watched a cat named Arcy, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. Arcy is a very vocal cat and she has the loudest purr ever. It is interesting how each cat has its own personality. We then headed south to Tucson in mid-November to watch a dog and two cats that we had watched before. But on the way we took a couple of extra days to visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, along the Mexican border in southwest Arizona. We spent a couple of nights in the nearby town of Ajo, once a copper mining town but now a sleepy artist and tourist town after the mine shut down. We stayed in a very interesting hotel, recently converted from the old elementary school in town. Each classroom is now a hotel room and the play yard is now a courtyard with desert landscaping.

We spent Thanksgiving with Andy and Heather in Oakland. Then, in early December we were back in Paso Robles for an early Christmas celebration with close friends. While there we all visited the Cambria Christmas Market, an annual holiday event with lots of Christmas lights. We spent Christmas with family back in Camarillo.

 

Lake Louise is arguably the premier spot in the Canadian Rockies. It is very popular and almost everybody who visits Banff National Park makes their way to Lake Louise. It is a glacier-fed lake surrounded by spectacular steep mountains. Because it is glacier-fed, Lake Louise has a turquoise color due to the glacial flour (very fine particles) that the glacier forms when slowly grinding up rock. Lake Louise is about an hour drive from our house and we were able to visit several times. On our first visit we celebrated Carrie’s birthday with fancy afternoon tea at the upscale Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Hotel. We had a table by the window with a wonderful view of the lake. There were sweet and savory treats along with excellent tea. It was a memorable birthday celebration. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

On other visits to Lake Louise we enjoyed hiking along the lakeshore. There is a trail that goes along the lakeshore for a little over a mile that takes you to the glacier end of the lake, where water flows in from the glacial melt. From the lake’s other end, Louise Creek flows out to the Bow River, making its way through Canmore and Calgary and eventually to Hudson Bay! On one visit to Lake Louise we made our way to Moraine Lake, a nearby glacial lake with equally spectacular views.

On our return from one trip to Lake Louise we made a short detour into Kootenay National Park in British Columbia to visit Marble Canyon. A short hike up the canyon passes over very narrow and steep canyon walls. At the end of the hike is a waterfall, where the glacier-fed creek tumbles down toward the valley below. Unlike Lake Louise, Marble Canyon was not crowded and we saw just a few people on our hike.

During the first week of October we took a three-day road trip through Jasper National Park and on to Edmonton, the provincial capital of Alberta. On our first day we drove northward on the Icefields Parkway, a 150 mile route connecting Lake Louise with the town of Jasper. The highway traverses the northern section of Banff National Park and then Jasper National Park, the largest park in the Canadian Rockies. The route goes along the spine of the Rockies and the scenery is spectacularly beautiful at every turn. It is billed as “one of the most beautiful journeys on the planet.” The first part of the route, in Banff National Park, traverses a series of glacier-fed lakes that flow into the Bow River. Glacial flour provides all of these lakes with a beautiful turquoise color. We made stops at Bow Lake and Peyto Lake, which is viewed from an overlook high above the lake. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We stopped for a picnic lunch on a bluff overlooking the North Saskatchewan River. This river flows out of the Rockies through Edmonton and eventually into Hudson Bay. The Bow River is one of the tributaries to the Saskatchewan River system.

After lunch we passed into Jasper National Park and traveled along the edge of the Columbia Icefield, one of the highlights of the drive. An icefield is an expanse of ice that can feed several glaciers, and the Columbia is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies. The Columbia Icefield Centre offers a viewing platform overlooking the Athabasca Glacier, one of the glaciers fed by the Columbia Icefield. The glacier has receded substantially over the past 150 years or so, and there are markers in the ground showing where the edge of the glacier existed during certain past years.

Farther north we took a short hike to Athabasca Falls on the Athabasca River. The waterfall is one of the scenic highlights of the Icefields Parkway drive. The Athabasca River flows northward from Jasper and eventually empties into the Arctic Ocean.

We spent the night in the town of Jasper and then made the four-hour drive to Edmonton the next morning. The drive eastward leaves the mountains rather soon and then traverses prairie land, evidence of Alberta’s role as one of the principal farming and ranching regions in Canada. Our goal in Edmonton was the West Edmonton Mall, one of the world’s largest shopping malls. But to call it a shopping mall is an understatement, as it is more of an entertainment complex. The mall contains a water park, an ice skating rink, an amusement park with a roller coaster, a hotel, and even an entire Toyota dealership including a service department. We especially enjoyed browsing through an extensive Asian grocery store. It is easy to see why folks in Edmonton would enjoy spending time in this enclosed mega-mall during the bitterly cold Alberta winters. We got our dinner that evening from an Indian restaurant in Edmonton that had butter chicken poutine on the menu. We didn’t order it, however. It seemed a little over-the-top.