So the wife and I took another winter weekend vacation. This time we drove to Jasper, Alberta Canada. This is a 9 hour drive from my home through the heart of the Canadian Rockies. About 500 miles. What an adventure. This will be a long post but it is a fun story for anyone who cares. Anyone who has been to Canada outside of its big cities soon learns that Canada is not the US. I have traveled there lots. But its hard to fathom the vast expanses of wilderness without people, especially in the winter. We got gas in a town called Cranbrook which is about an hour north of the border. I figured that, like in the US, a person can travel a major highway and always have access to gas. Nope. We turned off the preferred route at a town called Radium Hot Springs. Little did I know this would be the last time I saw civilization until we arrived to our destination of Jasper Alberta. Over 5 hours of driving with no gas and not much in the way of people. Its almost entirely within three national parks: Kootenay National Park, Banff national park, and Jasper National Park. And being winter everything was closed for the winter. It was a long lonely highway in a snowstorm most of it in the dark with very spotty cell service. I do have to make a disclaimer here and say we did drive through one town, a famous one, and I was too stupid to realize we were driving through it. Lake Louise is a ski resort town. I knew we drove by the ski resort but I thought we were going to drive through the town of Banff. Nope. So I bypassed lake Louise and that ended up being the only opportunity to get gas. By the time we arrived at Jasper I was down to about an 1/8th of a tank of gas. I was getting very nervous that we might not make it. But we did.
To keep this train related, we came into Jasper using google maps. Not knowing the area I followed it. And it took us to the only level grade crossing in Japser with the CN railroad. It so happens this is a popular place for them to hump cars. So we sat and sat and sat. Finally a local came by and I flagged him down. He gave me directions to get under the RR. Once we finally got gas we headed to our cabin we rented that was just a few minutes out of town. . .um no more like 1/2 an hour north of town. By the time we arrived at the cabin it was 10:30 PM. I had called ahead that morning and asked about their late check in policy as I knew we would be arriving late. I was assured by the manager it was no problem. He put the info in the computer and said there was a after hours phone with someone answering 24hrs a day. Nope. We get there and the place is closed up and dark. I used the phone no answer. used it four more times. . .no answer. Called the office number. . . no answer. Pressed 2 for the manager. . . no answer. So with no other choice we drove the 1/2 hour back to Jasper and rented a motel.
Saturday morning I called the Cabins and the manager answered. I told him what happened and he apologized profusely. Part of my concern was that we booked a tour as a package deal with the room. I was worried they canceled our reservations and that would cancel our tour. He assured me we were still covered and to go have fun on our tour and then come and he would take care of us for our second nights stay.
Well the tour was awesome. I will tell you about that in a minute. After our tour we drove the now 20 minutes to our hotel. We get there, the manager was gracious and made sure we were taken care of and we got the keys to our cabin and dropped our gear. We headed back to Jasper to explore the town and hit up the local brewery. That was fun and the beer was great. We bought groceries because our cabin had a full kitchen and we were going to make our dinner and eat in. We drive back to our cabin only to have no power. We were having a pretty decent wind storm and a tree took out the power. No way to cook dinner, no lights, and no water (they were on a well). We were going to try and ride it out but the wife was getting “hangry” so back to Jasper for dinner. We get back to the Cabin and by this time we just decided that “an adventure is as much about the journey as it is the destination” and we laughed at our day and went to bed. We woke up for the drive home and saw the sites along the way. And Devon somehow took a wrong turn. I ended up coming into this town I didn’t recognize on the way up and was looking at a ski resort. We ended up in Kimberly, BC. it was all good it led back to the highway and only added about 15 to 20 minutes to the drive, another good laugh. So enough about the road less traveled.
So I saw a building that said in big letters CN and I thought is saw something somewhere that said CN Home. Its not headquartered in Jasper is it?