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Learning:
The Journey of a Lifetime
or
A Cloud Chamber on the Mind

Thursday September 25, 2008 6:20 am Lethbridge

It is +6 C with a high forecast of +19 C. Sunrise 7:22 Sunset 19:23 Hours of daylight: 12:01.
See current Lethbridge forecast here. See current Lethbridge news here.

This page last updated on: Friday, September 26, 2008 7:24 AM

A. Morning Musings

This will be the last day this year when the hours of daylight exceedss the hours of darkness.

Today will be a driving day. We are taking friends to Calgary and then will continue west on the trans-Canada highway. We will aim for Revelstoke but will see how it goes. We might stop in Banff or Lake Louis for a bite to eat. The plan is to arrive in Kelowna Friday, in the late afternoon.

I am taking the TB (Travel Bug) with me and will drop it off at a geocache on the way. But looking for geocaches is not a priority today.

This will be our first trip where we take our GPS unit with us to navigate cities and look for places to stay, and eat. Birding and simply enjoying the scenery are higher priorities. I will bring one of my "black books" with me to keep track of momentary observations and thoughts. This may, or may not, turn out to be a good idea. I also have my camera: birds, fall color, mountains. And I will keep my eye out for good bookstores.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
History	Begin reading "The People's Railway" by Donald Mackay	1 hr
History	Purchase 2 history books & skim through them	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie	1 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

8:00 PM

We left Lethbridge at 7 this morning and were on the western edge of Calgary at 10 am, heading down the trans-Canada toward Banff. This was when we realized that we did not have our Park Pass with us. This meant that we would not be able to stop for coffee/brunch in any national park unless we bought a 3-day pass.

This turned out to be fine as we pulled into Canmore for a coffee and ended up finding a new eating place called The Railway Deli. We each had an excellent soup and sandwich and we then filled up our coffee mugs before continuing west.

The weather was getting more and more overcast as we continued and by the time we were in British Columbia it was raining. That put an end to my photography.

We originally thought we might spend the night in Revelstoke, but the rain continued so we kept driving. I had identified a geo-cache near the site of "the Last Spike" at Craigellachie, but with the weather staying wet we passed it and aimed for Sicamous. We stopped here at a Tim Horton's (no line-ups!) and had a coffee. Still raining, so we decided to spend the night at Vernon.

This also turned out fine, plus. The check-in clerk suggested a new Indian restaurant in downtown Vernon. The Curry Pot served an excellent meal. We the strolled about the area and were impressed with the variety and number of restaurants.

And there was an independent bookstore, called "Bookland". Only bought three books, but me excuse was I only had 10 minutes before they closed.

• Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia. (2008). Stephen Hume.
  • This looks like a fascinating book. It is a blend of history and modern, with Stephen Hume's own comments blended in with his description of Fraser's journeys.
• Frontier Forts and Posts of the Hudson's bay Company. (2006). Kenneth E. Perry.
  • The book provides a page for each fort it describes, often accompanying the text with historical photographs. Geographically it only covers the Pacific Northwest (i.e. BC, Yukon, Alaska & Washington state but it is still a fascinating book.
• Backroad Mapbook of Southern Alberta. (2008).
  • We have a number of these books for western Canada, but were not aware that there was one for all of southern Alberta. Imagine finding it first in British Columbia.

Weather was a major factor today. But here are a few photos taken while we could still see the mountains. It is too bad we failed to see the peaks near Glacier National Park as they would have been fantastic with the fresh snow. Maybe next time.

approaching Banff	wildlife overpass
Castle mountain	new wildlife overpass
B.C.	B.C.

I have yet to do a better job of writing brief notes in my black notebook as the day unfolds. The GPS was excellent in Calgary, helping us get to our drop-off point as well as helping us get back on the trans-Canada highway. It was less useful helping us find the location of the motel as it was not in the database. The same happened when we tried to use it for locating the Curry Pot.