Bestest Road Trip Evar

Today I went to Radium Hot Springs with friends. We left the city a little late (11 am) and the first thing that happened..... WE GOT STUCK IN TRAFFIC! It took us a good hour to get out of the city. The day was perfect - not too hot and not cold. As we arrived at the Banff Park gates we again hit traffic and it took forever to get in (ok maybe 15 minutes). Finally free to go we drove to Radium.

Sad thing... I've lived in Calgary all my life (except for my metal lapse of 8 months in Winnipeg) and have never been to the Radium Hot Springs before. It took my friend from Oklahoma and her husband to get me to go there! Ok my life is officially boring.

The hot springs were great and it only cost $6.30 to get in (including GST/PST being in BC). For a 2 hour drive that isn't bad. If you wanted you could stay in the springs all day. You might come out completely wrinkly but you can have a good day. It was very relaxing and I almost fell asleep. There are two pools there - a hot one and cold one. The hot was 39C and the cold springs was 29C. We started in the hot, moved into the cool and then back into the hot. The soothing mineral-rich warm water and scenery combined to relax my muscles and return my peace of mind.

After spending a good 2 hours in the springs we got out and went to grab something quick to eat. Radium isn't the biggest town so we stopped off at an ice cream shoppe and had a small sub.

On the drive home, I asked Sheila if she could find a moose for me as I took my camera and never really seen a moose up close. She said she'd do what she could. It was around 6:30 on our drive home and we started to see a lot of deer. I was really hoping to get my moose, but no luck.

Instead we drove around a corner and on the side of the road was this great black bear. We stopped and watched it for a bit. It was eating up dandelions like there was no tomorrow. I didn't know they ate them and wanted John to catch it so we could take it home to clean up the dandelions around town.

John made a noise and got the bear to look in our direction. That is when I got this great shot. The bear looked to be in good shape and was making a good dent in the dandelions.

Just as we were about to drive off, I spotted a cub coming out of the woods. It was cute as could be.

Then a second cub showed up! This one wasn't as adventurous as the first one but it eventually came closer to its mom too.

I wanted John to catch me a cub to take home as a Father's day gift but he chickened out and wouldn't do it. What a friend!

A lot of people had stopped and were taking pictures and wouldn't you know it there has to be fool in every crowd. People actually started to get out of their vehicles to get closer and take a picture! It would serve them right if the bear attacked them, but then the poor bear would be put down because some jackass got hurt. We were afraid that these people were going to startle the bear, it would warn the cubs and I could see one of them running onto the road and getting run over. After telling people they should really stay in their cars we drove off.

We drove a good 10 minutes until we came to a store/rest area. John went in and asked if there was a way to get a hold of a ranger as we didn't want the bears to get hurt. The store owner seemed to indicate that the mother and her cubs have been seen a lot but when he was told that people were getting out of their cars he radioed for the ranger right away. So we did our good deed for the day.

We saw another black bear on our drive but it was further in the woods and Sheila didn't stop this time (meanie!). There were cars pulled over every now and then but we didn't see any more animals. Then we came upon this wolf on the side of the road. I say it is a young wolf, John thinks it is a coyote. You be the judge.

This guy crossed the road several times and seemed to be afraid but he wasn't going very far. He seemed to want to get close to the vehicles. Again the stupid people seemed to come out of the woods and threw food out of their cars for him to eat. Where do these people come from? Wild animal = wild food NOT McDonald's! I really hate people.

Anyways I got a few good shots of him and Sheila was able to pull up beside him so I could get these great shots.

It was a very exciting drive home but I'm pooed and now off to bed to dream of bears, wolves and relaxing in the hot springs.