GTT Days 2-4

August 2 - Kikomun Creek Provincial Park, BC.

 

We habitually get up at 6am when we're travelling. I know it sounds incredibly early but when you need to go 450 or 500 kilometres, the earlier you get started the more likely you'll still have some day left when you get where you're going! And this time it took longer than we expected due to a couple of accidents on the highway and some of the usual road construction. We stopped at our favourite little rest stop on Highway 3 between Salmo and Creston. I think I've blogged about it before because it has a very creative garden of rock piles:

 

Aggie and Mystery got into the spirit and had tea with the queen:

 

And played among the piles for awhile. Once we got them back into the van we were able to continue on to Kikomun Creek. It was a good thing we had a reservation because the place was full!

 

Despite how tired we were we still went for a hike where we saw these deer (numbers 6 &7 for the day) plus a western painted turtle (the park even has a turtle crossing!) and an osprey. The weather was quite hot but with some cloud and even a few refreshing sprinkles of rain. Overnight was warmer than the unseasonably cool nights we had in Kettle River.

 

August 3 - Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, AB.  

This time we got up even earlier than usual and headed out with only tea and coffee saving breakfast for later. It started raining just as we left Kikomun Creek and rained on and off most of the way. Once we crossed over Crowsnest Pass (where we stopped at a rest stop for breakfast) and into Alberta the black clouds were like a roof overhead with flashes of lightning and a really strong tailwind. We hoped we were going to miss most of the storm but it started dumping rain sideways near Medicine Hat and it held all the way into Cypress Hills.

 

We did miss the worst though! When we got into Elkwater there were piles of what looked like snow along with huge drifts of pulped leaves. See the hailstones?

 

 

Big as marbles! Not sad we didn't experience them coming down. We were however in time for the continuing rain and wind until bedtime. The view from the van before the fog set in further:

 

 

August 4 - Cypress Hills, AB, Day 2.  

Since the next morning dawned fine and sunny we decided to borrow a day from our next stop and stay a second day in Cypress Hills. We couldn't get our same campsite though so we had to leave our view and move to the cheap seats up the hill. One perk of staying was the chance for a nice hot shower. There was also the trail along Elkwater Lake to be walked!

 

And we also found half-decent wifi at the Visitors Centre though I saved this to send on our way out in the morning.