Day 14 - The Long Road Home

Definitely feeling the effects of the rafting yesterday, so probably just as well that we have a day of driving rather than walking today. No chance of seizing up while sitting in a car for 7 hours :-)

We are taking a long leisurely loop back to Calgary via Waterton Lake, several hundred miles to the south. I'm not quite sure how I was persuaded to take this route back, other than that it is close to to the US border and Ethan's border geekery has kicked in, but it is a nice drive, through some spectacular and varied terrain, and largely free of roadworks - an unexpected bonus after the last few weeks.

Obviously we need to stop for sustenance en route and default to our go-to fast food of the holiday - A&W and their Beyond Meat burger, the new gold standard for veggie burgers. They have also made root beer acceptable by serving it in iced glasses, which definitely hits the spot when it is 30C outside.

On the road, we pass Frank Slide. I had no idea what this was as we passed through an area with vast piles of rock either side of the, some of te boulders looking like several tons. Post journey research confirms that this was the site of Canada's biggest landslide, depositing 121 million tons of rock on the town of Frank in 1903. Ouch.

Approaching Waterton lake, we started to get some quite nasty weather developing. As we circled back towards the Rockies, we watched the lightning stikes with ncreasing trepidation and Ethan's doom filled meteorlogical prognostications around funnel clouds and mesocyclonic clouds had me ready to turn around and drive like a lunatic away from a forming tornado.

Personally, I think that the weird conditions were caused by a UFO hiding in this cloud...

Having made it to Waterton, against all the odds, we had to deal with the weather conditions, bear warnings, closed roads and extreme apathy blockng our path to the 8 mile hike to the Montana border and back.

Ethan is not happy. We have an opportunity to reach the border by boat tomorrow, but I'm told that it doesn't count if you don't set foot on land. luckily we found this by the lake. I think it is just a replica of the genuine monument, but we are claiming it!

Oh yes, and that now makes 7 national parks.