Two purposes for this trip. One,go to the last of the national parks I want to visit in the western half of the U.S. Two, visit some places I missed visiting last year: Lake Louise, Edmonton and Wanuskewin in Saskatoon.

WYOMING: One national park, Bighorn Canyon
MONTANA: Three national parks, two of which I have been to before but was unable to completely visit them
BRITISH COLUMBIA: One Canadian national park -- Kootenay
ALBERTA: For decades I have been wanting to see Lake Louise which reportedly is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE in all of North America. Last year I got as far as in the parking lot then was turned away because the parking lot was full (the parking lot is rather empty at 6:30 am). I would also like to see Lake Moraine but cars are no longer allowed to drive there, only shuttles.
The lake indeed was beautiful but it is merely in the same class as some of the U.S. national parks such as Glacier, Crater Lake and Zion.
I also skipped visiting Edmonton last year after the Lake Louise debacle. This time I drove through the Jasper National Park on the way to Edmonton. The Elk Island National Park is about 30 miles east of Edmonton.
SASKATCHEWAN: Last year, the roads in Saskatoon were under much construction and traffic was heavy. I missed getting to see the Wanuskewin which, from everything I read online, sounded like an interesting place to visit to learn about the early Indigenous people here.
COLORADO: I flew in and out of Denver. I wanted to take the tour of the Toastmasters International Headquarters in Englewood. I arranged it after speaking with the person who arranges the tours. He called back a couple hours later to say that they are closed on the day I had scheduled because it is the new Juneteenth holiday. I also found a very good (on paper) Toastmasters club that met on the one day I was in town.

MISSED VISITING:
--Lake Moraine - online pictures of it makes it appear to be breathtaking
--Toastmasters International Headquarters Tour - I happen to be in town on a holiday
--Seeing bison in Elk Island national park. Funny how the park is named for elk yet bison is the big attraction there. There is a dirt road (mostly it is pot holes filled with water surrounded by a bit of ground-level dirt) called Bison Loop Road that is maybe a mile long. THe bison herds often congregate near the loop. I saw zero when I went around the loop.
--Months ago I researched who in Saskatoon sells hoodies that say either "Saskatoon" or "Sasketchewan". Answer: Mark's. Thus, I booked a hotel near there since both were in the southwest part of town. Mark's said they don't have anything that says "Saskatoon". Nearby Walmart not carry then either. No one knew where in town sold them. Disappointing!

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

• Colorado actually has places called Crazy Woman. Likely they all use the name from the canyon west of Buffalo.
• Eastern Wyoming is grassy/scrubby and rocky, hardly any trees. There was snow still on the ground in many places. The area tends to be quite popular with flying bugs and hundreds of them were introduced to the front of my vehicle
• Wyoming just looks, and feels, like a rugged place to try to live in
• Wyoming drivers, when going after the red traffic light turns green, are rather slow at gatting back up to the speed limit. Instead of saying "Giddy Up" to their "horse", they apparently say "Nice and easy boy"
• Montana has a river named Tongue River. Nearby is a place called Acme.
• Yay to Wyoming for letting interstate drivers drive 80 MPH. Their two-lane roads hhav e70 MPH, like Texas.
• Going west on I-90 towards Butte, Montana, there is a point where most of Butte can be seen in the valley below -- great view
• Montana has small off-road areas called "Cell Phone Turnouts"
• Montana two-lane highways very rarely offer a short (i.e. mile long) extra passing lane
• Montana keeps its highway shoulder areas quite clean -- maybe a good Adopt-a-Highway system in place
• I was stunned at how many miles of road on the south and west sides of Glacier National Park are only dustry rocky roads. Unfortunately, my Garmin GPS had me doing fifty miles on highway 486 and Camas Road despite my having the setting of "Avoid Unpaved Roads"
• Montana marks numerous places where people can go fishing. Beyond the name of the place, the signs have a fish looking at a hook.
• Montana has a town called Swan Lake -- reminded me of the famous ballet
• Glacier National Park has very little snow on the mountains much less any actual glaciers.
• Interesting quesions that the Canadian Border asks: Where are you going? How long in Canada? Seeing anyone in Canada? Anything to declare [I was uncertain what this meant]? Any firearms with you? Any drugs or tobacco with you? Any alcohol with you?
• Alberta has many signs along the highways for "Litter barrel ahead". Good way to encourage non-littering along the highways.
• The highway surgace through Jasper National Park was smooth and even. I basically had the park to myself except for an occasional other vehicle passing by.
• After having the road mostly to myself for about five hours, when I got to highway 2 going north into Edmonton, I discovered where all other drivers were. Both directions were packed with vehicles.
• Edmonton just might be the most driver dafety conscious city I have ever been in. Very slow speed limits. Signs all over about photo enforced speeding and red light running. And of course the town does the usual Canadian thing in summer -- large percentage of the roads are under construction.
• While in Saskatoon a thunderstorm ran through. Maybe it is how the hotel is constructed but the storm sounded somewhat different than what I am used to in Kansas City,
• Saskatchewan often has highway signs saying "Important Intersection Ahead". Presumably that means it is a congested area.
• When I went out to see Lake Louise about 30 minutes after sunrise, I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and was quite comfortable outdoors. About 200 people were already at the lake short and I looked around at all of them noticing they were all in winter coats, hats and gloves! As I headed back to the hotel I saw guy walking his dog and only wearing a short sleeve shirt. I commented to him that we were the only ones dressed that way.
• I got a much better feeling this time about Saskatoon than when here last year and left without actually getting to do anything other than refill the gas tank.
• Saskatchewan is all big flat farmland south of Saskatoon
• Saskatchewan must have faster-running deer because their highway signs has the deer with all four feet off the ground (instead of the usual hind legs on the ground)
• I realized that Canada hardly ever has a dead animal on the highway whereas that is such a common site in the U.S.
• Saskatchewan highway 7, despite it often being flat and straight with few trees, occasionally offers a third lane for passing
• Northeast Montana is as flat and treeless as southwestern Saskatchewan until south of Roundup when the land becomes hilly and rocky
• Just after re-entering the U.S. on highway 191 in Montana, I noticed in three different places a border patrol truck parked and watching for suspicious activity
• After being conditioned over the prior four days of the slow driving speeds/pace of Canada, I found it took me a few hours to get back to the faster paced driving of the U.S.
• Wyoming seems to be fixing all of the bridges on I-25. Several already done and several blocked off to be worked on.

The Bests:

1. Finally getting to see Lake Louise -- second visit did it
2. Finally getting to see Glacier National Park north and east of Lake McDonald -- third visit did it
3. Finally getting to see Big Hole National Park beyond the entry gate -- third visit did it
4. The two botanical gardens in Edmonton
5. Getting to attend a meeting of the Northern Lights Toastmasters club #486, they are soon celebrating their 70th anniversary! One guy, Peter, has been in Toastmasters for 55 years!!!
6. Wanuskewin Center - I knew last year I really wanted to see it and was disappointed that did not work out then. So I planned an extra two days into this trip to assure I got to see the place. It was worth it!

The Worsts:

1. The fifty miles of rocky/dusty highway 486 that I had to endure around Glacier National Park.
2. Best Western West in Edmonton -- in over 1,000 hotel nights in the past fifty years, this is the first time I had to go sleep in my car because the hotel guests were too noisy
3. I first visited Glacier National Park in 2009 and locked my keys in the rental car while at the visitor center. I tried again in 2017 to drive on the Going to the Sun Road but hit a deer a couple of days before. Made it in my third attempt but now there is a "reservation to get into the park" so I had to wait, along with hundreds of others, to get into the park "after hours". It was rather disappointing -- trees block the view of the lake and there are few turnout points.
4. Montana must have some "rule" about not allowing bedside clocks in the hotels
5. Rain on the day I was touring in Saskatoon. I bought an umbrella at Walmart but the wind turned the umbrella inside out, thus, useless. Unable to walk the trails at Wanuskewin (but did get to tour their wonderful center). The silver lining fir the rain was that it took care of me needing to visit a car wash to get the dust and bugs off the vehicle.

The Totals:

• Miles Driven: 3514
• Driving: 57 hours in 10 days
• States: 3 -- Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and, 3 provinces: British Columbia (barely in the southeast corner), Alberta and Saskatchewan
• Major Universities: zero
• Pictures Taken: 457 (and deleted 2 of them)
• National Parks: 2 new ones (to have visited 342 of 425) and 2 repeats: Bighorn Canyon and Grant-Kohrs are new, Big Hole and Glacier are repeats
  Also, five in Canada: Kootenay in British Columbia, Banff(Lake Louise), Jasper and Elk Island in Alberta, Grasslands in Sasketchewan

Remaining to Visit by State
• AL - DONE, but would like to revisit Russell Cave in the northeastern corner that was missed in Sept. 2022 trip
• AK - DONE, but might drive to Fairbanks in 2025 (a college there too) plus need to spend a night at a third hotel in the state
• AZ - DONE
• AR - DONE, but could visit the Buffalo National River NP southeast of Harrison as well as two counties -- Pike and Clark -- for family history
• CA - DONE, but three parks in the San Francisco area were closed in June 2023, and, in L.A. would like to visit JPL and Mt.Wilson
• CO - DONE
• CT - Family history research (Barker) in Windham county, maybe visit to Quinebaug & Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor, AND, need to spend a night at a third hotel in the state
• DC - Smithsonian is worth a future visit along with some of the memorials on/near the Capitol Mall: LBJ, FDR, MLK, WWII, Sewall-Belmont House, revisit Greenbelt
• DE - DONE, but might have ancestors there (via the Riggs line)
• FL - DONE, but maybe will visit Orlando area where a high school classmate and a cousin both live, still want to take the ferry at Fort Matanzas, and, re-attempt to visit a couple of places on the Gulf Coast: Sarasota (downtown), Pine Island and the Naples Botanical Gardens
• GA - DONE
• HI - DONE
• ID - DONE, but would like to drive from Boise to Moscow to cover that part of the state to yet drive through
• IL - DONE, but Chicago has some tourist-type places yet to visit
• IN - DONE, maybe Searls family history visit to Brown county (south of Indianapolis) and even Fountain county (just west of Danville Illinois)
• IA - Searls family history research in the counties of Plymouth and Woodbury, would go through here on the way to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2025
• KS - DONE, but currently live here
• KY - DONE, but maybe because, with recent family history discoveries of ancestral families in Missouri and Illinois that came from Kentucky
• LA - DONE, but have some cousins in New Orleans
• ME - Fall 2024 revisit Acadia National Park to photograph the park sign and just see the park again (was there in 1986), also visit the area around Eastport-Lubec and nearby International Park as well as the St. Croix Islands NP
• MD - DONE
• MA - Visit Blackstone River Valley NP, visit Martha's Vineyard. Also, do family history research plus I know many fellow Toastmasters in Boston. And, a good friend lives in this state.
• MI - DONE, but would like to determine what (and where) scenic things can be seen in Pictured Rocks National Park and maybe someday ferry to Isle Royale National Park
• MN - DONE
• MS - DONE
• MO - DONE, but I live too close to KCMO to avoid it
• MT - June 2024 to visit two new parks -- Grant-Kohrs and Bighorn Canyon plus maybe try a fourth attempt someday to Glacier National Park to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road and even a third attempt at Big Hole NP. MT does have gorgeous scenery.
• NE - DONE
• NV - DONE
• NH - DONE
• NJ - Visit Morristown NP, Gateway, Great Egg Harbor -- planned for Sep.2024, plus, need to spend a night at a third hotel in the state
• NM - DONE, but I loved the town of Albuquerque and the surrounding area when I spent four days there in 2004
• NY - Many many places yet to revisit (from the 2015 trip) in this state. Also, need to visit White Plains area (family history research) which is set for fall 2024. A visit to the New York Historical Society (77th St and Central Park West) might be a good idea too.
• NC - DONE
• ND - Visit the International Peace Garden. Would like to drive from Bowman to Rapid City, South Dakota to cover a part of those states I have yet to drive through, plus, need to spend a night at a third hotel in the state
• OH - Visit the David Berger NP (planned for Sep.2024), do family research in several towns. Also, one cousin in Columbus.
• OK - DONE
• OR - DONE, and N E V E R want to be in this state again (despite two national parks there I have never visited)
• PA - Likely some hopeful family history discoveries brings me back here to check out something
• RI - DONE, but need to spend a night at a third hotel in the state
• SC - DONE, but have recently discovered one ancestor who lived a few years in this state
• SD - DONE, but would like to drive from Rapid City to Bowman North Dakota to cover a part of those states I have yet to drive through
• TN - DOne, but maybe more family history research in Memphis plus there are several other counties (i.e. Grundy) where ancestors lived before moving to Shelby county, PLUS, would be nice to find the Woody Cemetery property owners at home
• TX - Brother lives in this state as does a friend, also, would like to drive from Amarillo through Lubbock and on to San Angelo to cover a big chunck on the state I have yet to drive through
• UT - DONE though some good friends live in Salt Lake City area
• VT - Want to drive entirely around Lake Champlain, also, maybe some family history research in Windham county along with some other counties where ancestors lived
• VA - Would like to research the Melvin ancestry in Clarke county (his obituary says he was "of here"). Also, several cousins live in this state
• WA - DONE, but a good friend lives in Seattle and there are some yet-to-visit national parks in the north central part of the state: Lake Chelan, Lake Roosevelt, Ross Lake
• WV - Need to research in Jefferson county since it is the most likely place where the parents of Thomas Melvin lived in the early 1800's.
• WI - DONE, but would like to maybe re-attempt (it was pouring rain years ago when there) to visit the House of the Rocks and Taliesman near the town of Spring Green
• WY - Bighorn Canyon NP in the north central part of the state (JUne 2024 trip)
• AB - DONE
• BC - DONE, but would love to drive along the east coast of Vancouver Island all the way to Port Hardy, several hours for two ferry rides are needed. Could also visit several places in westgern B.C.: Prince George, Terrace and Prince Rupert.
• LB - Newfoundland/Labrador is worth a visit, planning to fly there(through Toronto) in 2025
• MB - DONE, although it would have been nice to get a sunrise or sunset photo over either Lake Manitoba or Lake Winnepeg
• NB - To visit in fall of 2024
• NS - To visit in fall of 2024
• NW - The Northwest Territory towns of Hay River and Yellowknife might be worth a visit IF I decide it is worth driving this far north
• ON - DONE
• PE - DONE, though I did entirely miss the western half of the province
• QC - DONE
• SK - DONE
• YK - Yukon is iffy as to whether it is worth a visit someday since it is a long way to there and really nothing in particular to see or do except the scenery plus lodging choices, particularly GOOD lodging choices, are quite rare this far north. And, GPS coverage this far north is spotty.