Lethbridge (38) to Banff (39 – under 43)

We only stayed one night in Lethbridge as we wanted to get to Banff to see Kristy and David (son in law David, not my son David) who have been working in the Rimrock Resort hotel for several months.

The lady at the campground reception desk in Lethbridge was the first to recognise my Australian accent, and quickly too. Turns out she was originally from New Zealand but had lived in Canada for quite some time, and only occasionally said a word that sounded like a Kiwi – the rest was pure Canadian! That night was the first of what turned out to be almost “standard” during our stay in Canada – no internet connection at all.

The road heading towards Banff was also a separated, 2 lane each way highway that was easy driving. Then, quite without warning, another truck pulling a trailer passed us with the lady in the passenger seat waving at us to pull over. They had overtaken us but stayed alongside us and were trying very hard to get us to stop.

As we slowed they sort of went ahead but were, at the same time blocking our way, so other than to try to accelerate and go around them, we had no option other than to stop. All sorts of things were going through my mind, and looking at Grace’s expression, she wasn’t too comfortable either.

I got out of the car to meet the bearded man walking briskly towards us. He didn’t look aggressive, but you can’t be too careful – his wife had remained in their vehicle. I cannot tell you, without expletives what was going through my mind then – Holdup? Did he have a gun? Just what did he/they want?? My heart was racing.

“Come here, did you feel what happened to your trailer?” he questioned. We walked to the RH side and there I saw, what used to be a tyre had shredded. It turns out they were right behind us when the tyre “exploded” and sent rubber pieces and small steel fibres flying through the air.

To say “we were being watched over” is probably not too strong. This couple lived in the north of Alaska, a place called “North Pole” and the bearded man turned out to be an RV mechanic who had returned to the USA to collect his workshop of tools, and was returning home to the North Pole.

“What tools do you have?” he enquired. It was only at that point, with my heart rate decreasing to something more appropriate that I realised we didn’t even have a wheel nut wrench to fit the Sierra! I vividly remember the sales and service guy back in Dallas saying “and there’s your spare tyre, and you lower it to the ground using this tool” – but nothing about what we do when the bloody wheel was lowered and on the ground!!! I must admit, I didn’t ask either.

I had nothing! Then our Santa went back to his vehicle and started bringing all sorts of professional gear. 2 x pieces of 4’ long 6” x 2” timber to raise the height of the axle to allow the new wheel to fit on, a wheel wrench, a heavy duty hydraulic jack etc. He took charge and changed the lot for us. I asked him what we could offer as a huge “thanks”, and he said “nothing, as long as you stop to help someone else that may be stranded”. With that, I helped take his gear back and they waived us goodbye.

About 10 kilometres down the road we found a tyre sales place that supplied and fitted a new tyre, checked every wheel for pressure, relieved us of $160 and we drove on, still amazed by our good fortune.

I think I asked Grace to look in her rear view mirror to inspect the state of the tyres about every 5 kms from that point (and I do the same), but have slowly started to relax after having driven another 1000 kms or so and would suggest that it’s probably every 5.1 kms now!!

As we neared Banff, the Canadian Rockies loomed large in front of us and they are certainly spectacular, awesome also suits. Fortunately the highway wasn’t too steep and we weaved our way, higher and higher to Banff.

The exciting day had its final twist as we entered Banff. Homer took us, to what I assume must have been a short cut through the small township on our way to Tunnel Mountain and our campground. We found ourselves in a very narrow, two way street but room enough only to squeeze through the one lane left between parked cars on either side of the road. As we neared the end of this section of road we saw a T intersection. However, it was a one way road that only went to our right with a sign then reading “No through road”!!!! Next thing, Homer said, “Make a U turn”. What!!!!! We only just fitted through this road, forget the U turn – perhaps possible in a car but we’re nearly 19 metres long!!

So I turned right into the “dead end” road and reversed down the one way road as far as I could – much to the absolute delight of those behind us needing to join me in our reversing manoeuvre, and then turned right and proceeded back down the same road we came up, causing those then in front of us to either take shelter in driveways or reverse back in front of us. All in all, a pretty ugly scene! I didn’t have a chance to look, but I’m sure the rest of the Lowther family were trying to hide under their seats.

We made it back to Banff Ave, the main drag and after ignoring his plaintiff calls for a while, Homer found us a better, more suitable road up Tunnel Mountain. We arrived at the campground on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend at around 3pm, only to find a queue of about 10 RVs in front of us waiting to get through the reception gate. Each took about 5 minutes to process so our wait to finally get through was about 45 minutes. We’ve had easier days....