Day 4 of 5, prairies all the way

Trip meter at the end of the day = 3,576.8 km.

Whoever said that driving on the prairies is boring does not know what they are talking about, in my humble opinion. This is big sky territory, and it takes your breath away. Not only that, it is so long, flat, and empty that it does not require the level of concentration that Ontario from Thunder Bay to Kenora did. My only regret is that we were too late to see all the crops before they were harvested.

Here are a couple of photos from today's drive:

I think a road trip diary should include a photo of our ride

I call this one "rush hour on the prairies"

 

We thought the first glimpse of the mountains, about an hour before Calgary, was amazing, even though it was difficult to tell where the clouds ended and the mountains began. But, there is no confusion once you get into them.

 

 



 Here is the view from my balcony:

The pub in the hotel was closed, so we walked down the main drag in Banff until we reached Chili's, where we had dinner and an Alberta-sized beer:

 

The only glitch we encountered today was when Gert (the name we have given the GPS) gave us ambiguous directions in Calgary, where we just happened to hit at rush hour. By the way, we gave a shout out to Sarah and Nick as we passed through. We went in circles a couple of times, on Gert's instructions, and we finally decided to take matters into our own hands. We eventually made it out of Calgary and reached our destination.

 

Tomorrow is our final day on the road and it should be memorable, because it is mountains all the way.