Day 17: Kalispell, MT to Radium Hot Springs, BC

We finally leave Kalispell, where we thought our big adventure might come to an end. We are sent off with some tasty orange lavender biscotti made the night before by Debbie and the girls. We head north to Canada excited. Without the overdrive we have to drive 50 mph or less, which is way too slow for some of cars who are sharing the road, especially the locals. We learn that there are two ways to have an open road in front of you with a clear view of your surroundings: being the fastest car on the road or being the slowest. The latter gives you a surplus of safety and is more economic.

We stop in Eureka, MT to take care of a few things while still in the motherland. For example, we get some cheap American gas. And soon enough, we are back in Canada, more specifically beautiful British Columbia. We drive on BC 93 surrounded by beautiful mountains and beautiful aqua colored rivers and accompanied by the beautiful railroads that Yellow really likes. On the way we enjoy some cherries from the Flathead River Valley, which is the second most advertised good just below the huckleberry. And they are really good, as they don't spend more of their ripping time in a freezer. We stop at Fort Steele National Historic Site, which is a heritage village with its old railroad, old whistling train, old town hall, old fire tower, great view, and entrance fee. Yellow wanted to get some pictures of their view and accidentally went into the village through the back door. Ooops. We didn't really take advantage of the situation though, as we still had a ways to go.

We arrive to Radium Hot Springs in the late afternoon and are greeted by... Big Horn sheep. We learn later that they are a normal part of the town life. They used to migrate to the town in the fall for the winter, but in the last years the boys have stuck around all year. These lazy male fellows are hanging out around town, getting some cheap food from the tourists or eating the townspeople's gardens, while their female counterparts have the hard mountain life taking care of their offspring.

 

We meet our hosts, Frank and Gertrude, who have retired in Radium Hot Springs. They have a basement apartment that we will share with Sebastian, an eighteen year old German boy who is hitch hiking across Canada for about 3 months. We have dinner with everybody and watched the sunset over the western mountain range from their porch. This time we are not going to bed with the sun. We don't know what the connection with radium is but the hot springs of Radium Hot Springs are right here, 3 k outside of town in Kootenay National Park. We spend the late evening there in the different pools. The hot pool is at 39º C and the cold pool is 29º C. Instead of having the very hot water (42º C) in the adjacent tub, it is at the temperature of the river (less than 10º C). Red enjoys the hot pool, while Yellow finds it a bit too hot and goes to the cold pool quite often for quick cool down. He even immersed himself once in the very cold pool. Finally, relaxed and clean, we hit the sack pretty late.