June 21 - Thursday - Eureka MT to Nordegg Alberta - 350 miles

The motel last night was ok. Something had chewed the bathroom door, but other than that it was clean and not too expensive. It was one of those motels rolled into a gass station / convenience store / real estate office / Subway franchise kind of places. The office was the cash register in the convenience store. And All the coffee you could drink if you stay at the motel. It was still pretty empty this morning, hmmm.We walked next door to a restaurant and I had two beers (as last nights blog(s) probably show) and a burger.
Beautiful morning and only seven miles to the border. I swapped the US money for Canadian money in my pockets and we got the usual Canadian border grilling. I must be on the "this guy couldn't hurt anyone" list since I never get questioned too badly.
Staright up toward Banff and Jeff found a place after a couple hours to get coffe and some breakfast. Once again, lovely folks running the place and before our order came a guy on a KLR 650 (Kawasaki), highly modified pulled in. His name was Anthony and he was 71 and owned 3 KLRs and he was really excited because he say my bike (X300). He just bought one and started customizing it and was excited that I had ridden this far with no problems. . He rides to Alaska from Alabama every year to ride his bike in the July 4 parade.

 Banff is beautiful of course and once in the park we saw deer and mountain goats. We stopped at Lake Louise and got some great pictures. Deb and I hiked to the lodge there from the American side 30 years ago just after we got married. Looks more like a fancy hotel now than I remember. I'll post more pics but the wifi in our motel is dog slow.
So north toward Jasper and we put on full rain gear since we could see what was coming, and it did. We decided to head east out of the park and find a place to stay. The temperature dropped 30 degrees and we ended the day amid wicked thunder boomers at Nordegg AB, a tiny town with one of everything and gravel roads. Reminds of what it must be like in Alaska.