Bears - everywhere we go - bears

So Thursday night we left Swift Current about 6:00 and drove through to camp Wally Mart in Lethbridge. We didn't get a very early start from Lethbridge because I wanted to buy a new camera. Ever since the big Japan trip my little S20 hasn't worked very well and most of the time it hasn't worked at all. I guess it didn't owe me anything any more - technology has moved on. I'd been scouting pocket cameras on the internet - I love my digital Rebel but there's times when its just too awkward to carry it around. If I was going to buy one anyway then I wanted to buy it before the big wedding and buying it in Alberta saved me the sales tax. But that meant we had to wait until Future Shop opened at 10:00. And then we had to navigate the streets to where it is located in Lethbridge - no easy task that either.

Back on the road with $200 worth of new camera and $20 worth of memory - 4 Gig for $20 - can you imagine? I should have bought more than one but I guess they will likely be cheaper next week. Marilyn pointed out that if we fill one of them and put it in the picture frames we won't see the same pictures for a week.

We chugged all the way through to New Denver that night. We hadn't intended to go nearly that far but it was early when we got to Creston so we headed up the lake, missed the 5:20 sailing for the ferry and settled in to wait for the 7:00 sailing. We had supper while we were waiting and Marilyn phoned our 1st choice campground on the west shore of Kootenay lake. It was closed but we could park on their grass overnight and come in to pay in the morning. Thank you but no thank you. So she phoned another place that it turned out we had stayed at the year Michael lost his glasses. We got there at about 8:00 - it was blacker than the inside of a cow and we didn't like the looks of where we would have to get to plus it looked like we would share a 15 amp plug with several other rigs so we kept on going.

Somewhere along the Valley of the Ghosts between Kaslo and New Denver a black bear flushed out of the ditch and rambled across the road directly in front of us. You can't go very fast on that road and that was a good thing for Mr. Bear cuz he'd have been bear-burger otherwise. He kept looking over his shoulder and shambling along the median just ahead of me but finally turned left and got out of the way just in time.

This morning just after we left Slocan there was another bear crossed the road about 100 yards in front of us. I don't think we've ever seen two bears in one summer, let alone 2 days apart.

Today we arrived in Osoyoos and checked into Waltons Lakefront Resort. We stayed here several years ago with the kids but the place has gone considerably upscale since we were last here. Now they are trying to sell the pads for $179,000 per each. For that we get a level pad and a road barely wide enough to back into the site. No thanks to the $179k but its an OK rental at $35 per night.