Day 15: Banff to Cochrane

Warren and I started out this morning from our rest day campsite in Banff. It was a beautiful sunny morning, though bitterly cold in the shade. After winding down from the Tunnel Mountain campsite through Banff and back onto the TransCanada Highway, we were in heaven as we had a tailwind in addition to the general downward trend of the land. Our overall average speed for the day was over 27km/hr, our highest yet!! My knee started out really stiff this morning, but held up quite well once warmed up. Yay!

Shortly after Canmore, we ducked off of the busy Hwy 1 and onto the more scenic, though narrow and bumpy, Hwy 1a. We were about 40km east of Exshaw when we came upon a rolled over transport truck. The accident had just happened as the wheels were still turning (though the engine was off). In fact, we were the second couple on the scene. A native couple had arrived just before us and were helping the shaken, but apparently not too badly injured, driver out of the truck cab. Fortunately, we had our cell phone on us and had reception. Warren called 911 and help was on the way. It seemed forever before the help arrived, but arrive they did. After quite sometime, one of the RCMP officers came to take our information and then because we arrived on the scene after the accident, they let us continue on our way.

Although we were glad to be of help, unfortunately, this accident set us back at least an hour on our day, so we ended up meeting up with Joanne, Mom and Dad (yes! They have arrived!) in Cochrane and staying at a campground there that night instead of continuing to Calgary (an additional 30km or so) as we had initially planned.

When we met up with the RV, Dad (another of my heroes on this journey) was already in his coveralls and had fixed a couple of leak problems that we'd been having recently. Again, YAY!

After finding the campsite and setting up, we went into Calgary to Tanya's dear friends' place for a scrumptious bbq. Thanks so much guys!! That was wonderful!!

After dinner, the five of us (Tanya was staying in Calgary again that night) piled back into the rental car and drove back to Cochrane where we promptly crashed into bed almost immediately.