Lethbridge

Today sucked. It was one of those days where nothing went right. We had high hopes of heading south through the scenic highways of 40 and 22 that would have taken us through forests at the base of the Rockies. We had been given advice that there would also be a high chance of seeing wildlife - even bears!

We set off from Banff with the decision made to 'hit the road' and find breakfast along the way. After half an hour we veered off the Canadian Highway (Hwy 1) on to route 40 and headed south. The scenery was beautiful - but the weather was overcast, the roads were wet from recent rain (with more threatening) and the air was bone chilling cold. Tracee did manage to snap off a quick photo of a deer grazing on the side of the road before it vanished back into the forest. 

I decided to call into the mountain village of Kananaskis to check where the next fuel stop was likely to be and was informed that Hwy 40 was closed further south due to the recent severe flooding in the Calgary area that had washed many roads out. On our way we had seen signs of the damage caused by the floods with large slips and a lot of road construction underway to repair washed out roads. We were advised to turn back.

After donning our wet weather gear we rode half an hour back the way we had came and linked up with the Canadian Highway again. I decided not to take the more scenic Hwy 22 as there was a chance that road may also have issues with flood damage. Aside from that, the weather was so poor that we would not have enjoyed the ride in the current conditions. With this in mind I decided to stay on Highway 1 all the way through to Calgary and then branched on to Highway 2 (The Deerfoot Trail) and headed south. The further south we headed the more the sun came out, but the gusty wind and air temperature was freezing. The landscape was a lot less interesting - mainly miles of farmland, but we could travel quick and the aim of the day in the end was to get out of the cold wind and off the road as soon as possible!

We pulled in to the city of Lethbridge in southern Alberta and booked into an Inn. Lethbridge is the 4th largest city in Alberta and is only about an hour from the USA border. Tomorrow we will cross back into the USA state of Montana (if they let us back in!).