Some Thoughts on John and Charley and Their Travels

Southern British Columbia & Alberta- July 23

Taken early this morning in Glacier National Park. One of my best 'picture postcard' shots.

I’ve been thinking a lot about John and Charley and their travels around America. John’s a hell of a writer, and a pleasure to read, but I take issue with his traveling style in its presumed goal to discover ‘America’.

If I am to take John at his written word, it seems he barely ever got out of his truck, unless it was to ask for a place to stay or to get something to eat. He drove straight through many states and I wonder if he presumed them unworthy or uninteresting or unrepresentative.

I also have a hard time with his propensity for judgment, making sweeping negative assessments of cities and areas and people as he passed by them.

I found myself making similar judgments about two Canadian towns I’ve recently stopped in, Golden and Pincher Creek. They are mid-sized towns with frayed edges and ugly strips leading into them, instead of the quaint, flower-lined entrances to many a beautiful Canadian town. They seem to be towns struggling to find their center and define their position in the Southern Alberta tourist-focused environment.

Yet, when I got out of my car and started walking around, I found the love and thoughtfulness that townspeople had poured into sections of their place on earth. In Golden there is a beautiful wooden covered bridge that was a project of the whole town, with timber framers from all over the country lending their help. It connects two sides of a beautiful walk and bikeway that the local Rotary Club has established in a Peace Park. It is a place of pride and peace and goodwill I never would have seen from my car.

Coming out of Jasper & Banff I hit the wheat fields and cattle range that led
to Waterton/Glacier International Peace Park. Before I got to Pincher Creek,
at one point, there were wind turbines in every direction.

In Pincher Creek, WalMart and A&W are the host and hostess to new arrivals like me. WalMart was an absolute blessing as I’d searched in every town for butane canisters for my stove and WalMart had them- a 4-pack for $12.95. Thank you! But this un-manicured town has a wonderful creek walk with a wooden bridge that the town came together to create next to their municipal park. I stumbled upon it and was thankful for the quiet timeout from my day.

As much as I am focused on the natural beauty and hiking on my trip, I have been finding a lot of pleasure in trying to feel out the small towns I go through. Finding a café for coffee and wifi has become a pattern. Each town has one, and each is its own delightful small spot that ends up reviving me with food, coffee and kind spirits.

I don’t know about ‘In Search of America’ but what I’m finding reinforces the feeling that there is a lot of goodness in this world; to see the heart of a town takes looking for it and stepping off the highway, off the road and out of the car.

A rare pic of me up a hefty trail, in Waterton/Glacier NP on the Canada side.