Oh…..Canada

This is something like our fifth trip with a trailer into Canada and the first that I can remember that the U.S. dollar is worth less than the Canadian dollar.  Fortunately it is just a small amount ($1.00 US = $.978 CAN), but what the heck happened?  Gas has always been higher in Canada but they are selling diesel for less than regular unleaded (take the hint US!).  At last fill up we paid $1.29 Canadian per liter which with metric conversion and currency conversion comes out to $4.99 a gallon.  On top of that, since  I use a credit card, add the 3% foreign transaction fee.  Oh well, it is the price you pay for seeing such beautiful country.

Continuing on with my price theme, we went grocery shopping at a local store in Oliver, Super-Valu.  Now Oliver is a fairly small town but it does get a lot of visitors and is on a major highway.  We found the prices at the grocery store to be very high as compared to what you pay in the U.S.  We did not buy much at this store as we knew there was a Wal-Mart Supercenter on our way to Revelstoke (our next stop) and hoped the prices would be better (which they were).  The interesting tidbit from our grocery shopping was Fran found her coffee additive, Nestle Ice Java, on sale here in Canada.  They stopped selling it in the US a couple of years ago with no explanation.  At that time I learned that it was still being sold in other parts of the world and people were selling it on ebay, but the company was ceasing production totally.  I guess not!

On Friday we did drive from Oliver to Revelstoke, British Columbia.  This is about the half way point between Oliver and Banff (our next stop).  What a beautiful drive.  For the entire way the highway follows a series of lakes in the valley of two very high mountain ranges.  With all the rain and it still being cool everything was lush green and the water like a mirror.  We are staying at a KOA just outside of town.   The RV park is set right in the woods and is very green.  The spaces are large and they have full hook-ups but the park could use a good sprucing up.  With all the trees and the mountains towering over us there is no satellite service and the TV antenna pulls in one Canadian station out of of Vancouver.  Oh well, I guess it is back to “roughing it”.