Canadians like to plant flowers. They get that from the Brits, who do it too. The Tunnel Mountain campground in Banff for RVs is one of the nicest anywhere in a national park. It has full hookups (but no WiFi) and spacious sites that aren't cheek by jowl. We've seen elk wandering through the sites in years past, not yet this visit.
We happened to hit here on a 3 day weekend, something about Heritage Day, which the Parks Canada kid who checked us in described as an excuse to have a nice long summer weekend. I've heard worse rationales. Isn't that sort of what Labor Day is in the States? Just for this weekend our campground is "alcohol free," we suppose they've had past gatherings that got out of hand. We can officially drink on Tuesday, but likely won't.
Our last visit to this part of Canada was seven years ago, in 2009. Calgary continues to grow like a weed, both southward and westward, perhaps the other two "-wards" too, we weren't on those sides.
Over the last forty years the roads have improved dramatically. Back in the day a "Canadian freeway" was a two lane road with wide shoulders. Today they tend to be four lane divided with wide shoulders. Many are still just big roads without the limited access that typified a U.S. Interstate, but the improvement is palpable.
We were amazed at how little traffic we encountered on I-15 in ID and MT, not deserted exactly but definitely lightly traveled. Perhaps the traffic is heavier fall and spring when the Canadian snowbirds migrate south to keep warm and north to keep cool. Whole sections of greater Palm Springs and greater Phoenix are full of Canadian license plates in winter.
