Man, if we thought Glacier National
Park was a zoo scene, Waterton dwarfs Glacier in the Zoo Scene
Department. This place is Ground Zero for mass quantities of people
to congregate at the end of a dead end road. It's actually quite
fun. Why? Well, Canada has had a welcoming attitude forever.
Waterton is filled with Canadians from all over the world—people
who immigrated to Canada and are now proud Canadians enjoying their
National Park Heritage.
It's awesome to see so many nationalities elbow-to-elbow. All the colors of the whole world are here in Waterson. There are languages being spoken here I've only read about but never heard. African dialects, all the tongues of the Middle East and many shades of Europeans languages, too. It's interesting to us that probably 90 percent or more of the vehicles here have Canadian plates. American license plates (and American faces) are few and faaar between.
I was sitting on a bench down by one of the many fabulous beaches here when an African Family came up eating their freshly-purchased ice cream cones. One of the young African boys, maybe 7 or 8 years old, smiled at me and came right up and sat down beside me as if I was his long lost uncle or something. He was as relaxed as could be and so was I. I sat marveling at all the cultural paradigms being expressed in all directions as Family groups ate Middle Eastern luncheon feasts or strolled beneath the black cottonwood trees chatting in some variant of the Arabic language.
I loved seeing the Muslim women with their distinctive burkas carrying paddles to canoe in the lake or paddling on a stand up board. Waterton is definitely not your homogenous white America location. It's full on international and it's great.
The downtown portion of this so-called village is crammed full of eating places. Restaurants and cafes outnumber all other businesses at least four to one. Ice cream seems to be the most popular food served. It seems everyone is eating ice cream. You can barely take five steps without almost bumping into someone eating a big fat ice cream cone.
The beaches are crawling with people, too. Some beaches are more populated than others but all of the beaches have people. It seems like about half of the RV rigs here are crammed with water toys: kayaks, canoes, paddle boards and, of course, the obligatory bicycles. I'm thinking that I've seen more boats and bikes here at Waterton that any other single location I can remember.
The WIFI here is weird. Susun's phone can only connect to it on a marginal basis. I will probably be able to get this narrative posted but forget about any photos—the slow speed simply won't handle the upload of even a small picture. What's happening here is classic “bait & switch.” Yes, there is free WIFI but it's locked down at 300 KBS speed and only for four hours. 300 kilobits per second reminds me of the ancient days of dial-up internet. It's S-L-O-W!
So the “Switch” part is that they will gladly sell you super high speed internet for only $10 a day. That's actually a pretty good price and we will undoubtedly buy it for at least one day. There are too many photos to post and lots to write about. Plus, since it's the looney Canadian dollar, it's only worth 79% of an American dollar. So that makes it eight bucks a day..such a deal.
The fire smoke rolled in with a sworn mission to obscure all the rich views of the Waterton glacial valley and lake. You can barely make out any of the distant peaks down yonder toward Goat Haunt in Montana. We're hoping a miracle will clear out the smoke. However, we decided not to buy the boat tickets unless and until we know we can actually see stuff from the boat. Otherwise,it would be lilke paying $100 to ride a motorboat through a smoke cloud.
It's awesome to see so many nationalities elbow-to-elbow. All the colors of the whole world are here in Waterson. There are languages being spoken here I've only read about but never heard. African dialects, all the tongues of the Middle East and many shades of Europeans languages, too. It's interesting to us that probably 90 percent or more of the vehicles here have Canadian plates. American license plates (and American faces) are few and faaar between.
I was sitting on a bench down by one of the many fabulous beaches here when an African Family came up eating their freshly-purchased ice cream cones. One of the young African boys, maybe 7 or 8 years old, smiled at me and came right up and sat down beside me as if I was his long lost uncle or something. He was as relaxed as could be and so was I. I sat marveling at all the cultural paradigms being expressed in all directions as Family groups ate Middle Eastern luncheon feasts or strolled beneath the black cottonwood trees chatting in some variant of the Arabic language.
I loved seeing the Muslim women with their distinctive burkas carrying paddles to canoe in the lake or paddling on a stand up board. Waterton is definitely not your homogenous white America location. It's full on international and it's great.
The downtown portion of this so-called village is crammed full of eating places. Restaurants and cafes outnumber all other businesses at least four to one. Ice cream seems to be the most popular food served. It seems everyone is eating ice cream. You can barely take five steps without almost bumping into someone eating a big fat ice cream cone.
The beaches are crawling with people, too. Some beaches are more populated than others but all of the beaches have people. It seems like about half of the RV rigs here are crammed with water toys: kayaks, canoes, paddle boards and, of course, the obligatory bicycles. I'm thinking that I've seen more boats and bikes here at Waterton that any other single location I can remember.
The WIFI here is weird. Susun's phone can only connect to it on a marginal basis. I will probably be able to get this narrative posted but forget about any photos—the slow speed simply won't handle the upload of even a small picture. What's happening here is classic “bait & switch.” Yes, there is free WIFI but it's locked down at 300 KBS speed and only for four hours. 300 kilobits per second reminds me of the ancient days of dial-up internet. It's S-L-O-W!
So the “Switch” part is that they will gladly sell you super high speed internet for only $10 a day. That's actually a pretty good price and we will undoubtedly buy it for at least one day. There are too many photos to post and lots to write about. Plus, since it's the looney Canadian dollar, it's only worth 79% of an American dollar. So that makes it eight bucks a day..such a deal.
The fire smoke rolled in with a sworn mission to obscure all the rich views of the Waterton glacial valley and lake. You can barely make out any of the distant peaks down yonder toward Goat Haunt in Montana. We're hoping a miracle will clear out the smoke. However, we decided not to buy the boat tickets unless and until we know we can actually see stuff from the boat. Otherwise,it would be lilke paying $100 to ride a motorboat through a smoke cloud.
The Canadian Weather Service says
there's a 30-percent chance of showers later this afternoon and a
60-percent chance overnight. Maybe that just might be the miracle
we're hoping for.
Well, that's about all for now. Happy Day!
Well, that's about all for now. Happy Day!
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