We have embarked on a 60-day Premiere Alaska RV Tour with Fantasy RV Tours. We booked this trip 2 years ago as a 40th wedding anniversary trip. Little did we know just 1 week later I would be diagnosed with breast cancer. This made this trip so much more than just about our 40th!

Day 1 & 2 – Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

Day 1 – The tour officially began on June 1 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where we all met up at Blackwell Island RV Resort. We had our tour orientation, welcome dinner, and social time.

Day 2 – We took a boat tour on Lake Coeur d’Alene where we saw some amazing homes, including one with an incline because it was only accessible by boat. One was built on top of a boulder! There was even a golf course with the green on an island.

Day 3 & 4 – Fairmont Hot Springs, BC

Day 3 – This was our first travel day. We traveled 225 miles, crossing into Canada, and continuing to Fairmont Hot Springs, British Columbia. The drive in northern Idaho was beautiful with hillsides blanketed in pines. We arrived at the RV park in mid-afternoon and had dinner at Bears Paws restaurant.

Day 4 – After a pancake breakfast provided by the Ambassadors (our tour guides), a group of us hiked 2.6 miles on a trail around the park. It was an up and down kind of hike, but the scenery was worth it.

We figured out that the “waterfall” was the drainage pipe for the hot springs pools and that’s what made the last picture look like the hot springs. However, that was not the actual hot springs.

After getting cleaned up, Mike and I drove to Invermere to check out the local town. We found a metal moose! Hope it’s not the only one we’re going to see on this trip! We went to Canadian Tire, because everyone keeps talking about it. The only way to describe it is Walmart with Party City, Petco, and an auto parts store, but no food.

We went back to the RV park and took advantage of the hot springs on the property. It was more like a community pool that’s heated, but it was relaxing.

Day 5, 6, & 7 – Banff

Day 5 – Our travel day to Banff was beautiful 112-mile ride. We drove through Radium Hot Springs and stopped at Kootenay River Pull-off for lunch right along the river. There had been a bear sighting a mile before that, so we put our bear spray on the table just in case. Luckily the only wildlife we saw was this cute little animal.

We stopped at the Continental Divide to get our picture taken before heading to Banff National Park Campground. One side is British Columbia and Kootenay National Park where water runs to the Pacific Ocean, and the other side is Alberta and Banff National Park where water runs to the Atlantic Ocean.

Once we were set up at the campground, we went with our new friends Jill and Tom on the ROAM bus that goes into Banff. We had dinner at Three Bears Brewery before catching the bus up to the Banff Gondola. We were able to get tickets and it was definitely worth the money. The views were spectacular and we highly recommend it.

Day 6 – Canadian Rockies Motorcoach Tour – As part of the tour, we had a 10+ hour bus tour around the Banff National Park.

We stopped at Johnson Canyon, which has a large waterfall. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to walk the 1/2 – 1-1/2 mile hike to the falls due to time constraints, but this is something we would do if we came back to Banff on our own.

We then went to the famed Lake Louise. This place was beautiful! We even went into the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and looked around the lobby. It was pretty to see and pretty pricey!

After lunch at Lake Louise, we continued on to the Spiral Tunnels. We had no idea what this was, but we were fortunate to see a train on the tracks. In order to get up (or down) the mountain, they built a figure-8 track system for the train to slowly make its way. Pretty ingenious!

We continued on to Emerald Lake. It was just as the name implies.

Our next stop was the Natural Bridge. This is where the rock formation created a “bridge” in the river. It reminded us a little of Great Falls and the Potomac.

Our last stop was to another waterfall in Banff. Bow Falls isn’t as scenic as some, but it was still pretty.

We had quite a day and were exhausted by the end!

Day 7 – Free day in Banff

We decided to take the bus into Banff and do some shopping in the morning. We headed straight to the Banff sign we’d seen on the bus tour, and as it so often happens, we met a couple from Virginia! We took their picture and they took ours.

That afternoon we got ready for our next travel day. We needed to leave the park by 5:45 a.m. on Day 8 to get to our next exciting adventure. More on that in the next blog post!

One week in and this trip has already exceeded our expectations. The Canadian Rockies are so impressive, and the water in every river and lake is this amazing shade of blue/green. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

We’re Mike & Jennifer Skinnell, and together we are The Rambling Quilter. We travel the country full-time in our 41ft. fifth-wheel pulled by our F-350 – affectionately named Beauty & The Beast. Jennifer writes our blog, travel articles, contemporary romance, cozy mysteries, and “Don’t Wait – Our Full-Time Journey Through Breast Cancer”. Our blog is purely for information and entertainment purposes. However, if you’d like to support Jennifer’s writing career, her author link to her books is below.