9600 kms later

July 15. We’re home. Today was another long haul ass day. We drove all the way home from Sleeping Giant (basically Thunder Bay). It took about 16 hours and we rolled in at 2 a.m.

At least the drive was still nice. As much as I’m impressed with and miss the mountains, I’m equally blown away by Lake Superior and the incredible Canadian Shield – tons of spectacular views around every corner.

Today’s big thing – the odometer. We drove a total of 9600 kms.

I can’t believe how far we’ve been and all that we’ve seen in only two weeks. Canada is truly a spectacular and impressive country! I’m so grateful to live here - I dig it!

lots of bambis

July 14. Today began by drinking our coffee on a big rock overlooking Falcon Lake. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the lake was bathtub water warm. Life, is good.

Then it was a haul ass day. We drove from Whiteshell Manitoba to Sleeping Giant just south of Thunder Bay – about 10 hours. We stopped in T-Bay at the Terry Fox memorial – I had a moment. What an inspiring kid. On days when I’m feeling lazy and too tired to run or work out, I’ll think about the kid who ran a marathon everyday with a prosthetic leg. We saw another black bear – this time running across the highway - so that brings our total to 5. The 30+ km drive off the TransCanada to Sleeping Giant was full of deer sightings – and one sandhill crane sighting. The park was full of thumpers and multiple bambies, we saw them all over the campground and heard one run through our site in the middle of the night. Oh, and then there were the loons - this time, not such a sweet sound, cooing all night long.

more flat ... part II

July 13. Today our goal was to get across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. And that’s just what we did. Drove. Have you ever driven across the plains? Enough said.

We made one stop in Moose Jaw for a pic of today’s big thing – Mac (not Max from Dryden) the Moose – if you thought Max was big, whoa – Mac is 30 feet tall, and he’s the world’s largest moose. Hmph, who knew?

And, I actually drove today – for a whole 4.5 hrs. whoopdeedoo. I don’t know how Dave’s been doing it.

Add another black bear sighting to the list - today we saw one at the side of the road in Manitoba – that’s 4 so far.

We stayed at Whiteshell campground on the Manitoba/Ontario border - our site was nicely nestled in the trees right on Falcon Lake, and we fell asleep listening to the loons.

bye bye rocky mountains

July 12. Sad day today. We said good-bye to the mountains and thanked them for the memories. Now we’re heading back east.

We stopped at Medalta pottery in the Medicine Hat historical clay district. It’s where most of the collectible crocks were originally made, which we both collect, so it was pretty interesting to see the old kilns and tour the old factory that closed in 1959.
Today’s big thing is the antelope we saw at the side of the road. So far our wildlife count includes – black bear, grizzly bear, wolf, antelope, deer and an elk.

We crashed out in a Days Inn in Swift Current. We’re at more than 6500 + kms … and I still haven’t driven.

a little rain can't stop us .....

July 11. Tonight, we’re sitting inside the car, eating our take out dinner from Sobey’s while it pours down rain. But that’s ok, we had another jam packed amazing day without the rain, and we got the tent set up before it rained.
The day began with a visitor passing by our campsite – a rare sighting of a wolf. Dave was pretty excited about that. The park ranger told us he’s only seen one twice in twenty years.

Our first stop of the day was at Lake Louise ski resort. We had lunch in the chalet and rode the gondola to the top for an amazing hilltop view of the mountains and Lake Louise. It was pretty cool to be at the resort in the summer to see the ski runs carved out in the trees – probably the closest I’ll ever get to them.

Today’s big thing is Lake Louise. After seeing the incredibly turquoise blue in so many pictures, it really is something to see up close. We walked the trail to the end of the lake, walked around on the clay at the edge of the lake and saw a bunch of rock climbers on the rock face – so cool.

We made our way back to camp at Bow Valley again. We saw a grizzly on the side of the road and then saw an Elk on the way into the campground.

trains, waterfalls, icefields and bears (oh my)

July 10. Right now, I’m sitting fireside with a cup of Shiraz (hey, no one said we were roughing it … although it is in my tin camping mug) and my laptop remembering everything we did today. It started out with a partly clear view of Mt. Robson – Dave was pumped that the clouds cleared enough to get a good view and a ton of pictures.

We then made our way south making a lot of stops along the way. First, we stopped in Jasper, checked out the cozy town and train station. Then we stopped at almost every roadside pull off to take pictures of the mountains. Today was the day that I got a true taste of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. What I’ve seen so far has been breathtaking, but wow, the drive today was magnificent. ok, I had a few emotional moments. Winding through the mountains around every turn was another jaw dropping view of snow topped mountains. We stopped at Sunwapta falls – a wicked and very angry waterfall. Who knew it was there? We were just driving along and saw a sign for a waterfall and said, hey, let’s go check this out. It was ‘namazing (to quote Sara’s daughter). We made a few stops like that – just pulled over to see turquoise lakes and ‘namazing mountain peaks. Then we hit the Columbia Icefields. Again, WOW. We bundled up in toques, boots and jackets and climbed up to where it has receded to since 1844. It was also cool to see where it was in 2001, the last time Dave was there.

And, today …. We saw a bear! It was a momma bear at the side of the road with two baby pubs (ya, cubs, but I tried to say pups and cubs at the same time).

We planned to camp at Lake Louise, but they were full by the time we got there – so we headed a bit further south to Johnston campground.

Today was a blast, I think my most favourite day so far – and we’ve done a ton of cool stuff.

camping BC style

July 9 We left Kamloops and drove, drove, drove through more windy roads and beautiful views for 5 hours up the Yellowhead to Mt. Robson provincial park. It was our first experience with self registration - BC Parks style … basically, drive in, pick a spot, and eventually a park guy will come around to collect the fee and give you firewood –that could be, oh, whenever. Then someone drives around the park in a golf cart every hour or so with firewood if you want more. funny.

Today’s big thing is Mt. Robson with the highest peak in the Rockies, except it was cloud covered, so we couldn’t see it.