The journey thus far.

I'm a little late starting the blog back up but the journey so far hasn't allowed for a lot of computer time.

We left Vancouver the afternoon of Friday August 14th. I worked right up until 1pm that day, headed home for my move out inspection, returned our hardware to Shaw, hit MEC then we were on the road. It was busy. Crossing the Lions Gate Bridge I allowed myself a few tears as I thought about all the good times I had had in Vancouver and how much I would miss my great friends and the beautiful mountains and ocean.

We arrived in Kelowna at our friend Sharon's place around 10 pm to be greeted by Jennifer and Sharon and hot from the oven peach and blueberry crumble. Just what I needed. Saturday we wandered around the local farmers market resisting the tempation to buy fresh produce but managed to come home with a beautiful wood block cutting board and some great spice rubs. That afternoon/evening we hung out a the pool at Sharon's condo, bbq'd and hot tubbed with the boys. Sunday morning we had a fabulous brunch made by Sharon then strolled along the waterfront of Lake Okanagan...what a beautiful spot. Everyone was trying to put off the inevitable but eventually, after ice cream that is, we returned and packed up our stuff as it was about time we hit the road. After tearful goodbyes we were back on the road headed to Revelstoke. Again I cried, but this time it was more of a sob as we drove off and left my friends for the time being.

The drive to Revelstoke was beautiful. It doesn't take long for the dry landscape of Kelowna to be replace by the beautiful Rocky Mountains. We arrived in Revelstoke at about 7pm, grabbed some dinner and went to check into the local campsite. Unfortunately there were no sites available. As it was getting dark we decided to try our local at the best hotel in town but unfortunately again, there was no room at the inn. After driving by hotel after motel after motel with their no vacancy sign flashing we finally found a room at the Gateway Inn..the place we had laughed at coming in and said thank god we weren't staying there. All said...it wasn't that bad, then it again it wasn't that great.

Monday morning we hit the road with Lake Louise as our destination. We decided to push straight for there and not make many stops so that we could arrive at the camp ground as early as possible in order to improve our chances of getting a camp site. The drive was absolutely beautiful. Every Canadian should have to make this journey at least once in their life so that they can truly appreciate what a beautiful country we live in. We arrived at the camp ground in Lake Louise just before 3 pm and scored ourselves a great site, G2. We set up camp then went out to explore. We drove up to the actual lake and decided we would return early in the morning to make the hike up to one of the tea huts when it was less busy. We picked up some supplies from town then returned to cook our dinner of weiners as Trent likes to call them and cup of soup. Yum! After dinner we headed over to the camp ground theatre to attend a presentation on Grizzley Bears. It was both informative and entertaining with a little something for everyone. After a cup of tea and marshmallows by the fire we climbed into our tent and relaxed into our new super delux sleeping pads! It felt like sleeping on a waterbed compared to our old basic foam pads. Luxury!

We woke early the next morning, had a breakfast of toast and instant oatmeal, packed up the campsite then headed back up to Lake Louise. The 3.8 km climb up to the tea house seemed to take forever but I think much of that had to do with our recent lack of exercise and our repeated stops to ohh and ahh over the views. We arrived at the tea house to find a packed patio covered with both people and chipmunks running amouk. Trent and I found a spot on the patio and shared a pot of mint green tea and a couple of scones with jam. We even had a few little furry visitors come and try and steal our food. It was a perfect morning. Our goal Tuesday was to make it to Calgary to visit with my brother David and then if it worked out stop in to visit Trent's cousins Chris and Amy. We had a great dinner with David at a local ribs place then stopped in to see Chris and Amy before hitting the road to get us close to Calgary. We stopped for the night just outside of Red Deer. PLEASE NOTE...if you are ever tired at night driving and looking for a place to stop, DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT stop at any place called Gasoline Alley. We thought we would be safe with a Howard Johnsons and I guess I am alive to tell the tail so we were safe but it just wasn't the type of place I would recommend to anyone else. I don't even like thinking about it. It was clean (at least topically) but just creepy and noisy and horrormoviey.

We pulled into Edmonton around noon on Wednesday. Hit a few stores and picked up a few outstanding items before heading up to Fort Saskatchewan to stay with Trent's Uncle Mike and Dwyane. As usual they treated us like royalty and wouldn't let us lift a finger. I was so happy to fall into bed Wed night..I actually slept past 9 am Thursday morning, a record for me. Made up for the lack of sleep the night before.

Thursday we did more errands then painstakenly tried to do the right thing in terms of getting my car prepared for being stored over the winter in Edmonton. Let me say this...insurance companies do not make it easy for you to do the right thing.

Friday morning Trent and cleaned the car to a shining finish and took a load of our luggage and dropped it at the hotel before hitting the West Edmonton Mall. Our destination...the waterpark. We had a ball, acting like a couple of 12 year olds running from slide to slide. I'm not sure when I lost all my courage but I was more than a little terrified of a few of the slides and couldn't convince myself to go down the biggest one...the one that went straight down. Trent will have to update you on some of the other slides...lets just say I didn't put on a brave face for a few of them.

And that gets us to Friday evening. After an amazing steak dinner and filling our cooler and bags with all kinds if goodies from Michael and Dwayne (seasonings, rice, italian bread crumbs, toothbrushes and paste) Michael drove us to the hotel at the airport where we would spend the night before our departure Sunday morning.

I'll leave it there for now. I've got some paper machiering to do.