My First Pang...

So it has been a little over a week since we got back from our two month journey across this great land of ours and I have been buried up to my eyeballs in work. However, this morning, I was crunching some numbers for a report and suddenly the image of Kenora and Lake of the Woods came to my mind and I felt a pang so strong that I had to stop what I was doing for a second. In that instant, I missed being out on the road, being free to go wherever and seeing the beauty this country has to offer. But then it all came crashing back in. Oh well.

I can't explain why Kenora. It just happened.

More pics....


Beautiful Moraine Lake near Lake Louise. Don't fall for the hype - this is the place to see.



Hike up a mountain above the snow line. So this is what cold looks like.



At the end of the rainbow is....

Work and Weirdness

I am up to my eyeballs in work. In fact, I just put down the laptop and am taking about 15 minutes to relax before bed. So here are a couple of things.

When I got home, there was some registered mail I needed to pick up. It turned out to be an Activa Men's Sports watch that I had won in the Heart and Stroke Lottery. Fun stuff. After checking it out online, it looks like the model I was sent is worth about 30 bucks and isn't available any more. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers. :) It might make a good gift, but who knows.

Our downstairs neighbour came up for a visit with his dog, who the cats watched warily, but got along fine with. He gave us an update on the murder that happened two buildings down while we were away. The stalker person who was in the neighbourhood in the weeks prior turned out to probably have not been the culprit, since he was seen around in the days after the murder and further investigation showed that he was a peeping tom (i.e. had previous criminal history). He was from Kitchener of all places. So it looks like the killing was probably by someone known to the victim or the family.

Onto some more light fare... how about a couple of photos!


Mountain lake view. Not sure where this is yet, since I can't preview my pics on my computer for some insane reason.

Athabasca River

Me standing at the edge of the Athabasca glacier. I bet there is a lot of till around here.

Home Sweet Home

We spent the weekend in New Liskeard at the wedding of Randy and Andrea. It was a great ceremony and a fantastic party afterwards. Luckily, our hotel was right next to the reception hall so we made the 2 minute walk back (well, to tell you the truth, the bride and groom gave me a ride over. It was cold, after all).

This morning we got up fairly early, considering my condition (which wasn't all that bad, actually) and headed back home. We left at 1030 and arrived here shortly after 4pm. But that's not all - we unloaded and headed right back out for Waterloo for a reunion with our cats. Now we are at home unpacking, and I am downloading the photos on my ultra slow USB port. I only have 1800 photos or so from western Canada to sort through. If the batteries don't die, I will download a bunch at work, too, so that I can post a few (that's right, I said work).

I will try to post some on DDoD again now that I am back into the blogging thing.

Getting close to home

It is a beautiful sunny and windy Friday afternoon in New Liskeard. We are in town for the wedding of Randy and Andrea, which will mark the end of our long journey across Canada. Sunday will mark the final drive home, including a side trip to pick up the cats.

The last week has been mostly driving. We visited Drumheller and the badlands - the Royal Tyrrell Museum is definitely worth the entrance fee. It is reasonably priced compared to the many other places we have visited on our trip. I hope you like dinosaurs and fossils, though. ;)

We also tried to stop at an old coal mine which was a "National Historical Site". Apparently, there are National Historical Sites that are not affiliated with Parks Canada's National Historical Sites, which we have a year's pass for. Too bad. We balked at the entrance fee and moved on.

We hustled across the prairies, camping for the night outside of Moosomin Saskatchewan. Of course, on the day the stock market dropped, an oncoming dump truck dropped a rock onto my windshield, leaving a rose shaped crack, which will probably increase the amount of tune up work required to Gabby once the trip is over. I was very angry that day.

We passed through Winnipeg, stopping to visit Chris on our way through. We spent a night in Kenora, having a nice meal. The driving continued, stopping in Dryden and again in Nipigon, where we spent another chilly night (below freezing again). Frost rimmed the tent in the morning, but we stayed cozy with our new sleeping bag acquired in Penticton. After Nipigon was Kirkland Lake, and we arrived in New Liskeard this afternoon after a brief rainshower.

The wind is whipping up the water on the lake pretty well. Luckily, the reception hall is less than a five minute walk from our hotel.

This will probably be my last blog entry for this trip. I will download all the photos once I get home (I am counting zero USB ports on this computer) and post them at leisure.

Sunny Calgary Saturday

We arrived in Calgary yesterday afternoon accompanied by a whole lot of rain. After three days touring Vancouver Island, Vancouver and the BC interior, we caught up with our previous set of luck. As we were driving through Kootenay National Park to a couple of the hikes we wanted to try, the skies opened up and did not stop until late last night after we were already in Calgary. What a crazy summer!

We were able to camp out in Radium Hot Springs - I would recommend it for the springs and the scenery. We nearly hit a deer getting there - again. This must have been about the third time this summer we have had something run out in front of the car.

So today we spent in Calgary leisurely strolling along the river, going to the market, and enjoying the sunny weather. It is a beautiful day, though a little cool. :)

Tomorrow it is on to Drumheller and the badlands!

Courtenay Comox.

Get rid of the "mo" and you're thinking Friends or something (and guess which song comes on the radio at this coffee shop...). At least I was. But anyways...

After leaving Banff, we crossed the Rockies, stopping to hike at interesting locations (again, no usb access, so again, no photos... that will be rectified). We endured several more below freezing nights, with the help of our new comforter, before finally reaching the warmth and sunshine of the Okanagan Valley, continuing to retrace the route Denis and I cycled so many years ago. We stopped for visits in Kelowna with good friends from Waterloo and in Penticton with family from South River - I met one of my cousins that I had not met before. The sun shone the entire time, and it was much, much drier than we had experienced since PEI.

Penticton really is a beautiful place. You should really visit sometime.

We continued south to the Canadian desert and Osoyoos. We didn't see any rattlers or cacti, but we saw all kinds of orchards and vineyards, which kind of surprised me - for a desert.

Along the southern highway to Vancouver (Crow's Nest), I was thinking "Holy crap, did we bike through this?" Well, not quite, after my breakdown and fever of 104 in Manning Park, but holy cow, Allison Pass is ONE LONG HILL. We drove down it for about 20 minutes. Imagine biking up instead. I was insane back in those days. Remember kids: eat before you're hungry and drink before your thirsty, or you may end up lying at the side of the road like I did.

We drove straight through Vancouver to catch a ferry to Vancouver Island and came up to Courtenay-Comox for the night. Today we are going to drift over to Pacific Rim National Park and the Pacific Ocean.

Touristy Banff

Sorry, no photos today. I don't have time to upload them. And this cafe isn't cheap, either. In fact, nothing in Banff is. Laundry is three dollars per load, and drying is a quarter. For four minutes. Tourist trap central. It was funny yesterday when dude at the infocentre looked at me with a combination of pity and laughter when I asked if there was a Tim Horton's in town. But of course, there was a Starbucks right across the street. That tells you the type of person this town was built for.

I have to hand it to Banff, though. It is quite scenic. And cold. It went down below freezing last night. We survived in our tent well enough. Apparently it snowed here a few days ago (a few inches), so luckily we missed that. We did a mountain trail today. It was 5.5km long, and included 700m of up. The majority of the people who visited the top of the mountain used the gondola. It got a lot colder above the snow line, but we had enough clothing to get by. We ate at the top and took the gondola back down. I feel much better after my shower. :)

We drove the Icefields Parkway on Monday. It is "holy cow" scenic. I kept stopping at roadside scenic overlooks to look and take pics. We even got to see the Athabasca glacier - which no one is supposed to go near, because it is so unstable. But nobody listened (including us :( ). We only went to the edge, whereas others were climbing hundreds of metres up the glacier, all the while forgetting the stories they should have read at the end of the trail on the little boy who died there in 2001. Oh well. The human race. Aren't we special?

Hopefully I will be able to find another computer somewhere before we hit the Okanagan this weekend, where it should be a lot warmer.

And the reason I am not doing pics? I have been at this computer an hour already, and downloading photos would probably take another hour. And I'm hungry. I guess I forgot to mention that. :)