Holy Smokes! We're home! I do apologize for the lack of post in the last week but here is the situation, we kind of don't have internet in the truck so I had no means of posting to the blog. As for not writing while I was on the road, whatever, I don't see you writing a blog every day. Also, There wasn't a whole lot of excitement on the road home.
We left Vancouver the day after my last post. Mike wasn't feeling well from our first night there. I guess the beer set a little heavy that first night. Then as we were going to go for supper the second day, Mike's tummy hurt after one of my honey ales and the big guy was tuckered out. He took a nap and that was about it for the night there. He later did get up and we got cheep pizza. Mike was amazed at the party happening just outside our hotel on Grandville. Long story short, Grandville, Vancouver = Good time.
We left the beautiful Vancity and headed for the hills the following day. We took a pit stop at Hells Gate. It is this weird tourist park type thing. You take this gondola (for the low price of $18) across the river to this tourist stop. There was a restaurant, bar, salmon exhibit, some sort of statue that Mike climbed up on, a gift shop and a suspension bridge. Side note, suspension bridges are to western Canada as covered bridges are to New Brunswick. Anyway, we had an expensive lunch there and looked at the water rushing by. It was neat. Mike proposed the idea of planking before we headed back up to the truck. For those of you who don't know, planking is the sport of laying face down and not moving in a random spot while a friend takes your picture. I'm not making this up... People actually do this. I guess some people have died while planking so now it is an official sport. I realize that this doesn't sound fun at all and I assure you that I think it is just as stupid as you do. Anyway, we didn't go planking but we did decided to take the walking path back up to the truck. And by we, I mean Mike because he lost his return ticket for the gondola after saying, "Oh, return ticket. Ha, can't lose that." What a dummy.
By night fall, we still didn't hit the Rockies; however, we did make it to this circus town in the foothills on the west side of the mountains. I have no idea what it was called but what a place. The highway doesn't run directly through the main part of the town but there is an abundance of gas stations and people around the highway at all hours of the day. Both on the way to Vancouver and on the way home, we stopped there for gas and coffee. There was a Tim Hortons attached to the shell station. As we pulled into the gas station, we saw the gates to go into the town. There were bears on them... yes, bears. I think they were statues of bears because they were not moving but nevertheless there were bears. As we were getting gas, there was a train pulling in and stopping in this town, a dog was running away from their owner, some lady was running after a dog, there were homeless people panhandling outside of the Tim's, two police officers were flirting over coffee, and a group of high school students were buying energy drinks. Also, all the pumps were full and the parking lot for the Super 8 motel beside the gas station looked to be about full and there were people walking around on their balconies. IT WAS 11 P.M. ON A SUNDAY NIGHT! Don't these people work? Don't these kids go to school? What is this town? Can I live there?
We were really worried about driving through the Rockies that night. Not because everyone like to fly through there at 130km/hour, but because we were unsure if the truck would make it! When we were heading west, we travelled down some steep slopes that we were unsure if the truck would make it back up them. Before we knew it, we were back in Alberta; the truck had conquered the Rockies without any trouble.
We didn't make it far the next day because of Alberta rain and we stopped a couple times to see Mike's family. Mike has an Uncle in Olds, Alberta. What a guy. Him and his girlfriend are some of the nicest people I have ever encountered in my life. We got there and they brought us in and feed us pie and coffee. Mike's uncle told us of his university adventures and his travels as a youngster. I could go into great detail about what we talked about but I don't think he realized that I was blogging about the trip so I'm not going into great detail. It was a good time. On the way out, he offered us $600 for the truck; he needed one so he could go get dirt for his garden. Little did we know, we should have taken him up on that. See what I just did there? Foreshadowing... Like that? Hun? Yeah, that's right, you want to keep reading.
Normally I would jump over boring places like Moose Jaw but I'm going to take a minute to transcribe a series of text messages I exchanged with my dad after leaving Moose Jaw.
Dad: How's it going? Where are you at now?
Me: Horrible, thanks. We're in Moose Jaw
Dad: What's wrong?
Me: The lady wouldn't serve me breakfast because it was 10:50 but then buddy came in behind me was still able to get his breakfast sandwich. The ladies there spilt cream all over the floor and Mike almost didn't get his bagel. Now we have encountered our first Jerk in traffic.
Long story short. Don't Go To Moose Jaw!
We made it all the way to Thunder Bay that night and parked at the Terry Fox memorial there. In the morning we went to take a look at the monument. It was a surreal experience for me. Those of you who know me, know that I'm a two year cancer survivor so the Terry Fox memorial in Thunder Bay is kind of like Mecca for me. There is this beautiful brick path that goes directly through a park to where the monument stands. From the monument there is a wonderful view of Lake Superior. The sun was out and there were no clouds in the sky. As I walked down the path towards the monument, I was hit with so much emotion. I feel like I owe so much to Terry Fox. He brought such an awareness of cancer to people through his Marathon of Hope. Today, people like me breeze through the disease in 6 months. Without him, who knows? Maybe I wouldn't have been here to take a trip like this. It was such an experience to go and see the monument for myself.
We spent the rest of the day driving with little interruption. Oh there was a bit of a run in with the law but we won't get into that right now. Let's just say that the highways in Ontario are stupid; one minute you are on the Trans Can and the next second you are in a small town without any warning even though a cop tells you that you passed three 50km signs.
The next morning, we were only an hour away from our next pit stop. We woke up in Cookstown, Ontario in the parking lot of a McDonald's. We woke up and got ready to go and got back in the truck. Mike checked the oil then go in and started it up. As we were backing out, there was an intense vibration and we knew we couldn't drive the truck like that. So, Mike called CAA and they came and brought the truck to the Canadian Tire in Barrie. Turns out the drive shaft came lose or something so they fixed that for us. A couple hours and a couple hundred hours later, we were back on the road. We bought a deck of cards and a pair of mini lacrosse sticks to pass the time. I also realized that I forgot my camera in the tow truck. Luck for me, the driver was awesome and came back with it. I'm so grateful that he came back!
We headed from Barrie to Guelph to where our friend Kristina lives. I know I usually don't include names in the blog but I know Kristina has been reading it and I don't think she'll mind because I only have good things to say. For those who don't know, Kristina and I were on the same R.A. team and she pretty much took care of me this past year. So, there was no way I'd drive past her twice on this trip. Anyway, we stopped by her place in Guelph where she fed us cookies and pasta and salad and we drank be beer with her dad and chatted with both her parents. It was so good to have a nice home cooked meal. Totally one of the highlights of the trip. I realized that Kristina had never cook while in residence (with the exception of cookies which were awesome) which is very upset. (Kristina if you are reading this: Hint, Hint)
We left Kristina's house and headed to Cornwall where Mike's sister lives. We got there around midnight with no trouble. We stayed up and chatted for awhile before bed. I took the couch and it was absolutely awesome to not sleep in the truck. I slept like a rock; I guess Mike's sister was up early packing and making a lot of noise. I still slept through it all. We had some eggs and got back on the road around 11 that morning.
We drove through Quebec with little interruption. We stopped for gas and Mike got a sandwich. Also, Quebec has awesome beer prices. There was a couple deals were the beer was just over a dollar a beer. It was awesome. Except, my visa card was declined. I was livid at visa because my card was paid off in full days before hand and my card was denied before that too. Long story short, I hate visa and I'm thinking about leaving that company.
I guess that is it. We got home that night and had an amazing sleep in my own bed. Wonderful.
Long story short, it was a really awesome trip. We saw 3 bears, 8 moose, a herd of elk, a bunch of dear, no mountain goats, some foxes, a couple wolves, killed a bird, crossed a bunch of rivers, spent over a grand in gas, drank a billion cups of coffee, saw the most breath taking mountains in the world, saw my hero's monument, took a lot of photos, ate the raw zoodles, visited some family, saw some friends, listened to the cbc in every province, made a trip playlist, talked about everything, spent 9 nights in the truck, got 2 sunburns, watched the Canucks, and became better friends.
Now back to the real world. I expect we'll keep blogging about our adventure here in King's County but for now, this is all.
Thanks for reading!
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