Day 132 - 4 Nov '23 - Seattle to Spokane. Have you seen Oklahoma!? Do you remember the song Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'?
I've come up with some new lyrics:
Oh, what a miserable mornin'
A god-awful start to the day
I've got a wonderful feelin'
A refund is coming our way!
1am: our upstairs neighbours return from wherever they've been, stomping, walking, dropping things, knocking things over.
2am: no decrease in any sounds coming from upstairs, we send a message to our host.
2:30am: series of loud bangs, Dan thumps on the ceiling in retaliation.
3am: Dan yells out "GO TO SLEEP!", (gave me a fright).
3:30am: we completely give up pretending to sleep, Dan looks at car rentals on his phone, I play Minesweeper on mine.
4am: the neighbours turn on their stereo, Dan calls the host and leaves a message describing how pissed off we were (in a remarkably calm yet decidedly strained voice), I beat my previous Minesweeper expert time (now 5min20secs, no hints).
4:05am: I send a message to the host and repeat the content of the voice message, and wonder aloud what they could possibly be doing for three hours at that time of night, and can only think of assembling flat pack furniture (which wouldn't make sense in a furnished apartment).
4:30am: the neighbours FINALLY stop walking around and are quiet.
6:30am: the neighbours are moving around again. JESUS F*CKING CHRIST!
8:30am: we get a message from our host apologising and saying he would refund two nights' worth.
9am: we get out of bed, fully refreshed for a four-hour drive in the rain.
Despite a few moments of aqua-planing, not being able to see out the windscreen, and negotiating our way past swimming pools of standing water, we made it to Spokane in one piece. Thankfully, the downpour had slowly reduced to a drizzle over the course of our trip, and tomorrow is meant to have cleared up a bit.
We went out to dinner to Applebee's, as I had a $25 voucher from another time we'd eaten there and complained about the service and lack of gluten-free substitutes on the childrens' menu.
After this we went sock shopping for me, as I always have chronically cold feet. I'd found some thermal socks online that happened to be sold in a nearby mall, and even better, had a 25% sale price plus an ADDITIONAL 25% discount for today and tomorrow! I put them on when we got back to our room, and they are super soft and snuggly, so I may just buy some more tomorrow!
Dan and I are both looking forward to a good sleep, and luckily for us, the supplied breakfast is open until 10am. We took a top-floor room so we can't be disturbed by footsteps above us; here's hoping the Saturday night traffic isn't too bad!
(By the way, if you haven't seen Oklahoma!, I can highly recommend it. Plus, the song will then make sense, and you'll be able to sing along - bonus!).
Day 133 - 5 Nov '23 - Minecraft and Monster Jam. It turned out our motel in Spokane was by the popular route for the local car 'enthusiasts', but they stopped earlier than expected (or we fell asleep, who knows?).
The clocks went back an hour for daylight savings, which was a fantastic surprise! Everybody likes an extra hour in bed, especially after two days of rubbish sleep.
After breakfast, the kids and I went to see a Minecraft exhibition at the local museum. It turned out to be rather cool! There were to-scale models of trees, a crafting table, a bed, a furnace, and the playable characters Alex and Steve, as well as the hostile mobs the zombie, the Enderman, and the skeleton.
It wasn't as big an exhibition as I had hoped (considering it cost $50USD for us to get in), and I reckon it would have been incredible to have to-scale models of a house, but we all still had fun, especially Alex and Abi when they got to play some Minecraft!
All morning, Dan and I had been teasing the kids when they asked what we were doing that afternoon, by dropping random words into the conversation.
"Have you ever seen a Grave Digger?" I asked Dan.
"Yes, but only on TV," he replied. "He did some pretty cool flips."
"Oh - are we going to Flip Out?" Alex asked.
"No," I answered. "Hey, I've got a question for you, what do you think can jump higher, Megalodon or Velociraptor?"
"But one lives in water..."
"True - that would be a bit crazy, like a crazy bull! El Toro Loco is what they say in Spanish."
FINALLY, just before we pulled into the carpark of the Spokane Arena, Alex worked out what we were going to see - MONSTER JAM!
"Oh," said Alex.
A few months ago, we'd gone to see some monster trucks in Tauranga, and were appalled with the pathetic show we'd paid a fortune for, as was everybody else that had the misfortune to attend. Understandably, then, neither of our kids were even slightly enthusiastic to go to Monster Jam.
Oh my goodness, it took all of two minutes of engine revving and racing for all of us to have big smiles!
We had driven to Spokane specifically to go to Monster Jam. I'd looked online about a month ago what their schedule was, and this was the only place that we were kind of near to, at a time we would be in the area.
The event was split into four rounds; a lap race, a two-wheel competition, a relay with a donut and a jump, and the last round was freestyle. And at half time, the USFX team did some incredible tricks on their motocross bikes!
It was SOOOOO loud, and so much fun!! We, the audience, voted on the drivers' performances, which was great; their whole ethos is entertainment, so who better to judge the results than the audience?
We'd seen a few bits break off the cars as they did their jumps, and a couple of cars had to get towed off, but it wasn't until El Toro Loco ended up upside down, that the crowd went wild. And then, Grave Digger came out and went straight to the top of the board with a backwards flip!
It definitely wasn't the biggest venue on the circuit, and was actually quite small when compared with some of the others.
"And the guy in New Zealand complained that the show wasn't as good as it could have been because the venue was too small!" Dan reminded me in disbelief.
"I know!" I agreed. "This place is about a quarter of the size, and they had eight cars here doing so much more!"
There was a great country-rock style theme tune, that we could sing along to, thanks to the lyrics on the screen. Part of it went:
"When I say 'Monster' you say 'Jam'.
'Monster',
'Jam',
'Monster',
'Jam'!"
Dan made up some new words:
"When I say 'partially deaf' you say 'what?'. Partially deaf!"
"What?"
"Partially deaf!"
"What?"
Ha ha ha ha ha! We've probably lost about two year's worth of hearing.
After we left the arena, we went to a nearby playground (along with what seemed like half of the kids who were also at Monster Jam), but after about half an hour we left as it was getting pretty chilly. On the way back to the car, we saw the monster trucks getting loaded into their lorries, and they looked hilarious without their massive wheels!
It was an awesome day and lots of fun, and well worth the trip across the state, in the opposite direction to where we were originally heading!
Day 134 - 6 Nov '23 - Washington to Montana. Another great sleep, and an 11am checkout - perfect! Because we'd driven from Seattle (really close to Vancouver) to Spokane (nowhere near Vancouver), I managed to convince Dan we should carry on east and hop over the top of Idaho into the part of Montana I really wanted to see. Then, we could go back up into Canada from there, and head back to Vancouver on a different road to the one we travelled on almost five months ago.
Of course, this was a great plan when I conceived it on a sunny day! The reality was far more wet.
Our first stop was an outdoor shop to buy rucksack airport bags. Dan's rucksack's straps neatly zip away, but the kids' and mine don't. When we left New Zealand, we got our rucksacks wrapped at the airport, but unfortunately, we board our plane in Abbotsford to head to the UK, and it doesn't have a wrapping service.
They were a one-size-fits-all style of bag. Mine fits rather snuggly, Alex's fits with a bit of space, and Abi's is practically swimming! An unexpected benefit of this, is now we have somewhere to put her booster seat as well as the sleeping bags!
Back on the road, and we enjoyed some more aqua-planing.
"They must have put THE most hard-wearing tyres on this car," Dan grumbled, as he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and regained control of the car yet again.
Renting a car for so long has definitely been an excellent test-drive! From initially being quite pleased with our Ford Escape as a possible car for me, we have crossed it off the list based on it's handling, and air-circulation CONSTANTLY switching from recirculate to intake (among other reasons). Actually, the only parts we like are the remote start, heated seats that come on when the car is remote started and it's cold outside, and the reversing camera views. And you don't buy a car for those reasons alone!
The rain came and went on our drive. There were a few times when it cleared enough for us to be able to admire the trees and hills and rivers, for this was the Montana scenery I really wanted to see.
"I reckon, if a place looks this pretty on a horrible day, it must look even better on a sunny one," I said.
By the time we reached the town of Kalispell, it was dark and just 4°C. Also, it was an hour later than we realised, as the clocks went forward when we changed states! So much for the hour we gained yesterday!!
Day 135 - 7 Nov '23 - Glacier National Park. We have one week left in North America, eek! Believe it or not, it's now quite tricky trying to plan where we will be staying, based on how long it will take us to get back to Vancouver, when the rental car has to be returned, and then getting to the airport.
After breakfast, we decided to stay here another night and go for a drive to Glacier National Park. It was only an hour away, but a two-hour return trip then a three-hour drive to our next stop, wasn't something we felt like doing. And besides, the weather was clear for a couple of hours today at the Park, whereas tomorrow it was going to be cloudy all day.
We had fun driving there when Google was telling us to go a long winding way, and the map was showing me a much more direct route! Add in seasonal road closures, and it became a bit of an unknown.
"At the worst, we'll get to the town and have to turn around and drive the long, winding way after all!" I laughed, as I told Dan to go the direct route. "But it should be open. I'm absolutely positive."
The National park website was saying the alpine part of the road was closed, but Google thought the whole road was. When we got to the town of West Glacier, we could see why. ALL the shops and inns were closed up for the winter; even the ranger's station and information centre were closed, yet the road in was open. Go figure.
"See? I was right!" (Phew).
It was drizzling a bit as we drove next to Lake MacDonald, which reduced the visibility somewhat, but it was still quite nice to look at, grey and foreboding.
It must be quite a popular spot in summer, judging by the number of shops, lodges, and campgrounds, as well as parked shuttle buses for around the Park. Oh well - a shame we didn't get to see it properly!
As it was just 4°C, and the wind had picked up, and it was still drizzling, we decided to turn around and head back, rather than drive an unknown distance to where we would just have to turn around anyway.
In the afternoon, Dan and I got busy sorting out our accommodation, and got stuck on a merry-go-round of too many possible options.
"We could stay in Vancouver, then drive to Abbotsford?"
"The taxi to the airport was over $100CAD."
"We could stay in Abbotsford and make day trips to Vancouver?"
"There's not many places in Abbotsford."
"What about Vancouver Island?"
"The ferry is $150CAD."
"We could extend the car rental by one day?"
"You'd need to buy their insurance."
"We could get a shuttle to Whistler?"
"The tickets are $46CAD each, one way."
"We could drive to Whistler?"
"You'd need to get snow chains."
And so on, and so on. After a couple of hours, we'd sorted the next three nights' accommodation, the last two nights', but nothing in between. Maybe tomorrow we'll have more luck, after some more sleep!
Day 136 - 8 Nov '23 - Kalispell to Creston. Goodbye United States of America! We were allowed to be here until the 10th, so I think leaving on the 8th wasn't too bad (even though I was initially adamant of using our entire allotted time).
After breakfast, Dan and I carried on searching for our two remaining days' accommodation:
"I've found one here that..."
"Just book it."
Sorted!! Neither of us could be bothered spending any longer searching, and even though it was more expensive than we would have liked, it was better just to book it and get going.
We drove through some lovely countryside; loads of fir and spruce trees (some of which were a blazing orange), hills with a dusting of snow on the top, and wide and shallow rivers.
Idyllic.
The border crossing was exceedingly unenventful. There was no queue at the American side, and at the Canadian side the border patrol officer asked us if we had any weapons, how long we'd be in Canada, where we were leaving from...and that was it! Didn't even stamp our passport.
About 50m after we left the border crossing, we saw a road sign: snow tyres must be used 1 October to 30 April.
"Oh no! That's right, we'd forgotten about that," I said to Dan. "We'll need to get them changed!"
When we checked in to our motel in Creston, I called Budget.
"We have just driven into Canada and saw the sign saying we need snow tyres."
"They're not compulsory."
"The internet says they're mandatory in British Columbia and Quebec."
"No, you don't need them unless you're going on certain highways."
"We're going on highway 3 and 3a, and it says online that those two highways need them on."
"That's only if you go up in the alpine areas."
"But the road goes through alpine areas."
"The car has all weather tyres on."
"But all weather tyres are not winter tyres."
"Well you can call Kelowna Avis and they might be able to help you get them changed."
For the love of...
While waiting for Kelowna Avis to answer the phone, Budget called me back.
"Sorry, my colleague has given you misinformation. The car has all weather tyres that are marked M and S for 'mud and snow', so are perfectly legal to drive on the highways in British Columbia in winter."
"Okay, thank you, that's great to know."
Dan had also looked at the tyres, and investigated their details online.
"They're definitely the M and S tyres, and the manufacturer's website says they handle just as good in the snow as they do in the rain!"
"Well, that's comforting!"
The owner of the motel was very friendly and helpful, and when he saw we had two kids, asked how they were at sleeping in the same bed together.
"Em, they're okay," Dan answered politely.
"I'll change your room so you can have three beds."
And wouldn't you know it, they still managed to find something to argue about!
"Stop touching my bed!"
"Get your stuff off my bed!"
Day 137 - 9 Nov '23 - Creston to Summerland. I didn't have the best of sleeps; the fridge was a constant whine, the temperature in the room was quite variable before the thermostat would either switch on or off, I was too hot so just slept under a sheet, the mattress was too soft for my liking and had roll-together, and the lump under my arm was a bit sore. Dan also found the thermostat annoying, although he was too cold and had the blanket folded twice on top of him.
It was a brisk 3°C when we got in the car, and after a quick stop at the supermarket to get food for lunch, we got on our way. Dan had checked the road report before we left, and read there was compacted snow and fog at certain patches.
"This will be fun!" he said with a smile. Maybe a slightly manic one.
As we climbed the Kootenay Pass, we watched the temperature get lower and lower (at one point -3°C), and the scenery get whiter and whiter.
At the top of the pass we stopped, and it was simply breathtaking! (And not because of the cold...)
It was 0°C; snow covered the trees and the road, the lake was frozen, and there was a gorgeous wee ranger's cabin tucked in the trees at the lake edge.
The road itself wasn't as bad as we were expecting, with only a very small section of compacted snow and one small puddle of ice, and it didn't take long to drop back out of the snow line.
We stopped for lunch beside a lake, and even though it was only 0°C, our fingers were red and freezing in no time. Making sandwiches was rather chilly!
"Of course, most people would have warm food in a thermos, or at least have made their sandwiches before they left," I pointed out as we ate our sandwiches as quickly as we could.
The second pass we went over didn't have snow, but all the trees were covered in frost, and there was low cloud cover.
We were due for another oil change, so while Dan got that done in Penticton, the kids and I went to a supermarket to get dinner. Our final six nights in Canada are all AirBnBs, so we could make our dinners again.
The house we were staying in while in Summerland, had the owner and her family living upstairs. After the last disaster, we'd sworn we wouldn't stay under people again.
"It says it's not soundproof, and they've got young children," Dan said.
"Hmm...but if they're young kids they'll go to bed around 7 or 8," I pointed out, "and they won't be walking around from 1-4am!"
Sure enough, the little running feet back and forth over our ceiling from 4:30pm (which WAS getting a bit annoying) stopped by 8pm, and we didn't hear them for the rest of the night. Thank goodness for that!
Day 138 - 10 Nov '23 - Summerland. Our upstairs hosts started moving around about 7am, which is almost an hour later than Alex and Abi, who decided that 6:13am was the perfect time to start the day.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I hissed at them when I got to their room. "There's people upstairs sleeping! It's only quarter past six in the morning!"
"No, it's not," Alex argued, "the time on the microwave says it's 7:15!"
"That's not the right time! The clocks went back an hour when we crossed into Canada. And even if it was, it's still too early!"
Abi was moved to the couch, and I went back to bed. To be fair, I didn't know what day it was anymore, never mind what time! Changing time zones multiple times in the last week has really screwed up our sleep.
I decided we would go out for a walk in the neighbourhood, as there wasn't really much else to do here.
Brrr, it's cold out here (there must be some Toros in the atmosphere).
Ha ha ha ha (if that didn't make sense, watch Bring It On).
"Apparently this area has really mild winters, and I guess 6°C IS mild compared to other areas of Canada," I said.
"Yeah, but the wind is freezing!"
Down by Okanagan Lake, the wind had really picked up, and there were whitecaps further out on the water. Luckily, we'd dug out our hats and gloves before we left.
We went back to the house for lunch, then went to the shops to get some supplies. We're now trying to finish all the food we've been carrying around, so shopping is getting a bit tricky.
The rest of our afternoon was spent on the couch; Alex, Abi, and Dan did some work on their computers, and I watched movies! Well, why not?
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