Day 7 - Abbotsford (Vancouver) to Whistler. Now it was Dan's turn to enjoy driving on the right-hand side of the road, but to be fair, he'd already done it before...20 years before!
"Okay, right-hand side of the road, let's hope for right-hand turns only," said Dan as he gripped the steering wheel.
"Ooh, I don't think I like being the passenger on this side of the car, Dan," I said. "It's like being on a roller coaster, and I've got no control of where I'm going. Aaarrggh, the kerb, the kerb, move away from the kerb!!"
"Ha ha ha ha. Oh shit, I need to remember to look for the pedestrians. Where are we going? Oh no, I've got to turn left. Can you kids be quiet?!"
First stop was Canadian Tire, which is kind of like Supercheap Auto meets Kmart but without the clothes. We needed to buy a chilly bin that was big enough to hold the essentials but small enough to fit in the boot of our smaller-than-planned car. We also grabbed some cheap sleeping bags and a picnic set of plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery. We weren't sure of what our accommodations would be over the next four months, so best to be prepared, although we didn't buy any cooking apparatus yet.
So, off we went to Whistler! Nothing like learning to drive a brand new car on the other side of the road by going on a windy, at times rather narrow, climbing road, for over two hours!
Everything seems massive - the hills and mountains, the lakes, the bridges, and the other vehicles. The views were amazing for the whole journey, and our car swerved a bit from time to time as Dan dared a glimpse of the scenery too! I gripped the armrest a fair bit as I adjusted to being a passenger in the driver's position.
We checked into our bed at Fireside Lodge around 5pm, made dinner in their incredibly well-kitted out kitchen, and watched a hummingbird out the dining room window!
Tears (Alex) and tantrums (Abi) over who was sleeping in which bed. You'd think that after sharing a bed for the last week, that their own bed would be welcomed, not fought over! Comfy bed, but super thin walls, and people kept checking in until 11pm.
Day 8 - the Blackcomb/Whistler gondola. Today is Canada Day, their national public holiday, which has certainly made accommodation hard to find, and pricey when you do. Another novice thing, not checking on holidays when only booking one night at a time...
Man, these mountains are HUGE! I'd checked the weather, and despite it being a lovely, warm, sunny day at ground level, the mountain was going to be a high of 10°C. Abi and I quickly changed into some trousers, while Dan ("legs don't get cold") and Alex stayed in shorts.
We got the gondola ticket up Blackcomb, then the Peak2Peak gondola across to Whistler. And while there, got the extra high chair lift (warm bums, but white-knuckles for me "STAY STILL!!!") to The Top of The World and walked across the Cloudraker Skybridge (steel grid see-through swing bridge) to the Raven's Eye. I was gripping the railing with that one, as it swayed a bit in the wind.
What a phenomenal experience! So high. So very, very high. And rather chilly in the wind, with numb fingers worried about dropping cameras! The Peak2Peak is 4.4km long, and takes about 11 minutes to cross between Whistler and Blackcomb. 'We' decided that rather than take the chairlift (rather steep, quite high above the rocks) back to the gondola, we would walk the path instead, as it not only got the kids moving "we don't want to walk, we want to go back on the chairlift" but it meant we got to see different views. The fact it was 3km and took us 45 minutes was irrelevant. Everybody slipped a little on the loose gravel, and just as I was congratulating myself on being the most nimble-footed, I slipped and did it most spectacularly compared to the rest of my family. Don't worry, I saved my face and camera with my knees. Luckily my trousers didn't rip, just a bit of skin missing and a bit of bruising, and I'm sure direct impact to the soft, squishy bits below my kneecaps won't affect them (right?).
"Are you okay?", asked Dan as he heard my slip continue past the usual duration. "Most people fall backwards, why are you on your knees?"
Words and photographs cannot do the views from these mountains any justice at all. They simply must be seen. The peace (when we had any, bloody kids, whose idea was it to bring them along?) was sublime. We could have stayed there all day, just sitting on a sun-warmed rock, doing nothing more strenuous than breathing.
But alas, our moaning children meant we couldn't stay, so went back across the Peak2Peak and down Blackcomb, and had a wander around Whistler village, which was something out of a fairytale! We could only imagine how magical it must look at winter, all covered in snow.
We then began a stressful drive through really windy hills for 94km. I say 'we' but it was still Dan driving! Again and again, we were made to feel minute against the backdrop of the mountains surrounding us. It reminded us a bit of Milford Sound, but just bigger, and closer, and longer.
We didn't get to our motel in Clinton (a drive-through town if ever there was) until around 7pm, so a late dinner and later bed for the kids. The room was basic, the beds comfy enough, the shower hot, but dear god, the air conditioner sounded like a freight train so it got turned off and our room quickly became an oven. Luckily for us, we got to spend the night listening to the neighbour's air conditioner, and our fridge clicking on and off, with the combined symphony a high-pitched whine of a jet plane, a mid-range whirring, and a low wa-wa-wa thrumming. The kids didn't get to sleep until just before 10:30, Dan and I around 11:30, and then at 1:15am Alex turned the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom light on because he'd had a nose bleed, which was all over his pillow and the sheets. For f*ck's sake! Nothing like trying to clean linen and a pillow in a tiny sink with nothing but the soap to wash your hands. Went back to bed praying we wouldn't get charged some ridiculous cleaning fee.
Day 9 - Clinton to Kamloops. This wasn't a very long drive, which was a nice change! Both Alex and Abi (and I guess us, too) have been wanting to see bears since there are signs EVERYWHERE warning about them. But unless we go camping or hiking in the woods, we're not likely to encounter any. Next best thing is B.C. Wildlife Park to look at their orphaned and rescued collection of grizzlies, black bears, arctic wolves, and birds of prey, amongst other animals.
The grizzly bears were much smaller than we had imagined, but their claws were still fear-worthy. Their black bear (which was disappointingly brown, as it turns out black bears come in a range of colours), was unfortunately too far away to see well. But we did see their white Kermode bear (a subspecies of the black bear), with a recessive gene that makes it's fur white! There is only one in captivity anywhere, and only around 100-500 in the wild, so quite special to see!
The arctic wolf was beautiful and looked just like a friendly, white dog. The bald eagle was also impressive. Did you know that the screech you hear on every TV show and movie where there is a bald eagle flying over the plains or Grand Canyon, is actually that of a red-tailed hawk, and not a bald eagle at all? Their call is instead more like a 'laugh' and therefore nowhere near as impressive.
Day 10 - Kamloops again. We decided to stay another day here, just to give us a bit longer to find somewhere to stay for the next few nights, and also to get some laundry done. The downside to packing light is not having many changes of clothes before they inevitably need washed.
Laundry didn't take too long, but it took the help from TWO men to open the tumble dryer!
We then spent the rest of the afternoon back at the motel, planning the next few days' trip and sorting out our accommodation. We remain hopeful the prices will drop at some point, but for now we just keep hitting the highest prices wherever we go. Next major stop is Calgary, just in time for their annual Stampede (rodeo shows and evening entertainment), and the prices jump about $600!!
Late afternoon we were all done and the kids were soooo over being stuck in a room, and then being made to do work on their Chromebooks. We went to Kamloops Riverside Park, and found a phenomenal water splash park that had only opened a month beforehand. The kids had so much fun!
As it was such a lovely afternoon we decided to finish our leftover pizza dinner from yesterday back at the park, in time for their free Music in the Park. Every night from 1 July to 31 August, from 7-8:30pm, they have different local musicians and bands playing. So awesome!
Day 11 - Kamloops to Revelstoke. This wasn't a direct route (which would only have taken a couple of hours) but a sightseeing one.
We first went through a big-small town called Merritt, to get to Lower Nicola (where Dan and I had lots of adult giggles about 'entering' and 'exiting'). Nicola-Thompson is the name of the region, so there were loads of Nicola-this's and Nicola-thats everywhere!
We then swung back up to go through Kelowna, a major wine-making area. It was rather hot at 27°C and no wind, a rather oppressive heat, but only a UV of 4. After Kelowna we drove up alongside Okanagan Lake through Vernon, admiring the VERY large houses with their individual moorings. Past Shuswap into more provincial parks, and ended at our RV Campground for the night, about 30km from Revelstoke.
The caravan wasn't quite what we had expected, and we were glad to only have booked one night. It was clearly well, well used, with most of the cupboards missing panels, only one frying pan to cook with, half the lightbulbs for the lights, the kids' bunks had no ladder or curtain to shut them off, and our bed...well, the bottom mattress (which was ripped down both sides with stuffing falling out) had a second mattress on top of it (with blood stains), so I slept curled up on the two-seater couch in my sleeping bag, and Dan slept on top of the bed and sheets and duvet in his sleeping bag!
Day 12 - happy 44th birthday to me! We left fairly early in the morning as we had a long, beautiful drive ahead to our stay in Calgary. Passed through Revelstoke, skirted Mount Revelstoke National Park, then through Canyon Hot Springs, before getting to Roger's Pass in Glacier National Park. Wow! These mountain ranges sure know how to make one feel small.
Not long after that we went through a bunch of snowshed tunnels, designed to protect people driving on the highway from avalanches. We went up and around the mountain range, through a place called Golden, through Yoho National Park and then into Banff National Park.
I'd read that Lake Louise was a top sight to see, since Lake Moraine was no longer accessible by private car and you have to book shuttles instead. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed at not even being able to get out the car! We drove almost 10 minutes up the winding road to Lake Louise, in a long stream of traffic, only to find out at the top there was no parking, and we were promptly turned around by no less that 11 traffic people! Would it really have hurt to put a sign at the bottom of the hill?
Luckily for us, I'd stumbled across a website from a photographer who wrote about seven other places to see in Banff National Park. We stopped at a bridge next to an access road, and there we saw Castle Mountain. Nobody else, just us, and the sound of cars rumbling over the wooden plank bridge.
After Castle Mountain, we carried on the highway a bit further and came to Mount Rundle, a classic thrust-fault mountain. It is impossible to fathom the intensity of power needed to shift the sea-bed upwards into this striking angle. How terrifying it must have been to the dinosaurs!
Following on from this brief lookout point (despite all the incredible views along the highway, places to admire them are few and far between, so we can only assume residents become blasé), we left the mountains behind and entered the plains on the way into Calgary. What a juxtaposition those two environments are! From soaring heights and grandeur, to flat nothing as far as the eye can see.
Day 13 - Calgary to Red Deer. Today was a bit quieter, with less driving and more relaxing. We spent an hour or so at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, which is a wonderful park-like area that all 270 different species of birds are free to 'roam' (obviously!) and we walked around it enjoying the peace and different birdsongs.
"This is boring!"
"Shhhh."
"But I'm bored!"
"Shhhh!"
"When can we go?"
"SHHHH!!"
When we got to Red Deer and checked in, the kids were blown away by the fact there was a pool, with a slide, IN THE HOTEL!
Day 14 - Drumheller dinosaurs. Wow. Just, wow. The Royal Tyrrell Museum was well worth the almost two hour drive, on looooooong straight roads as far as the eye could see, to get there.
Almost every exhibit was the real thing, and the ones that were casts were clearly explained as to why. Most of the time it was because the actual fossil was too heavy to display, so a cast was used instead; sometimes it was because that particular dinosaur didn't yield enough bones locally. A lot of the exhibits were also cleverly displayed in the exact same layout as they were found by the palaeontologists, in their 'articulated' position.
"Black Beauty" is a fully articulated T Rex, with the original bones on display apart from the skull, which as well as being too heavy was too important to scientists to display. It has black bones due to the minerals in the surrounding rock as it fossilised. And yes, it is massive.
It was such an informative museum! We spent almost four hours walking around it, despite the kids complaining about how boring it was!
"How can they find this boring?" I asked Dan. "REAL fossils, REAL ones! Not models or fake ones, but REAL ones millions and millions of years old! If this doesn't fascinate them, I really don't know what would!"
"They said it's boring because they're not moving," he replied.
"...*speechless*..."
The humanoid skulls were also amazing to see, having last learned about them in Bursary biology. To see them in the 'flesh', so to speak, was fantastic. As was the display of evolutionary progression from prehistoric horse to what we have now, seeing the disappearance of the external toes and the transformation of the central one into today's hoof.
After we had toured the museum, we then went to an extra acitivity I'd booked, which was digging up REAL fossils using the same paleontological toools used in the field...a paint brush, a toothbrush, a dental scraper, and a leather worker's awl!
"Mummy, I've found one! Mummy, I've found one!", squealed Abi.
"That's so cool! Alex, that's not how you use the awl, scrape it forwards, not bang it like a hammer."
We were working on a table of Edmontosaurus leg and tail bones, and the other two tables had marine fossils such as ammonite, and a ' bone bed' which is a jumble of random bones. They were definitely real fossils, but they had been deemed unimportant for science by the palaeontologists and had been cast in a combination of dental plaster and sand, which when set, resembles the same properties of real sandstone and gives punters the chance to feel like they're on a dig.
For dinner tonight we forayed into the unknown world of microwave dinners - eek! Trying to find a gluten free one was tricky, but eventually successful after a bit of internet surfing. Dan, Alex, and I all tried different ones; they tasted okay, and will suffice when we have no cooking apparatus other than a microwave, but not something we'd want to live off.
Tomorrow we start our slow traverse of Alberta and Saskatchewan! Can't wait for the complaints...
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