End of Days

Well readers we are reaching the end of our trip.  We are both ready to not be living in a van.  The weather is dreary as we drive down south through Montana.  We stopped quickly to see a small limestone bluff that William Clarke made some observations at on their famous journey, but other than that is was driving south and south into Idaho.

We stopped in Idaho Falls to visit the location where Em’s maternal grandparents and aunt were killed in a train/car accident when Em’s mom was only two years old (Em’s mom was the only survivor of the accident). We had never been there before, and neither had Em’s mother since the accident. We bought some flowers, placed them by the tracks, and Em said a few words. Em was surprised by how emotional she felt given that she had never met them and that her mom was too young to have memories of them. But being there made the loss of never knowing them feel much more real.

After staying there for a little while, we left to drive to Pocatello, Idaho for the night.

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We hit the road and kept going south until we hit Utah.  We pretty much just drove through Utah through the day, stopping only to get gas.  We contemplated going for a swim in the Great Salt Lake but we didn’t.  We didn’t even drive through Salt Lake City, which we’ve been to before.

We ended up camping at a Walmart in Vernal, Utah.  We had some McDonalds hamburgers, at Em’s request, for dinner.  Gross junk food was yummy.  This Walmart closed at midnight but we slept there unmolested anyways.  It rained intermittently throughout the night.

We had picked this route (down south through Idaho and into Utah) to avoid driving through Wyoming again.  We have driven through those state’s horribly boring interstates one too many times and Jay is sick of it.  This route may be a little longer, but there is a lot more to see on the way (towns, mountain ranges, mountain passes, forests), instead of just barren landscapes.

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In the morning we woke and drove just about thirty miles to our final state border of the trip.  We were back in Colorado!  We have made it!  Like almost all Colorado entrance signs, we were in the middle of a dry flattish landscape on a beautiful partly sunny day.

We drove through Dinosaur, Craig, and Steamboat Springs before stopping for some lunch and a shower in the Routt National Forest, just west of Rabbit Ears pass.  But before we could get lunch going, a hail storm came through.  Luckily it didn’t damage the solar panel as it was only pea size and Jay was able to maneuver the panel under an Aspen tree.  The lightning was right on top of us.  We were unscathed fortunately.

After lunch we decided we would rather camp one more night than drive the four or so hours to Fort Collins.  So we drove a little ways, almost getting stuck in a few mud holes before finally finding a really nice camp spot on a forest service road, well away from the main highway and in a nice meadow.

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UP NEXT: We drive to Fort Collins and end our great van adventure

A Helena Respite

On our way down south through Montana, Em realized we were pretty close to Helena and decided she wanted to give her Uncle Matt and Aunt Margarete, who live in Helena, a call to see if we could stop by for a visit in the next day or so. Well, we got ahold of Uncle Matt on the phone and he was more than welcoming and said we should come on by that day if we could and that they would love to have us.  How nice is that? He gave us Aunt Margarete’s contact information to get in touch with her, and so we decided to abandon our Missoula plans and headed their way!

They were only about three or four hours from where we were. We drove by Missoula and arrived at their home late in the afternoon.  Molly’s Aunt Margarete greeted us along with their big Saint Bernard Rosie.  They have a really beautiful home and have turned their backyard into something of a mini amusement park.  Uncle Matt and their two boys (Em’s cousins) weren’t home yet, so the three of us decided to take the dogs on the walk to help get them to know each other.  That seemed to help as Rosie, who sometimes has problems with small dogs, accept Hogman. 

When Matt got off of work and got back home with their two boys, Mattie (pictured front in yellow) and Charles (pictured between his mom and dad) who had been at Mattie’s football practice, we piled into their minivan and headed off to dinner at a small pub called Chubby’s. They had some great Montana food like big honking steaks, and some Montana beer. Jay was true to the experience and ordered a huge steak, but Em went for the shrimp instead.

Everyone was pretty tired when we got back so we didn’t stay up very late. Uncle Matt had to go to back to work in the morning too. We had a few drinks and gabbed a little bit.  We stayed on the lower level in the nice guest bedroom, which has a bed and a bathroom and running water and climate control which was really nice for us.  

The next day we played in the back yard.  Uncle Matt had told Jay how to make the slip n slide, offering some lessons learned from his experience. He even had the grass graded so the lay of the land acted as a small valley to keep the sliders aimed right for the pond that’s built at the bottom of the hill.  Once you reach the bottom you fly off a three feet or so drop and land into the swimming/fish/duck pond.  We got the black plastic and water hose set up and the boys were off!  The length of the whole slide may have been thirty yards or so.  It was really fun.

For hours Charles, Mattie, and Jay took turns flying down the hill, and then a little later on figured out that it was fun to have the boys go first and Jay fly behind them, catch up with them and then all of us go crashing into the water.  Em took photos and videos, and then took her turn on the slip-n-slide too. 

We then transitioned back and forth between the slide, the pond jumping rock, the hot tub, and trampoline, and indoors playing board games and foosball.  Who could ask for anything more? The boys also are into the Simpsons, so we watched a couple episodes of of their DVD’s.  It was strange to watch episodes with the boys that we had watched when we were their age.  That show has been on a long time. 

 

For dinner that night Uncle Matt and Aunt Margarete made us a delicious fish diner with Salmon and Halibut they caught on a recent fishing trip to Alaska. Em contributed her balsamic glaze recipe for the salmon. Everything was really yummy! 

It seems the next couple days were a lot of the same.  It was great spending some quality time with Em’s family. Her cousins hadn’t seen us in about four years, and were too young to remember, but we think they will remember us now.  We shared stories and laughs with Aunt Margarete and Uncle Matt, goofed off with the kids,and just had a blast.  Aunt Margarete had yet to go down the slip-n-slide despite her boys asking her to. One morning, she finally agreed that “Okay, she’d give it a go.” Hoping that this would soon be forgotten, she procrastinated and put it off all day. Finally, at 10pm at night her boys were still at her to take her turn. So after getting herself nice and warmed up on some of that Canadian whiskey Jay bought (he drank it with her too), she decided to go for it! Uncle Matt and the boys were all still up, so we all went out into the yard and set the slip-n-slide back up for Aunt Margarete’s run. It was chilly out, but Aunt Margarete was a trooper, true to her word! Jay and Charles decided to slide with her too, while Em did the night photography with a flashlight. The rest of us had fun spectating the spectacle. Mattie was all wrapped up in flannel pants and a flannel robe (below in the chair), and had filled his pockets with pretzels for the event. Uncle Matt could barely contain his excitement (to the right). It was a hoot! Even Rosie joined in on the fun. Hoggle thought we were all nuts and stayed inside cuddled in blankets on the couch.

The rest of the night Jay, Em, and Aunt Margarete spent hanging out talking in the hot tub. The boys hung out with us for awhile until they succumbed to sleepiness. Uncle Matt and Charles were leaving at 1am to drive to Seattle to see a Bears preseason football game, so they definitely needed a few ZZZ’s before their big trip. Aunt Margarete, Jay, and Em ended up staying up late enough to see them off before we went to bed.

We were having such a good time it was hard for us to tear ourselves away and head back on our trip. But it was time for us to head out and get going to CO. We went out in Helena for a late lunch/early dinner with Aunt Margarete and Mattie before we filled the van back up and were off. (Thank you all for an awesome visit!!)  

We drove a little ways south on I15 and stopped at the national forest to camp.  We found a spot in the middle of a field.  Squatting over a hole, and the wet grass in the rain was a far cry from a warm comfortable dry bathroom, but that’s the life we lead in a van. It rained all night which gave a nice pleasing sound as we slept. 

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UP NEXT:   Thathathatha….that’s all folks!

Glacier National Park

In the morning we woke to nasty gray clouds.  We headed to the park anyway, maybe the weather would clear.  We stopped at the visitor center and checked the weather.  It said it would be sunny today so we decided to drive up the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

We’ve driven it before and it never ceases to amaze.  It’s probably the best road in any national park, and is probably worth going to Glacier even if driving around on this road is the only thing you have time to do.  Em was lucky enough to be the passenger, so she got the full enjoyment of the view. The road is built on the side of a cliff, and when you look down there is about a 4,000 to 5,000 foot drop into the vast valley below. There are waterfalls and creeks – it is truly amazing. We saw a mountain goat running alongside the road looking quite panicked, poor guy. He definitely did not want to be there. The further we drove the more the clouds seem to break up, and by the time we got to the top at Logan Pass it was sparsely cloudy. But there was no parking at all. Rangers were turning people away from the parking lot.  We drove around and looked for some parking before driving about a mile down the hill to a pull-off to eat some lunch.

Jay was wanting to do a hike at Logan Pass. Em had planned on hiking some of it with him, but since there was no where to park the only option was for her to drop Jay off at Logan Pass. So that is what she did and then she and Hoggle had to drive back down. Jay would take the shuttle back down. She got behind this ridiculous person on the way down who was coming to a complete stop at every single curve in the road, letting everyone in the other lane going up the road pass by him before he was willing to venture around the curve. It was like he thought we were on a one lane road even though it is a regular sized two lane road and there was plenty of room. After a few incidents of this Em started blaring her horn at him, and fortunately he finally stopped doing it.

Since it was already later in the afternoon, Jay decided to go on the Hidden Lake hike (6+ miles) instead of the Highline Trail (11 miles).  The first part of the trail was packed, as this is probably the most popular trail in the park.  So popular it’s a boardwalk the most of the way to the viewpoint of HIdden Lake.  Even with all the crowds the views are pretty amazing.  The mountains of Glacier NP are unlike any other in the States.

But after you walk just a little past the first lookout the crowds drop tremendously and the views get better.  Jay saw a mountain goat family on the way down to the lake.  How cute.  At the lake he found the water to be pleasantly cool.  Much warmer than a lot of the lakes we’ve been in.  So of course he took a dip.  After drying off he explored the lake area, read a little bit, and headed back up to Logan Pass.

The shuttle was a nightmare.  There was not enough buses for everybody;  it took probably an hour and a half just to get on a bus.  With the hour plus drive down Jay didn’t get back to the van until around 7:30 or so.  In time to eat some dinner and go back to our forest service road.  This time we were able to find a pretty decent spot.  And Hoggle did not once roll in poop.  Success!

Back in the USA!

After leaving Yoho National Park we stopped in Golding, British Columbia and got some lunch.  Em, decided to get a BLT with egg on it, and was perplexed to see how much it cost relative to the other menu items.  Well when this BLT came out it was actually a bacon cheeseburger topped with a fried egg and onion rings.  For some reason the menu failed to mention the huge beef patty involved in the sandwich. This is something she would never normally order and it was funny to see her with that big honkin’ thing in front of her. She dutifully dug in and ate half of the crazy burger and most of the onion rings, but Jay had to finish up the second half of the burger for her. 

We drove south from there on BC Hwy 39 until we got tired of driving and found some public land that was some type of prairie.  We drove over the cattle gate and found a spot off a rutted dirt road in the middle of a cow pasture.  They were mooing at us all evening.  The most exhilarating event of the evening is when we were all sitting in the van and Hoggle decides he wants to go out.  Jay lets him down and he immediately runs from the van and towards a giant cow.  He chases it away barking furiously, and the cows run away from him!  Jay is yelling at him to stop, which luckily he did before the cows decided they could stomp the crap out of him.

The cows didn’t moo too much during the night so we got some pretty good sleep.  It was nice being back in the van.  We left in the morning and drove about an hour south until we arrived at the US/Canadian border.  Jay stopped in at the duty free shop and bought some whiskey before we headed on over.  This time the border guard was nice to us, unlike the last time we entered the US from Canada, and sent us back home to good ‘ol ‘Merica!  And Big Sky Country, Montana.

We drove south on US Hwy 39 for a while before we headed West to take a quick detour at Glacier National Park.  This will be the last big thing we see on our trip.  We first stopped to do laundry and get some lunch in Columbia, MT.  We then hit the road and found a campsite on a grass/brush/tree road (it couldn’t even be called a dirt road).  We had to fold in the mirrors to fit between some small trees, and had to do a upwards of twenty point turn to get the van turned around before we finally settled on a spot.  We hung around a bit and were about to make the bed when Hoggle comes strolling up covered in poop.

Hoggle loves rolling in poop and dead smelly things.  This poop was especially gooshy and It was all over his harness mostly, but a lot was on his neck too.  We immediately filled up the wash basin and gave him a bath and rinsed his harness.  Nasty dog.  We then started to make the bed.  The first step was to unload all our clean laundry. As we finished unpacking it, we quickly realized we had left half of it in the second drier back at the laundromat in Columbia. Shit! So Jay had to navigate the van back through the crazy trees to get back to the road. Fortunately it was only about 10 miles back to the laundromat so we drove back.

Em luckily found the laundry still there, and we headed back toward the forest.  Hoggle still stunk so we gave him a second bath with lots and lots of soap.  This time it seemed to do the trick.  We drove around more and more dirt roads until we finally found another spot to camp.  We made some burritos and settled to bed.  It was a long, irksome day. But on the bright side, there was no smell of mouse decay in the van so he must have just run away somewhere in Canada. Maybe he was just wanting to be an expatriate and was looking for a ride. Good luck to you little mouse. You probably cost us about $250 in hotel fees, so we hope it was worth it for you.

Icefields Parkway

After Mt Robson we headed back east into Jasper National Park again to go visit the southern part of it.  We stopped at the town to pick up some groceries and then turned south on Hwy 93A.  This turn south marks the homestretch of our trip.  It’s all going south through the Rockies all the way to Colorado (it won’t be a very long trip though).

We drove up the road to Mt Edith Cavell, a really tall peak that has a few glaciers hanging off of it.  Jay went for a short hike up into the meadows near the peak, but the haze was bad so it wasn’t really worth it.  There must be wildfires burning everywhere.  It might be hard to imagine, but even Jay is starting to have his fill of hiking amidst beautiful mountains, glaciers, meadows, waterfalls, etc…. This hike wasn’t all that thrilling.  Even he is starting to tire of being on the road. 

We drove back down to the valley and on the way stopped at Cavell Lake so Jay could take a swim.  The water was really cold, one of the colder lakes we’ve been in.  It was invigorating though. He did his signature crooked handstand for the camera. After that we found a campground.  And we found out that rednecks inhabit Canada as well.  A  giant dually diesel pickup truck with a huge trailer in tow pulled up.  They backed into their spot and their three kids and three dogs piled up.  The dad wore a sleeveless Coors shirt and a camo baseball hat on.  It was awesome, just like being at home.  The only difference is their camp chairs had Canadian flag patterns to them. 

It was then off to bed in the tent with hopes of catching that damn mouse.  But we didn’t. For the third day in a row we didn’t catch it and it didn’t eat the food out of our traps. We figured either its dead in the walls, it ran away, or it isn’t hungry right now and will come out and bite our toes later.  Most likely it died.  So we’re going to move back into our van and hope it doesn’t start stinking like decay. 

We packed up and continued to drive south.  We stopped quickly at Athabasca Falls, which looked pretty awesome from the road.  It was a busy road-side attraction, but worth it  The falls weren’t tall, but were a torrent of water flowing through some crevices. Amazing how powerful water is when squeezed into a small outlet like that.

We continued south until we hit Columbia Icefield and the Athabasca Glacier.  When we got out of the van it was much cooler and windy.  The wind, as it goes over the mountains, and crosses the icefields and glaciers, cools significantly.  The effect is, when we hiked near the toe of the glacier, we get blasted with cold icy  air. Hoggle hated it.  Em thought it sucked too. Jay loved it so much he wanted to build a summer home there. 

Most of the trail was under ice just a couple of decades ago.  The glaciers are receding rapidly here.  They have signs that mark the year of the glacier’s progress.  As we passed 1992, we saw that the glacier is hundreds of feet up the valley.  It’s as if the globe is warming in some manner.  Weird.

Well we kept on trucking and stopped at Peyto Lake for a quick view.  Another beautiful glacier fed teal lake. Wish we had more of those in Colorado Then we left and found a campsite.  We’re going to stay in the van tonight!

 

 

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First night back in the van and not crammed into the tent was a nice change! No sign of mousy. We got up and headed to join the throngs of people at Lake Louise in Banff National Park.  It was incredibly crowded.  And the weather was nasty.  So we took a look and then left in a hurry.  Someone was waiting for our parking space as we pulled out – the huge lot was completely filled. We left and drove West to Yoho National Park, but we just drove through because the weather was even worse. There was so little visibility that any mountain hikes wouldn’t be worthwhile, even to Jay. He had to go back on his “any hike, anywhere, in any condition, should be done” motto. Jay checked with a visitor’s center and found out the weather was supposed to be bad and rainy  for the next week. So he decided he wanted to go ahead and start heading on down to Montana. Em told him “Don’t leave early on my account. You still have time left. We can stay and you can devastate yourself with all the hikes you want,” but Jay  declined. So that marked the end of our time in the Canadian Rockies.

Jay’s Time at Mt Robson and Em’s Time Off

Since one backpack trip Jay has been wanting to do before we even started this trip was at Mt Robson, but we still hadn’t killed the mouse yet, we decided Em would stay in a hotel while Jay went backpacking.  So we drove back west to Mt Robson Provincial Park where Jay picked up an overnight permit, not always an easy thing to do at “the most popular trail in the Canadian Rockies.”  After that we headed to the campground and set up camp there and took showers (which were not coin-op!).  Jay packed his bag and then we went to sleep, next to the busy highway – again, since the campground is near the road.  We figured out that Hwy 16 through Mt Robson and Jasper is one of the only mountain pass roads in the Canadian Rockies, so it gets a lot of truck traffic.

The next morning we woke up early (Hoggle), and we drove to the trailhead.  Jay slung his backpack over his shoulders and was off on the 19km (12 mile) trek to Berg Lake, at the foot of Mt Robson and its Berg Glacier.  The trail starts off following the blue rushing Robson River up the valley until it hits Kinney Lake at 5km.  The lake is like all others around here, a beautiful teal color.

 

The trail then climbs through the Valley of a Thousand Falls, where water falls across the steep glacial carved valley fall thousands of feet and a few that the Robson River makes just next to the trail.  All of them are pretty amazing, but Emperor Falls near the top of the valley was the most unique.  The river falls over a cliff and hits a rock about 3/4 up the face of the cliff and most of the water is ejected horizontal from the cliff.  It makes for quite a unique falls.  And the fact that the water hits a relatively flat section of rock/earth means you can walk right up next to it.  Which is what Jay did, taking a couple of self portraits as the falls mist and rain over him.

 

After Emperor Falls the trail gets to the Berg Lake Valley and starts to follow the Robson River.  With about 2km to go the trail enters open terrain where it passes through a rock fall and then onto the rock bed that the Robson River makes as it braids its way through the flat valley.  During spring floods the river takes many different courses through the flat valley, creating a wide open rock “prairie.”  A few braids still remain during the summer.

Then the trail makes it to Berg Lake and Marmot campground, where Jay is going to camp.  Berg Lake is named for icebergs that the Berg glacier deposits in the lake.  Jay saw one of those bergs there.  Jay set up his tent and rested his feet by soaking them in the cold lake water.  Then he took off on a day hike up the lake shore a couple of kilometers to take some pictures and see more of the glaciers.

Jay did some walking around in the mud, creeks, and other things like look at the clouds and listen to the cracks of the glacial ice giving way up on the mountain, which sounds exactly like thunder.  It’s a neat thing to hear.  One time he even got to see a chunk of ice and snow break off and fall down the mountain.  The snow and ice flow just like water would.

Jay wanted to stick around the north shore of the lake, about 2km from his campsite to watch the sunset, so he brought his stove and made dinner on a rock at Berg Lake.  A pretty awesome spot to make some prepackaged lentils and pepperoni sticks.

 

 

  

After the sunset Jay walked back in the dusk 2km to his campsite.  This time of day is the ideal time to come across bears, and this being black and grizzly territory, he decided to sing aloud to warn bears of the presence of his delicious juicy flesh.

Well all was fine and Jay slept only to wake up to gray skies and the smallest of drizzles.  After dozing around in the tent he paced up and headed out.  Em wasn’t going to meet Jay until 6pm, and it would take him much less time to get down there he needed.  So he decided to rest a lot and explore various things along the trail including a large glacier tarn, a crystal clear swamp, and waterfalls.

At lunch at one of the shelters along the trail he met a couple from Belgium, Katerina and Manu.  They were cycling from Prudoe Bay, Alaska (the very tip top of the state) all the way down to Mexico.  They chatted for a while and Jay offered to host them in Fort Collins if they come through.  Hopefully they will!

When Jay got to Kinney Lake he was hot and sweaty from the last two days so he decided to take a dip in the water.  It was cold, but pretty bearable for glacier run-off once you got in for a few minutes.   Once he had his feel it was on to the final stretch of the hike.  He met Em at the trailhead at about 5:30 and all was right with the world.

 

 

We jumped in the van and decided to try to find a spot on a dirt road just east of the park.  After driving around a while we finally found a nice spot in a meadow with Mt Robson and more Canadian Rockies out in the distant.  Quite a place to take a shower (Jay) and set up a tent (Em) and try to kill a mouse.

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Em’s Time Off

Em mostly relaxed in the A/C at the Alpine Inn in Valemount and took lots of showers while Jay was backpacking, but she did go see some spawning salmon in a creek there in town. There was a guy doing a talk about them, and Em was lucky enough to show up at the right time to hear some of it. The salmon swim from the ocean, up the river to this exact spot in the creek to lay their eggs every year. The females work hard for over a week digging with their tails to form a spot for their eggs. The males all hang back behind them, and only come up to fertilize the eggs. It was something else to watch the fish constantly swimming against the current to stay in one spot to lay and fertilize the eggs, and to realize that they swam that whole way against the current. If they stopped swimming for even an instant they started getting washed back up the creek. And all of them were on borrowed time. The speaker explained that their bodies were now chemically imbalanced from going from salt to freshwater, and their skin had become soft and it basically sounded like they were rotting while still alive. He said that they often break off their dorsal fins on tree branches or rocks on the journey because this imbalance makes their skin just break and flake off so easily. Indeed, Em saw several crushed dorsal fins with bones sticking out of them. But the fish carried on as though nothing were wrong – on their mission to complete their lifecycles. Em had heard about the lifecycle of salmon before, but it was one thing to hear about it, and quite another to witness this stage of it. It’s amazing what these fish go through to reproduce. It’s a non-stop tortuous suicide mission. Em simultaneously felt bad for the fish, and was in awe of them.  It was something to behold for sure.

Jasper National Park–Northern Section

We drove East and entered Jasper National Park and, at the same time, Alberta.  The Jasper National Park sign (below) was the worst we’ve seen, it looked like a construction information sign.  Step it up Canada! 

 

 

 

It was clear when we got to the entrance gate that they should have had plenty of money to pay for a more interesting park sign. When the lady said $19 PER DAY we were floored.  And we thought US National Parks were a little expensive.  Well we ponied up and paid for two days and headed toward the town of Jasper.  We had seen that all the campgrounds were full except for overflow camping at one site so we headed there before it filled up.

When we got there we saw a giant field with people free-for-alling anywhere they could find a flat spot.  There were RVs everywhere. It cost another $15 to camp there. We pitched our tent and drove north to the Miette Hot Springs.  On the way we were stopped on the side of the road by people taking pictures of a black bear and her cubs eating on the side of the road.  You can see said black bear’s butt in this picture. Because of the no pets policy at the hot springs (this nicely seems to be an exception, Canada national parks seem to be pretty dog friendly overall, unlike US national parks) Em went alone for a dip in the springs.  Other than a kid pooping in one of the pools she had a good time, and the hot water helped loosen up her sore neck a little. The hot springs was one of the few things that didn’t cost an arm and a leg so far in Canada, only $6.

Jay stayed with Hoggle and went for a short walk to see the source of the springs, which were very sulphury.  Jay cooked dinner (tortellini) while Em was soaking and had a beer.  When she got back the pasta and beer made Jay really tired so he decided not to soak and we just headed back to camp.  We found when we got back that the place had filled with even more RVs.  But everyone was quiet, except the freight train, through the night.  Though the train wasn’t too loud where we were, this night. We set some traps up for the mouse before heading to bed in the tent.

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We awoke to sunny skies, no sign of our friend/enemy Ralphie the mouse, and decided to head to Maligne Lake for a boat cruise.  On our way we stopped in town to pick up some groceries.  Jay talked to the info desk too and found that a boat cruise was $60/person and renting a canoe was about $90/day.  Not worth the cost to us, but we went to the lake anyway. 

We first stopped at Maligne Canyon, a narrow limestone canyon (slot canyon really) cut by the river.  We couldn’t go down there because of the river, but apparently in winter you can.  There is a tall loud waterfall in the canyon as well, pretty cool.

 

On the way we saw some big horn sheep at a salt lick on the side of the road.  That backed up traffic a little bit.  At the lake we parked at a trailhead and explored the shore for a while.  The clouds had rolled in and the mostly cloudy sky put a damper on the nice color of the lake.  It was still pretty though. 

 

 

Jay trotted out alone to do the Bald Hills hike, which climb the ridge to the west of the lake.  It was a decently long and steep hike to reach the summit.  On the ridge line up to the summit Jay saw marmots (a different species it appears from the ones in Colorado), chipmunks, and the elusive and hard to photograph Pica (a type of mouse).  The partly cloudy skies and the cool wind made the hike a little brisk, but nothing shorts and a sleeveless shirt couldn’t manage.

Jay found the van locked up and Em missing when he got back.  He ran out of water with a couple of kilometers to go so he sat thirsty reading his book (which he managed to fish out of the open window of the van). 

When Em returned shortly thereafter, having taken Hoggle for a quick walk, we all packed up and headed back for the camp site. We saw an elk on the way back. Since it was well past when the guard leaves to check people in, we just drove into the “campground,”  aka field for free this time and found a nice spot under the trees with a picnic table. The place was all but empty this time.  Only a handful of RVs were there, as opposed to nearly 100 yesterday. Sunday vs. Saturday night we guess.

We ate some dinner and played chase with Hoggle around the van.  He was really into it.  Then we set our mouse traps and hit the hay.  And we fully discovered the camping next to a major Canadian Hwy and the most active freight train line we’ve ever heard wasn’t good idea. This road and rail were just through the trees, and when the trains come once every thirty minutes or so it’s loud.  You can’t ignore it loud.  The ground shakes a little bit.  It was noisy as hell. And even noisier in the tent than it would have been in the van.

Jay probably didn’t get to sleep until about 3am when utter exhaustion finally took over.  We both barely slept that night.  But we woke up at around 8am or so by Hoggle; so it wasn’t too too bad.  We were greeted by a park service worker telling us she was locking the gate at 11am so beat it.  So we did. The mouse took some of the bait, but did not get caught in any of the traps. Sly devil. We had only set about 8 of them, four different types, just to cover our bases. And we are no novice mice catchers – we’ve dealt with the little buggers before. This guy is good. And we were finding that he only seems to be active every other night, which means every night he takes bait and doesn’t get caught – it’s at least two more nights for us in the tent. Bummer.

We went back to Jasper the town to pick up some more groceries and then drove back toward Mt Robson park.   

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UP NEXT: Same shit, different day.

Whistler, Dickery, Dock

The mouse ran up the clock

Then Em fell down and broke her crown

Whistler, Dickery, Dock

Jay and Em went to Starbucks in the morning for some more internet research and planning. Em decided that she is about ready to end this trip for herself. She and Jay talked the options over. Em was willing to rent a car and head down to Colorado solo, but Jay preferred for us to stay together through to the bitter end. So we came to the deal of two more weeks to explore the national parks in Canada, and then heading on back to Colorado after that. So we left the Starbucks and drove north on Hwy 99 toward Whistler Canada, a famous ski resort that hosted the Winter Olympics in 2010. The town and most of the highway is located in the Coastal Range of mountains. Jay pulled over at a short hike for Brandywine Falls. While the falls were beautiful, we’ve seen so many beautiful things in nature its starting not to register anymore for either of us.

In town we stopped at a walk called the train wreck, where a train wrecked years ago and they didn’t clean it up.  Now it’s a canvas for graffiti artists.  But we didn’t even make it to the train wreck before turning back because it was farther than we thought, and we didn’t know how far.  Instead we went to the Whistler Brewery for a grapefruit ale which was a nice beer for a hot summer day.  And that was it, we found a place to camp on a British Columbia forest service road.  We had to cross the suspect rotten-wood topped bridge (pictured below) before we found a spot amongst the railroad tracks to take showers, cook dinner, and sleep.

As we were laying in the dark drifting off to sleep, Em felt something crawl over the top of her arm. She squealed a little and jumped up, startling Jay awake. He turned on the lights right away, and we looked around the van and in the bed sheets for any culprits and found nothing. Jay said, “There are some little small bugs up at the lights.” Em said, “No it was definitely not a small little bug. Possibly it could have been like a huge moth flapping its wings on me, but not a little bug like that.” We couldn’t find any moths or any signs of anything else. Em knew she had been wide awake and not imagined it, but she told herself maybe it was just something fluky and we went back to sleep. Or maybe she was just losing her mind.

 

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The next day we kept heading north and stopped at Nairin Falls quickly.  Em didn’t even consider doing the hike, and Jay was ambivalent. He debated with himself about whether or not it was worth it for about five minutes after pulling into the parking lot. Em was no help, telling him it was fine with her either way. Ultimately he decided he couldn’t pass it up in case it was the most awesome waterfall ever, so he went to Brandywine falls. Jay did the 1.5 km one way to see the falls which was cool. He had to drag Hoggle the whole way there for some reason. This was a walk-in-the-park for him. Though people kept saying “he doesn’t want to walk” in a judgmental you’re-a-bad-dog-owner tone. No, he’s just being stubborn because his mom is back in the van. Though at the waterfall two little girls liked him so much they wanted a picture with him. Hoggle should be a Hollywood movie star. When Jay got back Em asked how it was, he said, “Eh. Pretty.”

But the main attraction for the day was Joffry Lakes.  We parked the van at the crowded trailhead, in the shade. Em went to the lower lake that was only a 1/2 km away (pictured to the right), but was not interested in doing the 6km (3.7 miles) one way hike up the steep valley to see more lakes. All of the lakes were a beautiful teal blue characteristic of most, if not all, glacier fed Canadian Rocky lakes. In the bright sunlight it was even more so. It gets that color for the dissolved grains of rock in the water that the glacier grinds off the mountain on its trek downhill.

After the first lake it was a very steep hike up to the middle lake.  Jay huffed it there and found another teal blue lake with the glaciers and the mountain peaks even closer in the background (Picture below).  Onward around the lake a little upward the final Joffry lake is reached, with the glaciated mountain towering above the lake surface.  It reminded Jay a little of the Rob Roy Glacier Trek where Em and Jay got married, but instead of a wildflower meadow there was a teal blue lake (pictured bottom left).  It was quite stunning.

But as Jay was taking some of this last photos (at least it was good timing) the mirror on his NIkon D7000, really expensive camera, decided to stop working.  It was stuck in the up position and displayed an “Err” code on the LCD screen.  What the hell?  This is the second problem he’s had with this camera, the first was repaired under warranty.  Jay won’t be so lucky this time.  He expects much more from Nikon, and for anything that costs that much.  It’s only a couple of years old.  Jay’s dad has NIkons decades old that still function perfectly.  Jay’s older d40 that he got back in College still works great, even though he dropped it from waist height on to bare granite on the top of Blood Mountain, GA. Luckily Jay brought that old d40 with him so he has another camera to take pictures.

And on the way down Jay was still feeling soreness in his left knee that he’s had since backpacking in the North Cascades about a week ago. But it wasn’t too bad.  And with trekking poles it’s not a big deal.

When Jay got back to the parking lot the van was locked and Em was gone.  ?????  So as he was walking toward the first lake where he thought she might be she appeared.  How lucky.  We all went back to the first lake because Jay wanted to swim to get all the sweat off.  Hoggle did not want to go down to the lake again.  But Jay carried him half way until he figured he did want to go.

When we got there Jay found as Em had said that the water, at least on the shore, was not too cold.  As Jay was taking off his shirt and shoes the folks next to us seem amazed that he was going to get in.  Little did they know we’d be jumping in cold water for months now.  This was nothing.

But once Jay waded out into the deeper waters it did get colder, but not any colder than what we’d been in before. The people even watched him get in, wondering if he would actually do it.

The mouse ran up the clock…

Well, we walked back to the van and were off to find a campsite.  We found a great spot on the side of the road next to a river.  We made some dinner and went to bed.  As we were reading in bed, we heard some pots rattling in the back. Weird. Jay went back there and checked it out, saw nothing. Then we turned off the lights and went to bed. After some time had passed Em started hearing definite noises of something moving about near her.  We turned on the light to see a nasty big MOUSE crawling back into our kitchen cupboard and into the wall!!!!!!

And all of events over the past several days started making sense. The “bug” that crawled on Em’s arm in the dark the night before.  All the noises in the van lately that we wrote off as the van settling as it cooled down.  Hoggle freaking out at that camp spot when it was just him and Em, sticking his nose into the cabinet that this mouse this crawled into. We figured it must have hitch hiked with Jay into the van – he tent camped in a mouse infested spot about a week ago, right before we went to the North Cascades.  How could a mouse be living in a van with two people and a hound dog for a week?! Hoggle!!! We are disappointed in you! Aren’t you supposed to be a rodent hunting dog??

Well there was no way we could sleep in the van until that mouse was gone. Not with it crawling all over us at night. We’re aware that living with mice crawling on you is a reality for a lot of people in bad situation, but we’re not used to it or okay with it.  Em had a serious case of the heebie jeebies and jumped multiple times anytime anything touched her unexpectedly in the van (like Hoggle’s tail) as we got ready to drive off.  We’ve had mice in our rental houses before. But not in such close quarters. So we started driving to the next town, Lillooet, in hopes of finding a hotel that had a vacancy. During the drive Jay commented that maybe we should just drive the van into a lake when the trip is finished, “let’s just take it up to Horsetooth Reservoir and drive it on in.” Em found this prospect hilarious and couldn’t help but giggle elatedly for about it for several minutes. We got to Lilloet and found a “cheap” motel for $100 to spend what was rest of the night. Jay didn’t mention Hoggle – probably smart – so we had to sneak him in in his stroller. We checked in around 1 AM. The room was muggy and had painted cinder block walls, which Em found comforting. No mice were going to be crawling out of those. We turned on the AC, Em took a shower to wash off  and calm down her mouse heebie jeebies, and then we finally went to bed.

Em fell down and broke her crown…

We did take advantage of the hotel and took showers and washed Hoggle in the morning. We also got some lunch before heading out north.  While we were packing up the van, the 2×4 bed support board was propped up horizontally between the bench seats at knee height, but the bed wasn’t set up so the aisle was still open. Em was backing up to get the stroller into the van and she didn’t expect that board to be there. It immediately took out her knees such that she flipped backwards and caught her fall with the back of her head on the van floor. It happened so fast she didn’t even have time to make a sound or even try to slow the fall. She saw stars. All Jay saw was her feet suddenly in the air. It hurt; it definitely hurt. But more than that it just got to the core of her van living weariness. Jay went to get her some ice for her head. Laying on the floor, Em decided she was officially beyond ready for this trip to be over. Done. The van life has beaten her. She was giving up, waving her white flag – surrender, surrender.

But a deal’s a deal — Jay had one week and five days left, as agreed. Jay was ready to mush onwards, motivated by his strong desire to see more of the Canadian Rockies. Jay has admitted in the past that whenever he used to play the computer game “Oregon Trail” as a kid he would always set the pace at “Grueling” and all of his oxen would always die. Things don’t seem to have changed much since then, and Em could relate to those deceased digital oxen. She pulled herself up, dusted herself off (and found that she had been lying on top of Jay’s dirty underwear on the floor – super awesome), put the ice pack on the back of her head, and climbed into the passenger seat.

We continued on our drive northwards and found a store to buy some mouse traps. Jay was started feeling under the weather, with similar symptoms to our recent sickness with the body aches and nausea and such, so Em got him some Pepto and other “feel better” type things from Walmart and took over driving (part of the two week deal was that Jay would do the driving during those two weeks, but she wasn’t going to hold him to it while sick). Em drove for a couple hours, then we found a forest service road to camp. We set up our tent, unwilling to sleep in the van. Hoggle had a good time running around free of his leash, as always. We put part of our mattress in the tent so we had a comfortable bed at least. By that night Em’s neck muscles had all tightened up from her fall earlier and were very sore. Good times. At least Jay was feeling a bit better. We set all the mouse traps in the van, hopped into the tent, and hoped for the best.

In the morning our hopes were dashed, the mouse didn’t even touch any of the peanut butter we used as bait. More tent camping in our future. We packed up and headed north until we entered Mt Robson Provincial Park. The overnight backpack Jay really wanted to do was there, but the mouse complicated the situation. We only have one tent, and Jay would need it for backpacking. So instead we decided to head on to Jasper, which is nearby, keep trying to catch the mouse, and then come back later so Jay could backpack with the tent and Em could sleep in the mouse free van while he’s gone.

Vancouver, British Columbia: A Good Place to be Rich

We arrived in Vancouver on our way to our old friend, the Walmart, in search of a place to stay the night.  What we found was a small, crowded, un-level parking lot unsuitable for camping.  And a Walmart that wasn’t open 24 hrs. Jay toured the inside and while a lot was the same, it just wasn’t the same as those old familiar friends back home.  So we left to find the internet at a nearby Starbucks to do some camper van living research only to find on our way a side street behind the Canadian Tire (a cross between a home depot and Walmart) with four or five full size RVs and a couple of campervans parked on it.  We had found a home for the evening. Nice!  Lucky us.

Well we did go to Starbucks and use the internet to research our plans, and then rolled down the hill and found a nice spot to camp.  Because it was hot, we left all the doors open as we ate dinner and watched something on the laptop.  A security guard and a police officer passed us and didn’t say anything. I guess they don’t mind anyone living on the road there.  That’s cool.

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In the morning we headed to the Gastown district, where Vancouver  the city first started, for some lunch.  We didn’t pay for parking (you have to pay to park anywhere here) because we had no Canadian coins.  We figured we wouldn’t be paying in Vancouver parking tickets anyways. 

We ate at the most dog friendly restaurant we could find, meaning it had a porch you couldn’t bring a dog on, but at least it didn’t have a head high glass partition so we were able to have him right outside the grated railing.  We ordered lunch and were finding out just how expensive it is here.  Even with the exchange rate Vancouver is really expensive.  Jay paid sixteen bucks for a burnt Turkey club sandwich. And that didn’t even include his side order of soup, which added an extra $2.  And this place was touted as “wallet-friendly” in the review we read. Yikes! Em had some grilled fish with vegetables for the same price. The serving size was so small that she was still a little hungry afterwards.  Well that’s the last time we ate out in Vancouver. That night we had Walmart-bought hot dogs for dinner with some Kraft mac-n-cheese. 

At least four people stopped to take a picture of Hoggle in his stroller at lunch. People really seem to love seeing that. We wonder if they are tourists, and think we are locals and that this is what the “locals do” so they snap a photo. That’s what it seems like. But he is the cutest and bestest dog in the world so it makes sense.  After lunch we strolled around Gastown, shopped at some tourist shops and an especially fine Fine Scottish Imports store.  We also saw the famous steam powered clock, built by early Vancouverites to prevent people from sleeping on the warm steam vents on cold days.  On our way back to the van we also stopped by the statue of Gassy Jack, a famous saloon proprietor in the early days of Vancouver. Em thought he was so named because of flatulence, but Jay looked it up and it was because he tended to talk a big talk, or was “full of hot air” so to speak. 

We then hit the road for Stanley Park, the big famous city park in Vancouver.  Once there we found out we had to pay to park, at a city park!  $3.25 an hour.  What the hell?  It’s so expensive to do anything here.  Well we didn’t pay for parking. We just said screw it, let the Canadian police hunt us down for their parking money if we get a ticket.  We took Hoggle for a stroll through the really nice park to some totem poles.  Along the way we had some wild blackberries and saw the skyline of Vancouver from the water.  The totem poles were pretty cool to see, but they were all made in the modern age.  All the old ones are in museums.  We didn’t get a ticket, yes! And as we pulled away we saw we were parked right by the park police station. Hahaha.

 

Our last thing for the day was to go to Third Beach, at Stanley park, to see the Pacific Ocean for the last time.  

It was sunny and hot at Third Beach, plenty of people in the water, but not us.  We said our goodbyes and headed on. As we walked away we saw a sign that said “No dogs on beach, $2000 fine.” Damn Canada! People must be made of money around here. $2K for having your pup on the beach. Shit. Glad we didn’t get caught. We didn’t even know he wasn’t allowed. And get this – Vancouver is touted as one of the most dog-friendly cities in North America. In fact, it is Number One on several lists. Google it. Well, maybe it has dog-friendly components – but that was not our experience with Vancouver. Maybe other big cities are even less dog friendly.  San Francisco seemed friendlier to us, even with the whole Rosa Parks bus debacle.

After much discussion and research, we have sadly decided to forgo our trip to Vancouver Island, so that’s why this Third Beach excursion was our last Pacific Ocean viewing.  It was going to cost $170 round trip just to ride the ferry over there to Vancouver Island with our van. We bounced back and forth with a few ideas of not taking the van and trying to use public transportation, but ultimately just decided it wasn’t worth it to us to pay that much or deal with all those hassles just to get there, let alone the money we would spend once we were there. Em was really wanting to see Victoria, but the appeals of Victoria probably would have been hard to enjoy with Hoggle anyway. Bummer. Maybe another time. Not by van. Amazing how restrictive this life of nomadic freedom has turned out to be. If we had tons of money and no dog, we’d be good to go. 

After Third Beach we went back to our alley street behind Canadian Tire to bed down again and ate our cheap crappy hot dogs and macaroni from Walmart for dinner. We’re both getting pretty tired of all this business, especially Em who is pretty much over this trip altogether at this point. One bright point for Em though was finding out that the Canadian Walmart carries medium size cartons of juice – about one liter size – that don’t need to be refrigerated until opened. All the juice containers in the U.S. are usually single serving or too big for our van fridge so we haven’t had any for a long while. We bought like ten of them to stock up. Yay juice!!!!! It’s little victories in life… 

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UP NEXT: We’ve picked up an unwelcome hitchhiker and so we try to kill him…

Oh Canada!

On a sunny hot day in August we entered Canada.  We were expecting a real hassle from the border guards. But we had our passports and rabies vaccinations ready.  We waited in line for about twenty minutes before Jay pulled the van up to the customs toll-booth like window and handed over our passports.  He was sweating bullets, his nervousness written as plain as day across his face.  A ten year old could tell he had something to hide. 

Well it wasn’t that big of a deal.  But when we pulled up the border agent did tell Em to take off her sunglasses so she could get a good look.  She asked where we were going and for what purpose and how long we’d be staying.  And if we had any guns (no, the truth), alcohol (“no”), weapons such as mace or tasers – “no” and so on.  When we said we had no guns she said “Well I mean no offense but you’re from Tennessee so you must own some guns.”  Em laughed and responded we do have a shotgun but from our last time we tried to enter Canada with it, and failed, we didn’t bring us with it this time.  We live up to the Tennessee gun toting stereotype!  Hell yeah!

Well she let us pass and in we were! We stopped immediately at the visitors center and took our “Welcome to….” sign picture.  We met a man at the sign on a bike with a wiener dog in a basket on the back that told us “we should go to White Rock, eh?.  They have a promenade, eh?  And some other things, eh?”  We took his advice, eh. He was wearing a “I heart L.A.” t-shirt that was way too small and nearly showing his midriff. A great first Canadian to meet on our trip.

We drove down into the town and looked for about 15 minutes with no luck for parking until we spotted somebody leaving a spot in a small public parking lot.  As the car was leaving and Jay was pulling into the spot this man parked next to it pushed a wagon into the spot.  Clearly he knew we wanted it.  Jay rolled down the window and he walked all the way up to us and  said “my brother is coming to take this spot.”  Well we both respond, almost in unison “Well he’s not here now, and we are.”  With anger in his eyes he says, “he’s around the corner and will be here in a minute. It’s our spot.”  We both tell him “that’s pretty messed up.”  Jay wanted to fight for our spot but Em rightly said let’s move on.  But it got even worse.  Just to make sure we moved on, the man had his physically disabled, as-in confined to a motorized wheel chair, child to pull into the empty spot next to the wagon to guard it against us. That’s low. That’s even lower than pushing a disabled child out of a parking spot with your ‘97 Ford E150 bumper (which of course we did not do).  We couldn’t believe this guy, using his child’s disability to reserve a spot.  Jay yelled, not quite loudly, out the window with some colorful language that we didn’t think that was very right and left. 

Thankfully Em was there so Jay didn’t get in shouting match, or worse, within our first 20 minutes of being in Canada. The guy seemed like such an ass, there was no telling what he might do. His anger at us just for questioning him on his wagon move was super intense. We moved on and finally found a spot in the scorching hot sun.  We marched out to find a place to eat – Em was hungry.  To our dismay we began discovering that Vancouver and the surrounding area does not have dog friendly restaurant patios.  All the patios outside do not allow dogs in the area.  No where. The dogs can; however, sit outside of the patios. “Okay,” you’re thinking, “that’s not a big

Tall glass partition

deal.” Ah, but the patios are not your typical patios with the normal grated railings.  Almost all of them have full solid glass or wooden partitions. Tall fences, with no gaps to even attach a leash.  And many of the patios are raised several feet above the sidewalk as well. In fact, any patios that did have typical grated railings were raised at least 3 feet or more off the ground. So basically you are allowed to abandon your dog outside on the sidewalk to bake in the blazing hot sun and fuss and moan and jump and scratch trying to get to you while you eat. 

It was hot and we were hungry and now irritated.  What the hell Canada?  Well we decided to go back and get Hoggle’s stroller so we could chain him up outside of one of the patios for lunch.  At least he would be in some shade. It worked out. A poor lab was stuck outside the patio fence and jumping and barking and fussing at his owners all through their meal. What a dumb rule. We ate lunch at a Greek restaurant.  Em wanted to order an entire pitcher of Sangria, which we did.  But after drinking all that wine and sitting in the sun, we both were too tired to go anywhere after lunch so we just sat in the hot van laying around.

We finally went on our way toward Vancouver.  One difference between Canada and the U.S. is that you would never drive on a road named King George Parkway anywhere in the United States.  Which is what we did on our way to Vancouver.