RV Adventures

Yet another early wakeup greeted us the next morning, but once more the excitement of a change in location, set up and accomodation gave us that kick of energy we needed to head out into the cold and wet weather Vancouver had decided to hold off on unleashing until we left. We once more boarded a very unglamourous Greyhound Bus, lugging our bags into the damp undercarriage and lining up with a mixed bag of travellers and thrifty locals heading south.

A failed sleeping attempt and a border security officer with a sense of humour later ('You guys are way clean, where's the drugs? Is that a football full of heroin?') and we were back in the states once more. After meeting up with Harry's American friend Jay, we were on our way to Everett, just outside of Seattle to pick up our 25 Foot All American Recreational Vehicle a.k.a our our yet to be named RV.

After watching the cheesiest video in RV Instructional Briefing History (there's limited competition) we were given the keys and were on our way. To Walmart. We stocked up with a bounty of $1 TV Dinners, and all the pop culture reference snack foods we could find. After admiring our bounty, we were on our way, heading north to Kamloops on the other side of the border. Driving such a mammoth vehicle was slightly nerveracking in the early stages, especially when having to squeeze between multiple road trains. Driving at night in the rain didn't help our nerves, but with so many miles to cover, we were keen to some distance on the board early on.

After arriving in Kamloops we stayed in the graceful surrounds of a Walmart carpark. Whilst never seeing anything official, we had heard through travelling folklore that it was acceptable to park an RV overnight in Walmart carparks. Whilst there may have been a sign or two that explicitly denied this upon our arrival, the half dozen or so other RV's in the vicinity put us at ease as we settled in for the night.

We awoke early the next morning to the sound of shoppers picking up their groceries and decided we'd better get a move on. After a longer than planned diversion to Lake Shuswap (Google Maps is literally a poor man's GPS), we were on our way to Lake Louise, a hefty 441km drive away. After our standard late arrival, and somehow not realising we were driving a portable home, we were slightly concerned to find the RV Park near the Lake was booked out. In our defence, though, it seems fairly ingrained amongst the regular RV community that illegally camping on the side of roads is a huge no-no. As such, that side of things, in addition to wanting to hook up to electricity and water, drove our desire to stay somewhere legitimate. With that in mind, a chat to a local service station attendant allowed us to camp behind the service station.

Photo credit: Michael Farnell

With our “accomodation” sorted for the night, we headed along through the Banff National Park to take in Lake Louise at sunset. Much like the scenery ahead of us over the next few days, it's hard to avoid using cliché terms and an overabundance of adjectives to describe Lake Louise, other than to say that we collectively let out an 'Oh, wow.' upon getting to the viewpoint. The picture perfect postcard-esque mountains lake, boathouse all make up the kind of magical scene that couldn't be made more picturesque if someone designed it from scratch.

Lake Louise at Sunset

A 5am wakeup the next morning allowed us to once more take in the beauty of Lake Louise at sunrise, before heading to the equally as stunning Lake Moraine. The turquoise coloured lake (a result of glacial minerals), once more provided us with a sight to behold. Our early morning arrival also allowed us to explore a bit more in relative peace and quiet, free of a crowd of baby-boomers taking photos with iPads. It also allowed us plenty of time to get into the town of Banff.

Lake Moraine, Banff National Park

Despite the swathes of tourists swarming around the town, Banff was a great town to explore. Highlights included sampling icecream from “Cows' a company who reputable produce the world's best icecream (not sure if that's the case, but it was the best icecream I've ever had), catching a wild deer help itself to the vegetation in a random household's front lawn, and trekking up the Sulphur Mountain hot springs. For a laugh, we opted to shun our own bathers and instead chose to pay $1.90 to rent the 1920's-esque one piece bathers. Whilst it was only really for our own amusement, the 70 or so people also in the springs were a combination of shocked, appalled and entertained as we made our entrance. Apparently no-one else rents those things. After having our photo taken by complete strangers (I don't know how they'll explain that one in their photo album), and a refreshing dip, we were happy to call it a night.

Our 'get up' for the Hot Springs

A hike up Johnston Canynon the next day provided us with us with even more spectacular viewpoints of a series. After several days of spectacular scenery it's hard not to feel guilty about not getting as excited about the sights surrounding us. It's almost as if the bar needs to continue to be raised, and I've definitely felt a bit like a spoilt child. Regardless, I still enjoyed the cascading waterfalls and friendly chipmunks as we walked up through the winding canyon.

After speaking to a lot of people along the way and discussing our plans, we decided that instead of driving from Calgary across Saskwatchen to Winnipeg before ducking back across the border, we'd head across the border earlier and make our way through Montana and North Dakota. Whilst we'll never know what the route to Winnipeg would have been like, we were not disappointed by our decision to head south early, as wide open plains and rolling hills followed us through Southern Alberta. As a group of young travellers, the ultimate compliment across our travels we'll give a location is that our surroundings are “Windows Wallpaper” material, and it was quite clear that we were surrounded by such scenes.

Southern Alberta, Canada

The slightly lesser known Glacier National Park (in comparison to Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc) was a surprising and extremely rewarding gem for us. After driving up through incredibly highly elevated mountain ranges in geography that took me back to that of Switzerland, we made ourway to Logan Pass. Whilst the 6 degree celsius weather doesn't sound too cold, the wind chill factor had us all shivering in our boots (or, in my case the ever reliant $20 sneakers). The slippery hike up the Hidden Lake overlook provided us with a neverending panaroma of sub-alpine beauty, and encounters with mountain goats happily ambing merely metres away from us.

Glacier National Park

Driving through Montana

For a place we opted to go to on a whim and only looked into a day earlier, we couldn't have been more happy with how things panned out in our short stay in Montana. With a tight schedule, and having spent more time exploring North America's National Parks during the day, we headed off at 5pm from St Mary's to our planned destination for the night, Glasgow, near the North Dakota border, and a whopping 400 miles away. Armed with four drivers on a rotating shift, a top up of Walmart junk food, caffeinated beverages, and supreme slection of musical tunes, we pulled into the Scottish capital's namesake at about 1:30am. After a refuel (both with petrol and snack food), Mike and myself decided to keep on driving given the massive distnces needed to cover.

After pulling into side streets and parking lots in towns that aren't even marked on the map for me to find, we were finally able to find a secluded street where we felt confident enough to park overnight without waking up to our car on bricks, or towed. All up we had driven about 400 miles (640km), and with our trip to Fargo the next day, would drive well over 900 miles (1,440km) in two days.

As we journeyed on the next day toward Fargo, we drove through land reminiscent of cowboy and indian films (historically many battles were fought in the region), and would often have to slow down or stop to let buffalo pass through. After arriving in Fargo, we went for the usual Walmart accomodation, but not before checking out a college bar adjacent to the nearby North Dakota University,. After driving through a college suburb as stereotypical as it comes ('Frat houses' aplenty). We arrived at The Bison Turf. The typical college bar and was surpisingly full with a large amount of students, and we were extremely pleased to find 'pitchers' (slightly larger than jugs) were a mere $7.50 each. We experienced the true joy of renting an RV later, as we left the bar, walked 30 metres, got in our RV and started cooking some late night snacks.

After checking out what is amusingly referred to as “Downtown” Fargo, we left for Minneapolis/St Paul, the two twin cities of which the latter we would return our RV. With still a day a half of time to kill, we checked out the world famous 'Mall of America'. Officially the biggest mall in North America (there's a slightly larger one in Canada), the four floors, 500,000 square metre collosus has its own theme park complete with two rollercoasters, and aquarium and mini-golf to name a few attractions. It was also featured in one of the best movies of all time, The Mighty Ducks 2, where the Ducks are 'rounded up' on rollerskates.

Our time in downtown Minneapolis was limited, containing little more than a failed attempt to find more Mighty Ducks locations and a stroll through heart of the city. The intricate network of Skywalks between buildings, in addition to the towers themselves provided some architectural eye-candy, but we were back releaxing at our RV Park soon after, making the most of the facilities we managed to escape paying for a lot of the time since we departed from Seattle eight days earlier. With so many miles covered and so much seen it's still hard to comprehend that we're not even halfway through our time in North America. Chicago is next, before heading back up to Canada in what should be a busy couple of weeks.

Minneapolis, Minnesota