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
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
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