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We start heading out of Denver but get distracted along the way, as usual.

Our first distraction came as we reached the mountain ranges surrounding Denver, a sign for Buffalo Bill’s grave. We had no idea it was there & just had to take the turn off to check it out.

There at the top of the mountain, with 360 degree views was Bill’s grave.

We continue heading across Colorado towards Utah. The drive through Colorado is spectacular. We didn’t know what to expect for Colorado at all. To be honest I hadn’t heard too much about it & I was amazed at all the awesomeness we saw. A beautiful state. I could live there very happily.

The Rockies we saw up in Canada continue all the way down through Colorado & are just as incredible, a little different though. The roads follow deep canyons, winding in between & the rocks change colour constantly.

They go from brilliant red to light sandy colours to the dark granite tones we saw more of up north. Really diverse. They also change from rocky, snow covered to lush & green as we travel through.

As our altitude climbed on the mountains we found ourselves in snow again. We just couldn’t resist a detour to go play in some thicker snow by a roadside lake. It was fresh, fluffy, powder snow & light as air, absolutely perfect. We hadn’t seen snow that soft on our journey, real nice.

Nik made a snow angel

We were quite excited.

We continue on the road & as twilight creeps on we find a little turn off to check out the river running through the canyon. A really nice little spot.

We continue through Colorado as the sun sets & spend the night in Beaver, Utah. Nothing too exciting about Beaver.. except for the funny name. We didn’t spend any extra time exploring that area really since it was late. We headed out early the next day towards Nevada wanting to make it all the way back to Vegas by the afternoon.

Then suddenly we’re out of the mountains. It’s like we turned a corner in the canyon & were suddenly thrust into the desert. The rock occasionally jutting out or rising into mesas but otherwise pretty flat.

And just as suddenly as we went from mountains to desert, we go from desert to busy city. We’re in Vegas.

We spend a night in the Silverton Casino before we check in with our landlord & go back to our old apartment the following day. The Silverton is really nice, definitely the nicest place we’ve stayed at so far & a buffet to die for. After a good feed we go get some brews & head back to our room to celebrate the end of our mammoth roadtrip with a night of relaxation, tv & reflection on all the awesome things we’ve done.

So we cross over the border to the US into Nth Dakota, along the border of Minnesota & make a stop in Fargo. We were looking forward to seeing Fargo since it’s a favourite movie. I have to say it wasn’t like the movie at all. No snow firstly, also Fargo is a much larger town than I was expecting, but very cute & quaint. The suburbs were quite adorable even, especially with all the halloween-themed front porches. We stopped into a few local businesses & giggled at the accent. Just like the movie. Oh yah.

We spent a night in a Super 8 motel in Fargo. Nice joint. We decided to stick with Super 8 & stay in another when we got down to Rapid City, Sth Dakota too.

Onwards down Sth Dakota we do a daytrip to Mth Rushmore. It’s gotta be done. Pretty awesome piece of engineering/art.

There’s not much I can say. It’s a pretty impressive monument.

The wild mountain goats hanging around were insanely cute.

I was a little nervous one was gonna butt me from behind here but honestly they’re so cute & fluffy, I want to take them home. Look at their little goatee beards! Heehee

We also found a little cowboy town called Keystone on the way that was worth the stop.

We were quite surprised how much stuff there was to see in the Dakotas. Some great touristy places worth the trip & really easy to get distracted on a drive.

So then we drive through a little corner of Wyoming on our way to Colorado. The only thing I remember about Wyoming is the insane amount of tumbleweed. Seriously, I couldn’t stop laughing while we’re going down the freeway. Hundreds of tumbleweed all clumsilly flying through the fields & over the road (quite fast too since it’s so windy). We had a few stuck in our front grill on the car when we got out. It was impossible to avoid them on the road, well to be honest I started aiming for them. It was kinda fun.

Those things are hilarious.

Then we get to Colorado & head to Denver. We end up spending a few nights there since the motels are cheap & we’re surprised there’s a fair bit to do in the area. Denver’s quite a nice city. It all seems very new & family-friendly, lots of housing developments, very neat & clean, modern buildings. It also has the pretty snowy mountains in the distance. A good-looking city & surrounded by awesome places & activities for daytrips.

We went to Red Rocks to see the famous red rock natural ampitheatre.

Wow, that place is awesome. It’s great they leave it open during the day when there aren’t any gigs on so you can walk right down to the stage & stand right where countless famous music icons have stood for generations.

If you look carefully you can see the Denver skyline in the distance.. maybe the pic is a bit small. It would be a great view at night.

From Igor Stravinsky to Louis Armstrong, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, The Pixies, Sigur Ros, B-52s, Smashing Pumpkins, Arcade Fire, Depeche Mode.. An incredible list going right back through music history. Some epic gigs have been there, & what a venue.

It’s now our goal to see a band there one day. I would travel miles to be there for a concert. It would be so spectacular. The bohemoth rocks towering above, the city glowing in the distance. It really is something special.

Now before we get to Banff, here’s a little lake area that we found. Quite spectacular.

Now onto Banff. This place is possibly the prettiest, most beautiful little town I have ever seen. A quaint community surrounded by massive picturesque mountains.

Since it was a bit of a ski-lodge town we went cheap at one of the local backpackers, which wasn’t so bad. Strangely it was full of Australians. I mean FULL of Australians & kinda disorienting to hear the accent all night, all the way out there so far from home. Also one of those times I wish I wasn’t Aussie. They were a rowdy drunken bunch compared to the other lodgers & a touch embarrassing to be honest.

Outside the backpackers Banff is nothing but stunning.

Really, I can’t stop talking about Banff once you start me off. Such a beautiful town, full of cute little stores, outdoor adventure shops & more specialty chocolate stores & maple syrup than I’ve ever seen. If I could live anywhere in the whole world it would be Banff. No doubt about it, hands down my ideal town. If I get rich one day I’m moving there in a heartbeat.

(You’ll notice a lot of our photos from the car have these horrible stripes. That is our dodgy windscreen covered in scratches )

Banff is also awesome for its proximity to the ski-fields & my new favourite place on earth, Lake Louise.

We drove up there late one afternoon & I just fell in love. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t really put it into words, it’s just stunning. A big lake is near the top of a mountain, almost in a crater-like shape with a massive glacier towering over the top & mountains on each side.

It was snowing lightly & the clouds were hiding the white glacier. This sight is just massive, kinda hard to understand the scale of it. When the glacier cracks & falls down the mountain it takes 20 seconds for the sound to reach the other side of the lake where we were. Unfortunately it was absolutely freezing as the sun was setting, not good conditions & I was seriously under-dressed for the snow. Also, Converse All Stars do not fair well on ice. I was sliding all over the place.

Now, I actually skipped something there. Before we got up to Lake Louise we took a turn off that ended up leading us to a short wildlife hike in the early afternoon.

It went through the forest where you would go to see wolves & bears, but we didn’t see any wildlife until the end, the forest opened up to a lake area where we saw the amazing sight of a large herd (?) of wild caribou hanging out & eating by the water.

There were over 20 of them, all female (from what I could tell) apart from one big male with huge antlers. What an incredible thing to see.

Since it was such a short, unprepared visit to Lake Louise we were keen to go back again the next morning before heading east on our journey. After a night at the backpackers we went straight back up there, more clothing layers, cameras charged, hoping for a clearer day & better weather.

We had perfect conditions. You can now see the top of the glacier & really understand the incredible size of it all.

We followed one of the trails around the right side of the lake & went the whole way around to the other side, right below the glacier.

The edge of the lake was just starting to freeze over for the winter. The whole lake will be solid ice in a couple of months-

A little squirrel on the way (no, we didn’t give him the cracker).

Look at the size of those walls! Try to picture a little dude standing next to one of the big pine trees up top. The trees look tiny from down here.

Wow, what an experience. Walking on the crunchy snow, on the other side of the lake looking back at where we started was incredible. The massive chateau by the lake was perfectly framed. It’s my dream to one day stay there.

Not a brilliant picture of me, but this photo was taken just as a huge “crack” was heard on the mountainside behind me & I turned around just in time to see a bunch of big icicles fall. That definitely woke me up! What a sight!

Nik broke off a plate of ice from the side of the lake. It sounded just like glass.

Look at that blue water behind.

So, after that we continued east. We ended up sleeping in the car the night in a campground in Brooks. So cold, but at least we had electricity at that camp for our laptops. That was our first night in the car.

From there we drove on to Regina & spent a while driving around exploring. There wasn’t too much to see really. A pretty town but not as big as I thought it would be, & we ended up backtracking to Moosejaw for a campground to sleep in. The campground was deserted apart from deer. Some of these places were a little creepy to be honest. They had the atmosphere of an old fairground or something. There were themed mini golf parks & holiday activities, all closed & empty, borders up on the windows, skeleton-trees, grey skies & not a soul in sight. Very eery. It didn’t help that Nik played the Twin Peaks soundtrack in the car one night.

Onwards east to Echo Valley, another night in a campground.

Onwards east again, we do a long drive over to Winnipeg. Once again we do a night in the car, but this time in the carpark of a Flying J just out of town. These places are a freaking godsend when you’re on the road, massive truckstops with great traveler facilities. We use the rent-a-showers & kill a few hours in the lounge with the free wireless & pizza while our clothes are in the laundromat. After that we joined the truckers & RVs by sleeping in the carpark. We’re getting pros by this stage but still a little chilly in our drafty old car. Next time we do a trip like this we’re getting a minivan, power inverter & gonna do it right. Having the steering wheel squishing your legs while you sleep is quite uncomfortable. I could have so much fun pimping out a van as a portable studio apartment. One day..

We actually had a change of plans around this point & decided to head south instead of continuing east to Toronto. We tried our luck with US border patrol to see if they’d grant us another 90 day visa waiver. To my surprise the US lets us in with little fuss! Well, I say little fuss but that includes a full car search & quick interrogation. It was pretty interesting watching them do a car search on the person ahead of us in the queue, with a little remote control camera going through the car paneling like an auto-colonoscopy. They’re pretty thorough, I’ll say that.

So, my next post will be back below the border, in the ol’ US of A.

Stay tuned.