We crossed into Alberta over the Canadian border & stayed in Lethbridge one night in a dodgy motel. Nothing too exciting about Leftbridge really, but the next day we went to Vulcan..

The town, Vulcan is a bit of a Star Trek destination so we just had to stop in & check it out. They had a little museum with fun game/ride that Nik & I played on..

(You point to direct the weapons & the 2nd player fires. Quite a cool co-op set up)

& an awesome, huge starship outside facing the highway.

Down the street the local drugstore also sported a cool mural of all the Starfleet medical officers.

We were lucky to meet 2 very helpful chicks at the museum who recommended a detour in our original route going straight east. They pointed us straight towards the Rockies in the alpine region, northwest. We would have totally missed some awesome stuff had we not met these ladies. I’m incredibly grateful.

Driving on, there was tonnes of pretty scenery. Like my previous post, a lot of the car photos were taken by Nik since I was driving, so thanks sweetie for taking some awesome pictures & documenting the drive for us.

Then there was Calgary..

We spent a fair bit of time driving circles in Calgary trying to find internet (our phones were on global-roaming & we didn’t want to go online with them or use gps), we struggled to find dinner & couldn’t find any affordable accommodation at all. In fact we got really frustrated with Calgary. It’s probably best to not bring up that city with me or Nik. It just wasn’t a fun experience. The city doesn’t have any appeal to me at all. I’ll leave it at that.

Calgary was only our first accomodation-struggle. We found ourselves getting into towns a little late at times & had trouble finding campgrounds since so many were closed in the off-season. We had maps that displayed a whole bunch all through the continent, but every time we finally tracked one down (sometimes driving miles from the freeway) only to find the gates padlocked & amenities turned off. So exhausting after a full day of driving. We knew it was the off-season, but just didn’t expect it to be in effect so dramatically. It’s like the whole country closes down for the winter.

This happened to us in Cochrane (northwest of Calgary), we got there real late & circled around (what felt like hours) trying to find an open campground. At midnight we gave up & walked into a cowboy saloon to get a room. It was real dingy, like a sleazy movie but better than sleeping in the car illegally.

We woke the next morning & the car was icy. We drove onwards west directly for the mountains.

Our path came across this pretty little lake by the roadside. We just had to stop & have a stroll.

We then stopped briefly in Canmore for a quick walk about the street, buy some mittens & try my first poutine. Sure it was only from Dairy Queen & Canadians would probably smirk that my first “Canadian cuisine” experience was from an American fast food chain, but it was the famous Canadian Poutine all the same that I wanted to try- chips with gravy & cheese. mmMMmmm

They also have vinegar sachets with their fries! I like these Canadian folk. They know what they’re doing. None of this ketchup crap all over everything.

& then, the next episode we move onto Banff, the prettiest town on earth….

Wow, it’s surprisingly hard to recollect what has gone on in the last couple of weeks. We’ve done so much. It feels so much longer than that. I’ve tried to write it all out but it’s ended up a marathon read, so here is our journey, in installments..

Ok, so we started back in Vegas by heading straight north leaving Nevada really late in the afternoon after car problems & further hold-ups. We went up through the corner of Arizona, then Utah as the night came on. We had a rest & spent the night in Pocatello Idaho & woke up to our first patch of snow outside the motel in the morning! We weren’t expecting that.

We got kinda excited & made a mini snowman with the tiny patch of snow.

Little did we know that was the first patch of a LOT of snow we were to see on our trip. Even as we drove on through Idaho that morning we saw tonnes of snow! Check it out. We just had to get out of the car & feel it under our feet, throw a snowball etc.

A few of the following pics are taken by Nik since I had to keep my eye on the road..

A lot of Idaho looks like this-

A tonne of hay. Everywhere.

Next was Montana, which was really beautiful. It was amazing to see that area in the fall with all the trees turning gold. Unfortunately I didn’t get camera snappy through there though. The scenery was real pretty the whole way up really. We were surrounded by snow a lot of the way, & mountains for that matter following the Rockies north.

Next episode we enter Canada. You ain’t seen nothing yet..