Day 28 - Montreal to Calgary

Saturday, May 31 2008

Details to come when I'm not sleep deprived :(

• So early in the morning =(
• Dim Sum
• Off to Brooks for Kim and Nelson, Underwear affair for Riley

And so ends the second chapter of the journey, as we hit the giant PAUSE button for Convocation! (BTW, a big thank you to U of A for sticking grad in the middle of summer, because I didn't have anything better to do for my last summer ever...)

Day 27 - Montreal Continued...

Friday May 30, 2008

I'm SOOO incredibly tired, so here are framework updates until I can flesh them out.

• Dinner with Nick (Mexican)
• Big Hill
• Sex Shop for wigs...
• Movies
• Latin Corner
• LOTS of lap dance stores!!

Day 26 - Montreal

Thursday May 29, 2008

Well... I finally found a battery cover for my phone. At $24, it was possibly the most expensive wafer thin, 5 gram piece of plastic I’ve ever had the pleasure of purchasing.

The day started out by going out for lunch with Isabelle, Riley’s friend. Afterwards, we roamed around the city and checked out Old Montreal. We visited the Basilica, a word which I unfortunately have no idea how to spell (go go spell check!). It’s gorgeous, and makes me somewhat sad that majestic architecture’s not really a Western Canada thing. I was amused that they had a full blown light and sound show, and that they were selling small vials of Basilica holy water in the gift shop. I’m sure the Vatican has gone part tourist trap, right?

Dinner was a smoked meat sandwich, which Riley had wanted to try since we got here. It was beyond ridiculously large – so big that even *I* had the good sense to leave the fries on the plate. The after dinner entertainment was... different. We went to the House of Jazz for, you guessed it, Jazz! The singer was amazing and I enjoyed the music (and I’m not really a Jazz-esque person). The night was kind of ruined by our waitress though.

We were sitting at the bar, so we didn’t really get waited on (we ended up getting up and getting all our drinks etc.). When the bill came, we paid what was owed with exact change. When the waitress picked it up, she saw that there wasn’t a tip sitting there already and flipped out. She proceeded to ‘teach us’ that 15% service is not included with the bill, and that it was mandatory. She thought we didn’t know that because we must be American. Kim rectified that by telling her that we were from Alberta, and that where we’re from, we usually only tip when service is actually delivered (ZING!). Awwwwkward. My friend Nick later pointed out that tipping isn’t required in Montreal, but I think he was referring to the lap dance girls...

On our way home, we stopped at this neat fountain. It starts letting out fog in the surrounding park at the top of the hour, and then lights up a ring of fire in the water. There’s no sign or anything indicating what the fountain’s there for, or why it’s there, but it was pretty fantastic nonetheless.

The Burning Ring 'o Fire

Day 25 - Ottawa to Montreal

Wednesday May 28, 2008

We left Ottawa fairly late, and after driving through the city TWICE looking for a gas station, we left for Montreal. It was a surprisingly short trip, but very green and lush. There were a ton of seagulls near the road, but we couldn’t find a large body of water nearby. I suppose the St. Lawrence is just around the corner...

Arriving in the city was fun, I managed to navigate Montreal rush hour traffic. A testament to their driving is when I triple parked the car outside our hotel (The Intercontinental). Unlike honk happy Ontario, not a single person beeped. Apparently making your own parking / stopping rules is par for the course in Montreal and nobody even batted an eye. The hotel itself is gorgeous, and the marble bathroom is enormous. I love the mini bar though; not only does it have a large assortment of overpriced of drinks and snacks, but it also carried an intimacy kit. You too can be the proud owner of 2 condoms (thin of course), a small package of lube, and a ‘gynaecologic refreshment napkin’ for the low, low price of $9! Only in Montreal...

Across the street is the coolest building – the conference centre. Okay, it’s not THAT unique, but the windows are all different colors making a really cool looking light pattern inside. I didn’t bring my camera with me though, so I’m going to have to mooch Riley’s pic sometime. We went to the Peel pub for dinner, and had our ridiculous fill of poutine. Food’s cheap here... or at least it looks that way on the menu. Of course, then you have to add GST, Tip and PST, which Quebec has somehow managed to set up in a such a way that it is paid on the GST as well. Yes, in this province you pay tax on tax. Apparently somebody told taught them the wonders of compound interest.


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Distance: 204 KM
Moving Time: 2h 13 min
Moving Avg: 91.9 km

Trip to Date: 6387 km

Day 24 - Ottawa

Tuesday May 27, 2008

We planned to go canoe down the Rideau Canal starting at Dow’s lake. Sadly, like everything else seasonal we’ve tried to do this month – it was closed! We ended up walking along the Canal for quite a ways and then hiking back to the car (Kim was thrilled, I’m sure).

We then piled back into the car and headed to the National Art Gallery. I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of some of the abstract artwork, but a lot of the contemporary pieces were really innovative and interesting. That said, some of them were somewhat lame and expensive (like the big pile of carpet pieces, the giant metal plates balanced on the wall, or the big canvas entirely painted black).

Unfortunately, we didn’t check the closing time of the gallery and, having squandered most of our day walking the canal, we were kicked out at 5 PM. It was sad because there was so much to see in the gallery and we only got 1/3 of the way through. Oh well, I guess it’s a reason to come visit again! We had to get ready for our haunted walk anyhow!

The National Art Gallery

The haunted walk was really neat and took us to Sussex Drive and detailed a variety of ghost stories about the local area. It was cool – both in the “That was interesting” sense and the “Oh my gosh this wind is f___ing cold” sense. I think Kim was borderline hypothermic by the time we were done. She was restored by a quick dip in the hot tub (I guess the über expensive Best Western was good for something).

Day 23 - Ottawa

Monday May 26, 2008

We headed over to Parliament Hill (we figured we might as well see it while in Ottawa!). Unfortunately, it was closed to the public since the president of Ukraine was here to visit. They gave us a raincheque (or rain tickets) and we down the market to kill the time in between. The market had some fabulous fresh grown fruit (mmm... strawberries and blueberries)! We also wandered around downtown and its big downtown mall.

Parliament Hill

Our return to Parliament Hill was delayed for a bit more while the Ukrainians honoured those who perished in the forced famine. We snuck in behind the crowd and got our tour of the Parliament and the Peace Tower. I had been here almost a decade ago and forgot how beautiful the library was (or maybe back then I didn’t appreciate books as much). The house of commons was actually voting, and during the entire time they had a fire bell type sound to indicate that you were busy missing a vote =).

We ate dinner at yet another overpriced Irish pub, and I managed to wind up on 3 random people’s cameras (they were doing a photography class).

Day 22 - Toronto to Ottawa

Sunday May 25, 2008

After stopping at the famous Markham station (all day breakfast, found it on the way to the zoo) we headed to Ottawa. Nice day for a drive. Kimberly gravoled herself out of existence which is actually how she has passed most of the driving days. It’s probably better that way =).
Arrived in Ottawa. City has many events going on and we can’t find a decent hotel to save our lives (well, you can find them but you have to sell a body part to do so). Will try again tomorrow.

Nelson’s Edit: I somehow managed to lose the battery cover of my cell phone in Markham station, which is an impressive feat considering it was in a carrying case (thinking losing your underwear while you’re wearing pants). My mum says I would forget my head somewhere if it wasn’t firmly attached. That said, I’m pretty sure it can’t be on that tight because I misplaced my brain somewhere during the past four years.

Distance: 421 KM
Total Trip Time: 3 hr 55 min
Avg. Speed: 107 KM/h


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Day 21 - Toronto

Saturday May 24, 2008

We decided to spend this beautiful day in Niagara Falls. The drive through the wine country was scenic...Nelson had some road rage. The falls were stunning (see photos) and we spent a pleasant day walking through the park. Very touristy town though, we walked down one street that reminded us of Stampede...or Disneyland.

Niagra Gallery

Met Riley’s friend Josh who lives in Toronto in Greek town for dinner. A very neat little neighbourhood to spend some time in. According to Josh Toronto is full of these little areas each with their own unique vibe. This part of Toronto I could defiantly fall in love with.

Day 20 - Toronto

Friday May 23, 2008

We’re off to the Toronto Zoo! Nice enough day for it. Saw all sorts of funny looking creatures. Walked the “10 km” of trails and boy did we feel it by the end. The monkeys were the most entertaining. That night we walked some more (sigh) and had dinner at an overpriced but tasty Irish Pub – even after the $10 coupon. We walked through an underground mall to get there (which we’re finding are quite popular out East).

Nelson’s Edit: We now have scientific evidence that Kim is, in fact, a poikilotherm. At the zoo, there was a camera to demonstrate what snakes see (it was a thermal camera). Me and Riley lit up nice and bright, and the hands we waved at the cameras were white (which indicates hot). Kim’s face glowed white, but her hands didn’t even show up on the screen. Go figure.

My name is Javier...

Day 19 - Toronto

Thursday May 22, 2008

Woke up and had brunch at the Sunset Grill on Younge Street. Fabulous breakfast, nice walk as well. We spent the rest of the day wondering around downtown Toronto. Passed through the entertainment district, looked up at the CN tower, stopped at the CBC building and walked through the museum there. Who knew Mr. Dress-up ever looked that young! All in all a fascinating city to walk around. Great mixtures of beautiful old architecture and bright shiny glass marvels...homeless people and “suites” attached to their blackberries and man purses. We cruised the giant mall downtown as well. Flashier then West Ed, not sure whose mall is bigger. We ended the night with a neo-asian dinner grill thing. (Nelson’s embarrassed to admit he had sweet and sour chicken. The waiter kept on insisting on giving it to Riley, because surely somebody Asian wouldn’t have ordered that...)

Day 18 - Sault. St. Marie to Toronto

Wed. May 21, 2008

After camping out in the ‘posh’ cabin (complete with space heater because the nice check-in lady took pity on us), we woke up and drove. Then we drove some more. And then, we drove some more after that. Yes, there was a ridiculous amount of driving done today.

Here it is in a little more detail... We woke up to find the outside world absolutely SOAKED. Personally,
I’m really glad we wussed out and decided to cabin it this night in Sault. St. Marie instead of tenting it on the shield somewhere. Methinks that Kimberly wanted to go all hardcore and camp out there anyhow =).

I want a park named after me!

The plan today was to drive towards Toronto, with no real set goal on how far exactly, or what we would see. Along the way, we made a short detour onto Manitoulin Island to check it out – apparently Riley’s ancestors had settled it way back in the day. It poured buckets the entire way there, making me grateful we hadn’t decided to camp or do any hardcore hiking that day. We drove all the way to Wagg’s Woods park, which I’m told is named after one of Riley’s great-great-great something-or-others. There was supposed to be a creek, but it looked like it had long since dried up. Highlights of the drive here included being passed by OPP (who apparently cruise at 30 km/h over the speed limit) and the beautiful houses and meadows, which we would have been able to see except for the constant thick sheet of rain.

Ultimately, we just powered on, up to Sudbury, then Perry Sound and all the way into Toronto. We booked a last-minute night at the Hilton (go go priceline and smartphones) and basically just passed out.

Welcome to Toronto.

Trip Odo: 902 km
Moving Time: 10 hr 23 min ? I’m proud of you Kimberly, No DVT’s!
Max Speed: 134 km/h
Moving Avg: 86.8 km/h

To Date: 5306.2 km


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Day 17 – Thunder Bay to Sault St. Marie

Tue. May 20, 2008

I’ll be completely honest... I remember us checking out. We let them know that we were somewhat disappointed with the service and everything that had gone on. Just to top it all off, power had been knocked out to the area and therefore the showers weren’t working at all (apparently the sensors worked on electricity). The check-out camp warden was really friendly though, and refunded our camp fees. (I guess you can’t argue with the price of free).

After that, we just drove. The rest of the day’s really a fuzzy blank for me. It rained really hard so we just skipped all hiking. I remember being ecstatic when we found an open Swiss Chalet, and an open 24 hour A&P.

Then... sweet oblivion.

Day Length: 689 KM
Total Trip Time: 10h 14 min

Winnipeg To Saulte Ste Marie:
Total Distance: 1489 KM
Moving Time: 17 hr, 56 min
Moving Avg: 93 km/h

Total to date: 4404.25


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Day 16 - Ignace to Thunder Bay

Mon. May 19, 2008

So. F*cking. Cold.

We quickly found out why nobody’s camping. After lamenting the fact that it’s 31 degrees in Brooks, we had a short cry about the 4ºC humid weather and tried to build a fire. Riley, god of fire as he is, unfortunately couldn’t light soaking wet logs on fire (although he was still able to make a pretty good blaze using nothing but tinder =). We decided to just call this one a loss and drive to Thunder Bay (skipping our camping night in Terrace Bay). We did check out a sweet waterfall before headed on though.

The Great Lakes started being our constant driving companion at this point, making for some gorgeous lookouts. Riley’s still looking hard for a moose spotting.


Riley and Kimberly enjoy our first, hard earned, fire.

We turbo’ed on to Thunder Bay. Resupplying was lots of fun. Apparently on Holiday Mondays, NO grocery stores are permitted to open, by law. Lovely. Even the Walmarts and 24 hour A&P’s had shut their doors. *sigh*. We ended up restocking at a Shopper’s Drug Mart which was PACKED with people doing... you guessed it, grocery shopping. We’re not sure how they managed to skirt the law, but we were grateful and just took our damned heating pads.

Thunder Bay itself was surprisingly large. We did take a peek at Terry Fox’s monument – he apparently stopped his cross country trek in this city. He apparently also decided to do a cross country roadtrip, except he started his in the East, and his was just a bit more impressive, having been done on one leg and running and all.

We carried onto Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, and here another gongshow started. The half hour drive in was pretty, there were a ridiculous number of deer (and one black bear cub) lining the road. However, it being a holiday, the park entry workers decided to go home at 5 despite telling us we could arrive as late as 8 PM. That’s OK, there’s sure to be park wardens...

Nope.

Well... maybe we’ll just drive to our camping spot anyhow and tell them in the morning. But HTF does one get firewood? On top of that, we quickly realized that again, we were the only campers.

Oops.

That said, some friendly Ontario camp reservation specialist was either in a bad mood or had a quirky sense of humor because they assigned us the smallest camp ground out of the closest 30, and also the one physically farthest from the ‘comfort station’ (since the closer one was under repairs). A quick call to the reservation hotline informed us that our best bet was to find a park warden to switch campsites (been there, done that...) and to try and buy firewood from a local vendor (in a secluded provincial park). We ended up foraging wood (we loaded a bunch into the car from a hiking path – I know... BAD campers, BAD!), and snagging what we could from the tantalizing (but barbed wire fence surrounded) firewood harvesting compound.

On the plus note, it was quite pretty and there was tons of wildlife. One sketchy deer kept on coming up to our campsite and trying to beg for food. We know better so we politely told the deer to piss off. Besides, we were hungry. We also saw a porcupine that tried to escape from us by climbing a tree verrrrrrrry slowwwwwly.

Thankfully, it was warmer tonight than yesterday. It was also a full moon tonight, which was eerily bright – we even cast shadows! Hopefully tomorrow will bring about better weather.

Click for more moonlight with blue sky. Creepy.

Day Distance: 339 KM


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Day 15 - Winnipeg to Ignace

Sun. May 18, 2008

We left the comforts of the Inn at the Forks and struck out today towards the East. Upon hitting the Ontario border, immediately I was struck by two things that seem to have been themes in Ontario.

1. People in Ontario don’t always say things simply. Must be the bureaucracy... The “Radar Detector’s are Illegal in Manitoba” sign was replaced with “The use of radio speed measuring detection devices within vehicles is strictly prohibited within the province of Ontario.” That was all jam packed onto a little sign the size of a speed limit posting.

2. Ontario doesn’t like twinned highways. Very little of the Trans Canada was twinned, and after there was a need for more than one lane, they seemed to skip the twinning stage and just go to 10 lanes of gong show fun!

Anyhoo...

Camping Photos

We drove to our first campsite in Ignace. The lady was nice and gave us our choice of campsites, seeing as how the ENTIRE campsite was completely deserted. We were the only campers, and there was only one RV on the site. That probably should have been a tip-off. It’s May Long though, we just figured perhaps everyone had gone to a provincial park to camp instead. After all, Ignace is in the middle of nowhere.

We went for a nice walk around the area and pitched our first camp.


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Leg Distance: 466 KM

Day 14 - Winnipeg (Wedding Bells, Veils and Ushers, Oh My!)

Sat. May 17, 2008

Yay weddings! Riley and I started off the day with a nice run around the Winnipeg River Valley, or at least, that’s how it started. After crossing three railroad bridges, we ended up on the wrong side of the tracks.

Literally.

Winnipeg Photo Gallery

I was floored by how quickly the transformation from high class ritzy housing changed to industrial park. We ended up running by a junkyard, complete with large Doberman. Fun! Then, we ran by an abandoned warehouse that had creepy side doors complete with tiny viewing slits. I swear it came straight out of Silent Hill, and that we were being watched the entire time. Next door to the abandoned warehouse was a children’s playground and swing set – just like the movie. Creeeeeeepy.

Then we had the ridiculously sticky burrs (which clung to skin as well as they did to shoes. Ouch!), the super fancy cars parked in the middle of the industrial park (*cough cough* drug money), and more randomly placed children’s playgrounds. I didn’t see any shoes up on the power lines though, which I’m told indicates drugs are for sale nearby. Oh, the fun things you learn at wedding receptions =).

The wedding was at the Assiniboine Conservatory, which is a gorgeous place. Riley and I were ushers, which was a terribly hard job considering all the guests pretty much sorted themselves out ;-). (If Angie or Trevor ask though, I’m totally going to ham it up, honest...).

Congrats to the newlyweds!

Day 13 - Winnipeg

Fri. May 16, 2008

We explored while Kimberly was at the wedding shower. I had a giant apple pancake for breakfast which was FANTASTIC. Unfortunately, by finishing 2/3 of it, I completely negated any possibility of going for a run today. We waited for a phone call from Kim and Angie about the rehearsal, and left 5 minutes after receiving it. Unfortunately, due to traffic we arrived in true guy fashion – approximately 2 minutes after the rehearsal was over.

We went to a barbeque / rehearsal dinner tonight, after exploring the wonders of Winnipeg Traffic. WTF does a red light with a green forward arrow mean? Confusion corner was also quite fun, it had a traffic light which started red, then when turning green showed 4 different green arrows in seemingly random directions. Lovely.

Dinner was most awesome, as was the dinner conversation =).

Day 12 - Regina to Winnipeg

Thu. May 15, 2008

We drove. Straight. For a very long time.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Oh wait, there is more. We got to Winnipeg and walked around downtown Winnipeg at night! I figured it was a bad idea once I saw my old hotel from CaRMS a few blocks from where we were walking.

Angie kinda confirmed this later on. Oops.

Well, now we can say we've seen Winnipeg, good AND bad =). The Inn, on the other hand, is gorgeous.


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Day 11 - Calgary to Regina

Wed. May 14, 2008 (Date included just for you VT :P)

So begins leg 2 of the grand roadtrip. It starts off much like the purple stairs joke (google it if you're not familiar :P). Except replace up the purple stairs with 'through Airdrie construction traffic'. It was INSANE! There were wonderful construction instructions (those flashy marquee signs... except this one had FOUR pages of instructions cycle through). "Right lane ends, middle lane to shift left. Left lane uses shoulder"

WTF?

How it looked in real life was right lane ends. Now middle lane ends.

No pylons or anything to guide this wonderful 'shift', so really... what we had was 3 lanes of QE II getting reduced down to 1 lane, combined with the merging prowess of Calgarian drivers. Wewt.

That's why we ended up starting an hour late (Kim got delayed driving through that). Of course, I got the message to pick Riley up out to her once she finished driving through that. So we loaded the car up and drove BACK through the construction zone again. After picking him up, the GPS told us to drive right back through the zone one last time. I quietly shoved etrex into the glove compartment amidst its beeping protests and just listened to Riley + Map for once =).

The drive itself was kinda unremarkable. We did eat at Perkin's though (just for you Angie!). Gas is ridiculously expensive, but not quite as bad as the guy who rang up $80 in gas right before me. We were apparently the VERY last people to check into the Days Inn for the night (whewh).

Wow. That WAS really boring. I heard that's kinda par for the course on this part of the drive =).

Oh wait, I remember something cool now. Fireworks. The Husky in Moose Jaw sells fireworks in a huge display case. That made my night. Shame Kim wouldn't let me buy any...


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Trip: 839 KM
Time: 7 hr, 58 min (Stopped 1 hr 44 min)
Avg: 105 km/h

Total to date: 2297.14 km

Day 7 - On to Canmore

We're headed to Canmore to meet up with Trevor.


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Today's Stats:

Moving Time: 5hr 57 min
Moving Avg: 89.3 km/h
Trip Distance: 520 KM

Day 6 - YVR to Kelowna

Mmm... Off we go to Kelowna -- Wine tasting tour, here we come! Now if only I knew the difference between everything and Baby Duck...


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Well, we got to Kelowna and didn't hear from the Wine Tour folks. The tour operator hadn't been feeling well all week and thus we didn't manage to get into the tour book for today =(. She felt really, really guilty though, and we would have been sympathetic anyhow -- but she booked us in for a tour and wine tasting at Mission Hill Winery at her expense. It was so fantastically awesome that it more than made up for any inconvenience!

Mission Hill's gorgeous. I remember driving up there in the late 1990's -- the last time we came through here. Back then, it was honestly a dirt parking lot and a small shack. I'm going to go back up tomorrow and take some photos to show you what it looks like now.

Dinner was at Earl's... nothing special. Kelowna's downtown is still awesome. :) I will work on bringing my camera around more... or get a small compact one because that other guy who had a camera with him kinda looked like a tool.

Day 2: Sun Peaks to Vancouver

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497 KM
5 hr, 31 min
Moving Avg: 90 km / hr

Day 1 - Calgary to Sun Peaks

Our first day on the road...

We learned early on, our little Etrex GPS buddy is not to be trusted. It unfortunately assumed that we could drive 50 KM/h on a tiny logging backroad, so it tried to help up by giving us a 'shortcut'.... 2 hours of off-roading later, we wisened up and threw the damned thing out the window. When we got to the hotel, we heard about a lady who was also using GPS and didn't think to turn around though. Apparently BC Search and Rescue had to get her car.

Lovely.

All in all though, it was scenic and fun -- even if a bit longer than I had wanted =). The hotel in Sun Peaks was gorgeous, except it was nearly shut down. (Still... for 99 bucks you couldn't really beat it). Four star goodness, and I forgot to try the hot tub... *doh*.