Day 13: RIP Sandeep

July 5, 2012

The weather gods seem to finally be shining down upon us as glorious as the sun. We have had beautiful weather here in Banff for the last day and a half, although it has been quite cool. We wake up in the early hours of the morning absolutely freezing cold and shivering in our sleeping bags, despite the 2, and for some people 3 layers of clothing. Luckily this is nothing a little snuggling and then a campfire cannot cure.

I fear we have become a bit spoiled with wildlife. This afternoon we went for a dip at the Banff Hot Springs and at one point the whole pool become a flutter with activity, people were flocking en masse to one corner of the pool deck that overlooked a lawn on the outside. As best as we can guess, given the antler signals passed along, it was yet another elk. Given our experience of the day before we couldn’t be bothered to get out of the hot waters and join the crowd. Banff has been great, but it would be even better without the incessant crowds. Our indifference was somehow rewarded with a roadside viewing of a feeding elk on the way back home. This time we did stop to marvel, albeit for a short period.

Before our dip in the pool we paid a longish visit to Lake Louise and a rather short visit to Moraine Lake. Lake Louise is as magnificent as always and we enjoyed a nice stroll about 1/3 of the way around the lake. I can’t help but feel though that the lake is but a side attraction to the wonder that is the glacier at the far end. Flanked by mountain on either side and standing stark white and majestic against the blue sky it really is a marvel.

Lake Louise

Moraine Lake, about 14 KM from Lake Louise, looks like it would have been a great place to visit. Unfortunately, half of Alberta had the same thought. The parking lot is designed for perhaps 75 cars, but at least 200 wanted to visit. About 5 minutes before we got to the lake No Parking signs began appearing on the other side of the road. A little bit later we hit the first car parked on the side of the road, this continued for about 3 minutes before we got to the parking lot. In hindsight we perhaps should have stopped behind the first car we saw, but a sleeping Zaid and fussy Owen pushed us onwards. We caught but a brief glimpse of the lake before heading back down to the highway.

On the way back, a hungry Owen made us stop at the side of the road, a widened shoulder at a very tight turn along a very curvy road. While Haifa fed Owen in the front seat, having to lie down, feet on ground and head on gear stick, in order to get Owen to feed, I looked around our temporary sanctuary. Three things immediately grabbed my attention: the river at the canyon floor, a bouquet of flowers tied to a tree just over the cliff and a large memorial card to Sandeep resting against the 30 KM/H road sign. I look over the edge of the cliff towards the bouquet and notice a cluster of three trees missing bark on the lower part of the roadside trunk. Other, smaller trees were crushed and broken and a distinct lack of bushes was evident. Sandeep must have been trying to take the turn too quickly and skidded off the road to perish in the trees 5 meters down the cliff. Needless to say I drove very carefully for the rest of the day. Nothing makes a driver drive more carefully than these roadside memorials. I suggest Highways Authorities plant fake ones at dangerous intersections in order to help curb speeding. It would sure work way better than the speed limit signs nobody pays any attention to.

RIP Sandeep.

Day 11: Real Camping

July 3, 2012

We are in Alberta now, the second province of our journey. We have made Johnston Canyon campground the base for the 4 day period from Monday afternoon to Friday morning. We are on the Bow Valley Parkway about 20 KM from Banff and 40 KM from Lake Louise. We are also, presumably, quite close to a railroad line as every so often we hear to unmistakable click-clack of wheel on track and “Choo Choo” of train whistle. We cannot actually see any train though, which makes the whole experience a bit unsettling. I half expect an apparition of a train to come steaming through the trees as it makes its way along its eternal rails.

After about 2 hours here I came to the realization that THIS is real camping. I still am not quite sure what is different between the previous 6 camping nights and the 4 we are spending here that makes this a true camping experience but I have some theories.

1) The Location

We are in an alpine forest. The tall alpine evergreens are relatively sparse and they are very thin and tall. Most of the tree is a long trunk with bare branches sticking out. Just the canopy has needles. There is very little groundcover, just ankle high grasses and small shrubs. Compared to the dense rainforests of BC something about the alpine forest screams camping. The other difference in the location is that we are camping by a creek. The previous campgrounds have all been on lakes. Something about the faint rushing water noise makes it seem wilder.

2) The Tents

The camp is divided into two loops, a hook-up loop that is, according to Haifa (the only one brave enough to venture over there) full of RVs, and a regular loop that is about 2/3 full and almost exclusively of tents. Tenting is real camping and it feels good to be around fellow tenters. The first night at Kekuli Bay we were the only site out of about 40 occupied that had no RV. Compared with here, were our neighbours don’t even have a car, we feel much more at home.

On a side note, the family camping next to us tonight is a couple and their teenage sons; they have 4 road bicycles and seem to be on a Rocky Mountain bike camping trip. I am quite impressed.

3) The Campfire

BC Parks is either very concerned with the conservation of firewood, is running out of money, or both. If you want to have a fire you must buy a tiny bundle of wood for grossly inflated prices. While this makes sense from a conservation standpoint I greatly prefer the system at Banff that allows us unlimited wood. You simply pay a slightly higher charge per night and you are allowed to have a fire using as much wood as you want. The first afternoon was spent gathering firewood and we have a stock that is the envy of all our neighbours. We have had a campfire both nights, and even had one this morning to allow us some fire toasted toast and early morning warmth to fight the 5 degree temperatures. We had Jiffy Pop last night, sausages roasted on the end of stick tonight, and are planning on marshmallows tomorrow.

The boys sitting around the Campfire

We spent the rainy day in Banff village, walking along the streets packed with tourists, visiting a small Victorian era natural history museum, and playing for an hour at the playground. Luckily for Zaid, there was a small team of steamrollers, pavers, and loaders sitting next to the playground, waiting to be used to re-pave the tennis courts. So much of the time was spent instead oohing and aahing over the trucks.

There is so much to do in the national parks that we are worried we might have to cut some things out. We hope to visit Lake Louise, the Banff Hot Springs, Columbia Ice Fields, Yoho Park, and Radium Hot Springs in the next 2 days before we head to Calgary. I’m guessing some of these will have to wait for next time.

Roadside Bighorn Sheep

I almost forgot to mention the wildlife. On the way from Golden to the campground we passed a family of Mountain Goats on the Cliffside as well as a Grizzly Bear beside the highway. Then this morning, along the Bow Valley Parkway we came across a trio of male Mountain Goats RIGHT beside the road that were engaged in some playful sparing, in preparation for battle come mating season. We also came across, RIGHT beside the road, a black bear. Unfortunately,  it scampered away before we got a great view.

Canada Day in Revelstoke

July 1^st, 2012

As you can gather by reading Ben’s previous post, yesterday was a crazy day for all of us. Even though we somehow enjoyed the crazy adventure of trying to get out of rainy Nakusp, we were all very happy to make it to dryness in our hotel room in Revelstoke last night. We were all very exhausted and slept very comfortably and soundly until about 6:30 am when Zaid woke us up.

Our plan for today was to watch the Canada Day celebrations we read about in the town’s visitor’s guide, visit the local railway museum and the BC Hydro Revelstoke Dam.

We are sure that there was some Canada Day celebrations going on, however when we arrived at the town centre this morning at 8:45 am there was no sign of anything. Most stores and shops were closed and a drive to the Dam also revealed that it is closed until 10:00am. Hoping that there will be something to do in this town before 10 am we stopped to ask at the information centre. We happily learned that the railway museum is open at 9:00 am and after purchasing a cute train conductor hat for Zaid and getting our BC Parks Passport stamped we headed to there. 

The Revelstoke Railway Museum was a great hit with all members of the family and a perfectly fitting way to celebrate Canada Day by learning about the history of the Canada Pacific Railway.  The museum had the magical combination of being interesting to the adults and exciting to the children. Zaid who is obsessed with all things that go, loved it! We all especially loved the real old CPR train on display. We were able to go inside the business car and look at the tiny bedrooms and dining room on the train. We ended the tour with a stop at the kids play room where Zaid played with little Thomas trains and other train related toys. 

Ben and Zaid at the Railway Museum 

After our visit to the railway we went home for naptime and then left again for a picnic lunch by the river.  Then knowing that the Dam must be open now, we headed over there for a quick visit.

The Dam was not a great hit with Zaid who preferred to run around the place like a crazy person but both Ben and I enjoyed it. The last section of it included more interactive displays about power and electricity and that was interesting enough to keep Zaid engaged.  He pushed buttons to train light bulbs on and pushed pedals to activate static electricity or use sunlight to power a small model train.

The Revelstoke Dam

The Dam visit tired us out enough to warrant a trip back to the hotel for some rest, following which we head out again for dinner. Seeing that the weather was sunny and warm we decided to take out a couple of pie from a local pizza place to eat by the river again. We picked up our pizzas and drove to the river side and spread our food on the picnic table to eat. We immediately noticed a small grey cloud way out in the distance and joked about how with our luck this cloud is going to move straight to just above our heads and rain on us.  Ten minutes later this is exactly what happened! In fact come to think of it, it did rain a little bit on us when we were having our lunch picnic as well. So keeping with Ben’s Harper’s index this makes the number of picnics on which we were rained on 4 and the number of picnics on which we had no rain 0!

After our dinner we stopped at a playground for Zaid to play and then drove back to our hotel to get ready for the evening bed time routine. Zaid was a bit riled up but fell asleep not too much later than his usual bed time. Owen has been asleep since we came back from dinner and I suspect he will only briefly wake again for some milk before I go to sleep myself.

I had read about Revelstoke in their visitor’s guide before getting here and based on that expected a more lively town.  I’m not sure if it is the holiday Sunday or the fact that anything after the excitement of Nakusp is bound to feel dull, but this is exactly how I found it here. The museum and Dam were very interesting but the town itself was nothing too exciting.

Tomorrow we head out bright and early to Banff for four days of camping and then off to Calgary for a couple of days. This is going to be my first time in Alberta and I am very intrigued.  Let’s hope the weather forecast holds true and we get the sunshine and little to no rain that it promises. Keep your fingers crossed!

Haifa 

Day 8: Rained out of Nakusp

June 30, 2012

I write this at the end of Canada Day in Revelstoke. We arrived here about 9:30 last night after an eventful end to the day. The day started with rain, continued with rain, ended with rain, and for good measure had a side order of rain as well. However, it was a wonderful day, perhaps the best day we have yet had.

We woke up bright and early, as we seem to always do in the tent. We were staying about 15 minutes south of the village of Nakusp on the Arrow Lakes and were planning on spending the day in town. We had the good sense to bring along our glass Bodum French Press and had broken it at the last campsite. So, we decided to head to town early and start our day with a coffee in a local café. We put on our clothes, sure to pack our raincoats and head off to town. Taking the final turn into town we come across a temporary barrier barring the road. Meandering through the side alley parallel to Main Street (actually Broadway, and no there were no bright lights) we notice that all access to the main drag is blocked. Parking the car, we decide to brave the rain and head out to see what is going on in town. Aside from an unusually large number of people huddled under umbrellas and awnings for such a small town there was little else indicating the reason for this blockage. Walking along the main street we gather more evidence – store displays wishing “Happy Canada Day” and “Congrats on 120 Years Nakusp” suggest some sort of festivities are about to start. We pass by an older man dressed in old style clothing and a younger woman as well. We still are not certain, for we only witnessed a brief dog-owner lookalike contest, but our guess is that the planned celebrations were significantly reduced on account of the rain. This should have been our first indication.

The pounding rain, and influx of people into town meant that all of the coffee shops on Broadway were full. So we decide to take a chance on a sign pointing down towards the lake, promising an authentic Italian Café. This was a great decision. We enter this tiny 4 table café squeezed into the lobby of a hotel with a beautiful panoramic view of the lake. We order moist and filling muffins along with two coffees. Not wanting to head out into the rain we order a couple of more coffees and a milk for Zaid. The place was run by a woman who seemed to have an intense love and hatred for her job. She quite boisterously, fed by a 5 espresso morning, and jokingly begged a man at the neighbouring table to take her job as she was sick of the 2 AM starts.

Now, June 30 is my Mothers birthday and so we had been wanting to give her a call to send our wishes. Unfortunately, Nakusp falls in a kind of black hole of cellphone reception and so were getting a bit despondent. Luckily, the hotel attached to the café had free internet and Haifa had her ipod, which was already for Skype. So, we were able to enjoy a great chat with my mom from this tiny café with a beautiful view obscured only by the waterfall of rain pouring down the window. After saying our goodbyes, and pulling our hoods ever tighter we decided to venture back outside again.

After some window, and grocery shopping, much of it with the intent of staying dry, we decide it is time to head up to the famed Nakusp Hot Springs, just  north of town. We were slightly worried about bringing Owen in, but everyone, staff and locals alike, insisted it was okay. We are sure glad we listened. This was a wonderful time. The pool is only 3 feet deep and is a perfect temperature, not super-hot, but hot enough to keep you warm and work out all your kinks. Combined with the cooling wine pouring over your face and head it was exactly what we needed.  Zaid kept on exclaiming “Fun” every two minutes as he directed me from one side of the pool to the other. Owen on the other hand was content to just lay back and kick his feet with a smile on his face.

We head back to town to have a lakefront lunch, in a sheltered gazebo, of sardine sandwiches, carrot sticks, and cheese slices. It somehow hit the spot perfectly. After lunch we head to the Nakusp Musem, which was something to behold. Imagine clearing out an old treasure hunter’s basement of dust and bugs, hanging a few signs and calling it a museum and you have the Nakusp museum. It was mostly just piles of artifacts lying on the ground, or leaning against the wall, in the basement of the old schoolhouse. Zaid was a bit overenthusiastic about the place, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I think this was helped by the old woman dressed in a red skirt and matching red shirt and her young (20ish) male assistant who knew absolutely everything about all the artifacts and were very pleased to tell you all about it.

By now it is mid-afternoon and we are all needing a bit of a rest and so we head back to the campground. At this point, we finally have a brief spell in the rain, giving us a false sense of hope. Haifa and the boys head to the tent for a rest and I head to the lake for a brief walk before I join them. We quickly discover a couple of wet spots in the corner of the tent but think nothing of it at the time. Shortly later the rain starts again, and this time, by some hellish miracle, even stronger. Slowly, over the course of an hour we discover that these are not wet spots, but rather the whole floor of the tent is soaking wet. Going outside to inspect I discover that what had been a beautifully dry place to pitch our tent had turned into a rather substantial lake. I run up to the signboard at the entrance to the camp to find out the ferry times to Revelstoke and run back, confirming that yes, we can make a quick getaway to the dryness of a hotel.

The next 40 minutes are a blur. Haifa spends the first half hour in the tent looking after the boys and packing up all of our stuff while I run around outside packing up our outside stuff. As we neared the deconstruction of our tent we put Zaid and Owen into the car, which caused Owen some distress. Luckily, Zaid stepped into protective big brother mode perfectly and offered his younger, somewhat scared, sibling consoling phrases of “Its okay Owie” before singing to him. I was very proud of him that night. Finally we get the car packed up, I am utterly soaked from head to toe and so I make a quick change into somewhat dryer clothes, although the run back to the car from the washroom sort of defeated the exercise.

We speed out of the campsite at about 6:45, stop at the gas station in town for a couple of coffees and are chased by thunder and lightning the 60 KM to the ferry dock. Somewhere along the way to the other side of the lake the rain stops and we drive the final 40 KM to Revelstoke. We have a quick “dinner” of garlic sausage, avocado, and banana chips before tucking the boys into bed at 9:30.

Cloud cover of the eastern shore of Arrow Lakes on the ferry to Revelstoke. Photo: Ben McNamee

This morning I brought the tent inside and it has been drying out on the hotel room floor all day. The ten is now dry, but the fly still has some ways to go. Hopefully it is dry by morning.

Haifa will post about our day in Revelstoke, but now it is bedtime before we head to the Rockies and Alberta tomorrow.

Day Seven: Are We There Yet Index

Friday June 29, 2012

YAY! We have hit the end of the first week, and are currently in McDonald Creek Provincial Park, in the BC Kootenay region. We were a bit hesitant to head this way due to the record setting floods in the region and the forecasted heavy rain, but decided to head out anyway to pay a visit to the small town of Nakusp. Tomorrow promises to be a busy day with a lakeshore walk, museum visit, hot-spring visit, picnic, café breakfast, and grocery shopping planned.

Zaid playing on the beach at McDonald Creek. Photo: Ben McNamee

In homage to Harper’s Index from Harper’s magazine I present the week 1 version of our trip in numbers.

7: The number of days on the road.

6: The number of rainy days.

4: The number of unique campsites.

0: The number of times we have put the tent up correctly on the first try.

1: The number of unique hotels.

910: The number of KM driven.

50: The estimated number of KM driven with a screaming Owen.

25: The estimated number of KM driven with a screaming Zaid.

3: The number of restaurant meals.

3: The number of visits to Tim Hortons.

5: The number of deer seen.

2: The number of those dear that were dead.

1: The number of car-deer collisions seen.

1: The number of snakes seen.

1: The number of bears seen.

2: The number of showers per person.

7: The number of recommended showers per person.

0: The number of campgrounds where tents outnumbered trailers.

3800: The number of KM away from Toronto.

Day 6- Camping in Kekuli Bay Provincial Park.

Thursday June 28, 2012

Today was our second day at Kekuli Bay by Vernon. It was yet another gorgeous day and one that almost ended without rain. I say almost because as I sit down to write this at 9:54 pm a few light drops of rain have just begun to fall. Ben and I have become really good at predicting weather and preparing for it, so as the rain begins to fall this time, we have no reason to panic as all of our things are packed up or put carefully somewhere where they can remain dry.  Our little boys are finally both asleep, Ben is reading in the tent while keeping an eye on them and I am sitting to write this in the car as to not disturb them.

The day started out beautifully. We all woke up around the same time, just after 7:30 am when the sun was strong enough to heat the inside of our tent to an uncomfortable degree and force up to wonder out of it. Zaid and I were the first to venture out to eat breakfast. I then hung back with the boys while Ben prepared coffee for the two of us which we then enjoyed in the shade of a tree on our campsite while Owen lay down in his basinet and Zaid played nearby with his dump truck. 

Soon Zaid became restless so we decided to go for a walk down to the lake. We walked alongside a train track that runs alongside the lake until we found a clearing that lead to a small beach so we walked down it until we were at the water. It was breathtaking! The water was so shallow and crystal clear and you could see the lake and the mountains and the sky all in one view. It was so quiet and serene and perhaps the most beautiful water colour I have ever seen.  Ben noticed a raft very close to where we were standing so he took his sandals off, got into the water, walked over to where the raft was and brought it back to us. The next half an hour or so was spent with all of us sitting on the raft floating in the beautiful water (very close to the shore though to keep me from freaking out!!)  Zaid absolutely loved it, but when he decided that he wanted to push the raft all by himself we decided it was time to put it back, so Ben did and then we spend some more time by the water so that Ben and Zaid can play their favorite game of throwing rocks into the lake.  After that we walked back to the playground and Zaid played some more before heading back to our tent for naptime.

Ben on the raft in Kalamalka Lake

In the afternoon we had planned to visit a winery in the region but after giving it some more thought we decided to do a more child-friendly activity so instead we visited the Davison Orchard in Vernon.  This was another little interesting place, much like the model train museum that we stumbled upon by chance and would have never had the opportunity to visit had we not been on this trip. It was a great place for children complete with farm animals and kids play area. For the adults there was a great big gift shop with all kinds of homemade crafts and food and a nice little café to relax at, eat homemade pie and drink pure 100% apple juice. There was also a cherry tasting and you could buy fresh produce that have been grown on the farm. 

As we pulled in to the parking lot of the orchard I laughed and Ben wondered what was so funny.  What was so funny was that we were driving into this family farm, dressed in camping clothes,  with two young children in the back seat, and a very loud hip hop song by Wyclef coming out of our car stereo! I said to Ben, our music doesn’t seem to match our life and we both thought it was hilarious especially the fact that we actually do like that music!!

At the orchard, Zaid (and Ben) played in the kids zone for an hour, riding from one tractor to the another. I (and Owen) browsed the gift shop and kept in the shade. On the way out we bought a bag of fresh snap peas and some apple juice to enjoy for our afternoon snack.   

We ended the day with some home cooking for dinner, a walk around the campground and some down time under the tree on our site. We then began the process of putting Zaid to sleep which tends to be very unpredictable and today took more than an hour. Now finally, both Zaid and Owen are asleep and a most lovely day comes to an end. The little rain drops are actually welcomed today as it has been rather hot.

Tomorrow we head to Nakusp, another place I have never been to before. But I heard very good things about the little village and I am looking forward to it.

Haifa 

Day Five: No More Eeyore

June 27, 2012 

Finally, after four days, we have lived through a day without rain. I suppose since there is still 2 hours to go before bedtime this may not be true. The wisp of a cloud sitting above the hill in front of me could defy science, float over to right above our tent and drop itself upon our heads here at the picnic table; but I remain optimistic. We are at Kekuli Bay campground, just south of Vernon and it is beautiful. Nestled between the highway above us and Kalamalka Lake below us we are in a wide open, grassy, and quiet campground on a slowly sloping grass hill. This is by far and away the most comfortable we have been camping so far. We are not quite sure what combination of a sunny day, a nice campground, and a refreshed mind have made it this, but we are very happy here. We have few neighbours and so Zaid has a lot of freedom to travel, and the lack of trees allows us to spot him from afar, giving him a wider leash. He has particularly enjoyed playing at the campground playground, having been twice already.

Haifa and Owen on the bluff overlooking Kalamalka Lake. Photo: Ben McNamee

Getting here has been quite the adventure. Yesterday morning we woke up bright and early at our campground in Osoyoos so that we could get to the hotel in Kelowna by 12 for an important phone call at 1 PM. We had made our stop at Tim Hortons and were heading up the Okanagan with 20 pack of Timbits and 2 medium coffees in hand (Many thanks go to Natasha Krotez for the gift card, it has come in very handy so far). Somewhere around Oliver we were driving about 90 Km per hour behind an older van. There was an Orchard on one side and a Vineyard on the other. All of a sudden, a deer jumps out onto the shoulder of the highway about 20m in front of the van. Spooked by the sudden appearance of cars coming in its direction, the deer decides to jump into oncoming traffic. Realizing its mistake it tries to make a course correction and jumps diagonally forward and further across the highway. The driver of the van acted perfectly, slowing the car as much as they could safely and swerving to the right in an attempt to avoid a collision. Alas, no such luck for the Deer or the Van. The left front corner of the van smacks into the bag leg of the deer, spinning the poor guy around before he somehow scampers across to the other side. While he was lucky to get away, I suspect that it will be bear food in short time as I can’t imagine it operating at full speed. The van pulls over to the shoulder and we see that the front left headlamp has been all smashed up. If the coffee hadn’t woken us up by this point, we were surely awake now.

This morning we had a nice visit with an old friend from graduate school, Ross. He is a professor at UBC-Okanagan now and has a two month old daughter. He and his wife were very gracious hosts, who were kind enough to allow us to do laundry at their place while we had coffee and visited. It was a very nice morning and a big thank you must go out to him and his wife.

Haifa has a desire to tour a winery and so tomorrow I think we will. There is little around Vernon, so we will likely head backwards partially towards Kelowna to visit Gray Monk estates just south of Oyama. Another night in the Okanagan is warranted before we head out towards the Kootenays and the Nakusp area. Hopefully our extended stay in this valley will be enough for the rains to have passed us by and the floods to have subsided before Friday.