Rainy day oddity

Ski Hill
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

It's raining today in Montreal so I thought I would put this funny photo up. This is what the Drumheller folk call a ski hill. You can see the big slab of iced snow. Make sure you use your old skiis because you'll spend 3/4 of the time gliding on mud and grass.

A walk in Montreal

Basilique De Notre'Dane
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

We hiked up the only hill and then took a tour of downtown. Poutine, Soup, Waffles and baked goods filled our tummies all day. We're tired... walking all day. Time for a nap. Here's a place we visited today. We snuck in with a school class and got in for free.
We're finishing off the night with a mound of home-made sushi.

Banff

Banff
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

I've always wanted to visit Banff to see if I would like to live there. The scenery is amazing! The town is fairly small with mostly tourist shops and almost everyone is Australian. I think if I was looking for a place to live in the winter, this would be a good choice next to Whistler. It you're going to be in the snow, get as much as you can! The drive to Banff is quite long and the town is very isolated.

Canadian Geese

Canadian Geese
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

While cooking dinner on the beach we saw this huge flock of geese fly by.

Bin Bed

Bin Bed
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

Here's how we slept for two nights on the trip. It was quite comfortable with thermarest pads down on top of the bins. The tricky part was getting in and out using the side door. I had to do it Dukes of Hazard style.

Sault St. Marie is the place to be

Thunder Bay? No thanks. We skipped right on by and burned the midnight oil to get to Sault St. Marie, Ontario last night. Actually we were 60km from it. We slept in our car, using the rubbermaid bins in the back as a platform with our thermarests on top. It's a pretty sweet setup. We stayed on a side road near a boat launch with a waterfront view.

Ontario is a very nice change from the flat plains we've been driving through. It's full of lakes and trees. We were hoping to see some moose but nothing yet. The weather here is so hot we wore tanks, shorts and sandals all day and walked along the river walkway. We actually had to walk in the shade for a bit to take a break from the heat. This small town has a lot to offer with natual food stores, scenery, hills and water. We're staying in a hotel tonight as a treat and heading for Montreal tomorrow morning.

On the way here we ran into 3 guys from BC who were also travelling across to New York. We had a nice chat with them at a pit stop. We don't see very many cars from BC driving the roads.. in fact I have only seen that one so far!

Claudine, here we come!

All about Calgary

This place is FLAT, flat as an ironing board. We've been here for 2 days. Spent time with Andrew and Molly. After a wonderful night of Molly's famous green curry we headed home to Andrew's. Aaron has known Andrew since the first year of highschool and they have been best friends since. He was kind enough to give us his bedroom (slumber palace) while we stayed there. Along the way home our car pooped out on us. I guess it was tired and needing a rest. So we decided to stay another day in Calgary while the car was getting some pampering. Thank goodness for parents' intuition, Aaron's parents got us BCAA so we were well taken care of.

Hiking in Whistler

Hiking in Whistler
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

On April 10th we went hiking up in the hills with Sara, her friend Maggie, Ron, Tobi, Zara (the dog) and the two of us. It snowed a little bit, rained a little more.

Now we're off on our trip, leaving Whistler and heading towards Calgary. We might spend a night in Banff or Lake Louise.

Downtown Vancouver

Downtown Vancouver
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

This is confusing. Have you tried getting to Whistler from the Tsawwassen ferry terminal? You get routed through downtown Vancouver and with all of the construction going on, we had a hell of a time finding our way. I played navigator and Mabel took the wheel.

We've decided it would be fun to take a picture every hour on our trip while driving. This is our second one. At the end we'll put a little slideshow together showing how the terrain changes as we cross the country.

Mabel surfing in Tofino @ N Chesterman

Mabel surfing in Tofino @ N Chesterman
Originally uploaded by Longbean.

April 3. We spent a few last days in Tofino getting in some surf before we left. The first day was a bit messy but we both pulled a few good rides. I tumbled on a big one and my board blades scraped across my legs. I got 3 big bruses out of it. I was pretty sore so I relaxed on the beach while Mabel hit the surf again the next day.