Tag Archives: Road trip

O, Canada!

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Photo by Jonathan Denney on Unsplash

My husband and I noticed a trend when we were in Kalispell, MT. A lot of people asked us where we were going next. We would respond, Glacier National Park. They would respond, You really need to go to Banff.

So we added Banff National Park (Alberta, Canada) to our travel plans.

While in Glacier, we got the same question: Where are you going next? We responded, Banff. They would respond, Oh, you really need to go to Jasper.

So now we’re going to Jasper National Park (also Alberta), too.

We hit the road on July 3rd, leaving Kalispell behind. Soon, we crossed the Canadian border.

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About 1km after that, we met this brown bear grazing by the road side.

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I took it as a good sign that I’m going to love Canada!

We didn’t go Banff/Jasper directly. I felt like I needed a little stability in our 3.5 month road trip.

Thanks to the Internet, I found us a nice, short-term housesitting job in St. Albert, Alberta. St. Albert is a little north of Edmonton.

On the way to St. Albert, we stopped in Pincher Creek to stay at an Air BnB. This place has been my favorite Air BnB place thus far in all my Air BnB stays ever. Here’s a picture of the view from their couch:

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This place has gorgeous views, spectacular natural light, and not a speck of dirt to be seen in our suite. Showering there was also a rather spiritual experience filled with abundant gratitude and joy. Being at Glacier, I had not bathed in five full days.

We also met two super sweet dogs, and a giant rooster with the most feathery pantaloons. My husband nicknamed him Bear Chicken, but his real name is Pretty Princess Bracelet (named by two little girls).

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We then made our way to St. Albert, after a stop in Calgary. We didn’t have much time there, but we did have enough time to visit #REGRUB and share this milkshake.

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What I’m enjoying most about the housesit in St. Albert is Stella the cat. Everything about her is adorable. She also does what I call The Flop when you scratch her butt. (video)

This housesit is the first time we’ve only been responsible for a cat and house. Add cleaners that came to the house on Tuesday, and you’ve got a rather easy experience. It was exactly what I needed.

True confession, though: I thought it was closer to Jasper so we could take day trips. It’s not.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time just to see what really happened because I know I looked at St. Albert and Jasper on a Google Maps.

Ultimately, I don’t think it matters. My husband and I have spent our time catching up on activities we haven’t been able to do a lot of while camping. Writing for me and organizing/editing photographs for him.

Catching up means we haven’t taken full advantage of St. Albert or the area. I’m okay with that. We’ve been on the road since May 15th.

I’m considering this our summer staycation.

The few places we have gone are downtown St. Albert (Jack’s Burger Shack is 5 stars in my opinion), strolled along the walking/bike trails in the surrounding parks (we saw a beaver and a muskrat!), visited the West Edmonton Mall (largest mall in North America), and, my personal favorite, went to the St. Albert Farmer’s Market (the largest Farmer’s Market in Western Canada).

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West Edmonton Mall Skating Rink

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We’ve been here since July 5th. I think the truest testament to how much we haven’t been doing is that I haven’t befriended a single dog while I’ve been here.

I have patted a few here and there. But never long enough where I felt like I established enough rapport with the dog parents to ask details about the dog and if I could take a picture.

Thank goodness for Stella. She’s so adorable, I’ve had no choice but to take 304 photos of her so far. Seriously, I just counted. God bless the invention of digital photos and cloud storage.

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I’m going to miss Stella and the consistency of being in one place. But I’m also ready for another adventure. I’m especially eager to sleep again in a tent.

Thanks, Canada! So far, you’ve been nothing but wonderful.

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Memoir Monday, January 2nd, 2016

on-the-road-again-title

With New Year’s upon us, it’s a time when a lot of us reflect on where we are and where we’re going, metaphorically, that is.  I don’t know if it’s because of my measurement background, but this is something I do on a regular basis.  However, I’m still traveling for the holidays (which is why I didn’t write a Monday post last week) and

I find it hard to think about where I am and where I’m going spiritually when a lot of my time and energy is spent on physical transitions.

Since December 26th, my husband and I have gone from Norfolk, CT, to Harrisburg, PA, to Pigeon Forge, TN, to Smyrna, TN and today we are heading out to Leoma, TN.  We’ll be there until January 6th when we head back to Norfolk, CT.  Because we like to be leisurely when we travel, we’re planning on making it a three-day trip.  My husband likes to take many stretching breaks and sometimes a tourist attraction will catch our eye (I’m talking about you Natural Bridge).  Occasionally we also get stuck in a time warp and for inexplicable reasons it takes a much longer to get somewhere than we anticipated, like the time it took us over nine hours to get from Smyrna to Cornelius, NC.

It’s therefore good that we have the luxury of time to get us where we need to go, just in case.  On the other hand, I’ve been feeling a little bored with all of our time in the car, even though I consider my husband to be one of the most fun people on the planet.

Since we got married in February, my husband and I have driven over 30,000 miles on our housesitting adventures.  We’ve driven all over the Midwest, the South, and the Northeast, including New England.  We’ve listened to audio books, played games, and talked for hours about everything and anything.

The difference is since November, we have taken the same trips (Norfolk-Harrisburg-Smyrna and back) twice now, with some small trips of just Norfolk-Harrisburg too.  I feel like I’m missing a sense of adventure.  It’s always the same roads, same landscapes, same tourist destinations.  My husband and I both like discovering new places and it’s one of the reasons we try to find a new place to go every week when we’re housesitting.

When we drove into Pigeon Forge last week, it was a place I’d never been before.  There was so much for me to look at, I asked if we could turn off our audiobook because I had completely stopped paying attention.  I was filled with a sense of wonder and awe as we drove through the Smokey Mountains.  These feelings are something that’s not there when we’re on miles and miles of interstate with billboards, especially interstates and billboards I’ve seen what feels like hundreds of times over.

Funnily enough, I thought this was going to be a post about physical transitions but as I’m writing it’s clear to me this problem goes much deeper than just getting bored while driving.  Have I become ungrateful for the wonderful opportunities that have been afforded to me with this wandering lifestyle?  It sure sounds that way as I complain about the same-ness of it all.  That’s not who I want to be and no wonder I’ve been feeling bored lately.  When you simply let things go by in life,

you can end up missing everything and then you’re stuck somewhere where you have no idea how you got there and how to get out.

So I guess I will be going somewhere spiritually as I finish off these physical journeys in the next week.  I am challenging myself to pay attention to what I see around me even though I think I’ve seen it before and even though I think I won’t like it.  I challenge myself to watch the world go by me with a renewed sense of wonder and awe.  And to not just be grateful for all I have, such as a husband who is my best friend, a car filled with safety features, time for adventures, and the financial resources to have them, but to express that gratitude every chance I get.

Watch out I-40!  Things. Just. Got. Interesting.