Alberta, Alberta

Google Map of our Alberta route

So here we are in Alberta – southern Alberta to be precise. Not initially our plan but our plan seems to change daily. We are still sticking to the rough itinerary though – we head west and then north. Our first stop after Medicine Hat was Writing on Stone Provincial Park (about a 2 hour drive south west of Medicine Hat). Once again travelling through long country roads and rolling farm land to get there. And it was hot. The park itself is a really neat little area of crazy rock formations (hoodoos) that just seem to appear out of nowhere. Did a quick tour of the visitors centre and then took the 2.2 km Hoodoo trail to walk in around the hoodoos. Did I mention it was hot? The hoodoos are really crazy to look at but without tree cover, they are really hot to walk around. The “writing on stone” part of the park is the designs created by an indigenous artist (not sure the date – obviously didn’t pay enough attention in the visitors centre). Unfortunately there are still wanna be artists like “Ashley was here” and “240” that also like to write on the stone detracting from the enjoyment of the park. The staff do their best to try and rub off the graffiti but I wonder at what point they will just have to fence everything up and you can only view it from a distance.

After a lunch break under some tree cover, we were onward to Waterton Lake National Park. This place is just beautiful. A crystal clear lake encompassed by mountains on every side. Warm sunshine but that nice cool breeze off the lake. Cute little touristy town which I am sure is hopping in the summer. Although most of the hiking/mountain biking trails were closed due to both the damage/continued restoration from a large forest fire in August 2017 as well as a mama bear with her cubs showing some aggressive behaviour, we couldn’t help but stay 2 nights as it was just too pretty a place to want to leave. We did frequent walks along the paved trail shouldering the lake and got to view how close the fire came to the town on walks to Cameron Falls. 

Dropping off our recycling in Waterton Lake National Park

Mike tackled fixing the screen in the van while I did a little work out (thanks to a certain physiotherapist who gave me a tin of popsicle sticks with various exercises on them – BRILLIANT - they don’t fly away!!). 

We also had our first random encounter with a former Kenorite who just happened to be visiting the park for the weekend. Of course, I have to thank to my Thunder Bay book club whose birthday/going away present to me was a 1 year National Parks pass which is already being put to good use.

Southern SK and AB

Douglas Prov Park (SK) to Elkwater (AB)

After we left Douglas Provincial Park, we pointed the van Southwest and travelled through some beautiful but somewhat monotonous prairie farm land. I love the old decrepit farm houses out in the fields with their weathered wood frames, broken windows and often collapsed roofs. We stopped in Swift Current to pick up some supplies and kept heading west.

It was a hot drive. Stinking hot. Our van has air conditioning, but it currently doesn’t work. I took it into a garage before leaving Thunder Bay to get it fixed but they weren’t able to fix it before we left. We have a thermometer in the van and it was displaying 34 degrees, which I think is a little warmer than it actually was but it’s still hot. We had the fans running full blast and the rear exhaust fan drawing air out which helped a bit but it was still uncomfortable. We may have to stop and get the a/c fixed at some point. We aren’t big a/c users, but we may have hit our breaking point over the last couple of days.

We also broke our no more long drives rule. There was no reprieve from the heat so we kept driving hoping we’d find a lake or river to cool off in. We even stopped in a few places optimistically named such as Gull Lake but there was no lake to be found. So we kept driving. We drove all the way to Cypress Hills Prov Park in Southwestern Saskatchewan. We went way over on the km budget!

We stayed the night in a nice rustic campground in Cypress Hills. We had the whole place to ourselves. The next day we went and checked out the Fort Walsh National Historic site. They had done a big renovation and were late opening so the site wasn’t officially open yet but they were doing some staff training so they turned the lights on in the museum and let us check it out. We hiked around with the dogs and explored the old fort a bit before taking off. A few more vehicles showed up to check out the site (there was no signage that it was closed) but the staff had locked up the visitor centre so we passed our maps onto another couple, ate some lunch and hit the road again.

Cypress Hills is an inter-provincial park so it straddles the SK and AB border. We travelled the narrow and rutted gravel/clay road to the AB side. We were thankful we had a high clearance vehicle, but then we met a Lincoln Continental on the road. They must have been carefully navigating because it was pretty bad in spots.

50km later we arrived on the Alberta side and wow, what a beautiful park! We stayed in the town of Elkwater and had a couple of days of biking and hiking. They have some really nice trails there but there is lots of climbing as the trails are above the town and climb up the top of the ridge behind which is 1000m higher. These were Kim and I’s first couple of rides of the season on our mountain bikes so we were pretty winded. On the second day I got Kim to shuttle me up to the lookout so I could have a 3 or 4 km descent back into town. Can’t wait to ride more new trails!

The day ended on another high note when we travelled to Medicine Hat and stayed with Kim’s cousin Heath. We broke down and accepted his offer to stay inside the air conditioned house instead of in the van in the driveway. We had a good visit and got a good nights sleep. A great way to cap off our first week on the road.

Kenora to Moose Jaw

After leaving Thunder Bay, we made a quick stop in Kenora. We had to unpack things we were giving away/lending to family. We also had to get our trailer organized for storage and try to ensure it was leak proof and critter resistant. We had to vote and get some stuff sorted out at Service Ontario. All the things that you can’t do while on the road.

The next leg was driving to Moose Jaw. Not a super long drive, only about 8 hours, but what we hoped would be the last longish drive of our trip. Our plan is to take it SLOW. Kim and I are notorious for spending too much time driving. If the weather is bad or we run out do things to do, our default is too jump back in the car and drive. On this trip we have decided to force ourselves to slow down by limiting how many km we drive per week. There will be exceptions, but our goal is to only burn 1 tank of gas per week. This limits us to about 500-700 km per week. This should slow us down and keep us outside instead of stuck in the van.

We stopped in Regina and met up with Kim’s family on the Mowrey side and had a good visit. We only see Kim’s cousins kids once every year or two so they grow up fast. We slept in the van in Kim’s cousin Danielle’s driveway which was great but the morning turned into a bit of a gong show as we forgot to change our alarm clock to the new time zone. We waited till the respectable hour of 8am before knocking on the door, which tuned out to be 6am Regina time. Oops!

After coffee and breakfast we made the short drive to Moose Jaw. The plan was to have a graveside memorial service for Kim’s Grandma Zimbowski and then return to her uncle’s place for some food and drinks. It’s been a while since the whole family has been together so there was a lot of catching up and some good natured ribbing. As usual, things got rowdy as the night wore on and lots of laughs were had.

Next we are off to explore a few parks in Saskatchewan.

The grand tour of Saskatchewan

Rough estimation of the route using google

The grand tour of Saskatchewan. Or maybe just central Saskatchewan. We stopped in Regina and Moose Jaw to visit with my family and have a graveside service for Grandma (Mary) Zimbowski (1928-2017). As much as I have been told I am going on an adventure, I don’t think anything comes close to the “adventure” my Grandma took, sailing across the Atlantic in the 1950s, landing in Halifax (Pier 21) and then taking a train to Saskatchewan. I remember her telling stories of “what is this place?”. My dad did a touching musical montage of this beautiful strong woman as she raised her 3 kids while working full time, tending to her massive garden, cooking home made bread and perogies and cabbage rolls.  She was an amazing grandma that had a great sense of humour, an infectious laugh and a heart of gold. We miss her.

After staying on streets and driveways of family, we headed northwest to Douglas Provincial Park to meet up with friends. I think Saskatchewanians really do appreciate their lakes as it seems most lakes have some sort of park encompassing them and there was some pretty beaches along this one (Diefenbaker Lake). We also hiked the trails in the park that were lined with cacti and juniper bushes (we got smart and left the dogs at “home” the 2^nd time out due to having to watch their every step with the cacti) and led to beautiful sand dunes with small areas of stunted trees. Got to hang out with good friends too!

Our van and Dawn and Tyler’s Boler

Kim and Ruby washing Dawson

Douglas Provincial Park sand dunes at sunset

The challenges

1. the heat. Mike and I don’t do well in it in the best of times and although it is not even June yet, the temperatures are hovering between 27-29 during the day. Normally we could just go grocery shopping or find a coffee shop with wifi but how do you cool down with the dogs?

2. slowing down. We wanted to have a km/gas money limit but trying to explore Saskatchewan is challenging - things are just a long ways from each other.

3. compost. After composting our fruits, veggies and egg shells for the last 10 years, we are struggling with either how you compost on the road or throwing our organic food in the garbage (hurts my heart thinking about it). My thought is there needs to be a website where you can register your house as a place that accepts travellers’ compost.  We are hoping we may stumple upon  community gardens that may want our kitchen scraps...

Goodbye Thunder Bay - Thanks For All The Memories

Well it has begun!! We said goodbye to our Thunder Bay home and drove the first leg to Kenora today. It was sad to leave but we are excited to start our journey. The past week has been super chaotic and emotional. Kim and I both said goodbye to our jobs, and more importantly, our co-workers. We said goodbye to our wonderful neighbourhood and neighbors. On the plus side, we got to introduce the soon-to-be new owners of our house to a few of the neighbors, and in true Autumnwood style, they made them feel welcome. We packed up what remained of our belongings and jammed it all into a 12x6 cargo trailer and our van. It’s quite the feeling having all your possessions in one place. We’ve managed to downsize quite a bit, but we still have too much stuff. Kim and I teased each other on the drive about being homeless and unemployed for the first time in nearly 2 decades. Pretty crazy! Now on to Moose Jaw

Who we are and what we are doing

Let’s get some intros out of the way. My name is Mike and my wife is Kim, and we, along with our 2 dogs, are hitting the road! We’ve quit our jobs, sold our house (and most of the things in it), bought a campervan and are setting off on a year(ish) “vanbatical”. Our rough trip plan is to leave Thunder Bay Ontario and head west to BC, then north to Yukon and Alaska , and then travel south along the west coast of Canada and the US as winter sets in and temperatures drop. We’ll spend winter in the southern states and maybe even venture down to Mexico and travel along the Baja Peninsula. As winter ends and spring begins, we’ll head back north for a visit at our parent’s place in Kenora before deciding our next steps.

The Rig

Our vehicle and home for the next year(ish) is going to be a 2001 GMC Savanna 3500 with a camper conversion by Safari Condo. It’s a pretty sweet ride! We spent a few months searching and considered everything from a Sprinter to a Prius with a rooftop tent. We decided we wanted something self contained with plenty of interior room for us and the dogs. We also wanted something that was easy to drive and park, and that was at least somewhat ‘stealthy’ for parking without screaming “The tourists are here!”. All in all, I think the van will be just about perfect for our needs and because it was already built out, I got to spend my time customizing and tweaking the setup instead of building it from scratch.

There is a double bed upstairs in the popup and the rear bench folds down into a second double bed. The front seats swivel 180 degrees to face the rear of the van. This opens up the space immensely and when combined with the 2 person middle bench and a table, this makes a little dinner table suitable for 4 people. There is about 3 feet of counter space and lots of storage for kitchen items and food. Along the drivers side at the rear is our “closet” with lots of space for our clothes. Accessible from the back doors and under the rear bed is our “garage”. This space hold all our camping gear, dog food and accessories, fuel and other miscellaneous items. On the back of the van is our swinging hitch mount bike rack. This allows us to open the back doors without having to remove our bikes each time. 

So that the gist of our plan and van. I’m sure we’ll go into more detail about things in the future but that gives you a rough idea of what we are doing.

Happy trails!

Goodbye Thunder Bay

I loved living in Thunder Bay for the 5 1/2 years I was here.  I had great neighbours, amazing friends, awesome teammates and fantastic coworkers.  I learned to mountain bike in shuniah mines, I hiked along Lake Superior, I biked through the multi use city trails and I looked across to the sleeping giant every morning on my way to work.  There were such memorable performances at the auditorium and an incredible weekend at the marina for Blues Festival.  The restaurant scene is terrific and who doesn't love the farmer's market. There is a community here that is really trying to help inspire people to change their behaviours with respect to the damage we are doing to the planet - they certainly inspired me.

Good bye Thunder Bay.  I may be going on an incredible adventure but I am already homesick for you.

**T-shirt above is made by Ungalli - a local Thunder Bay company which sells clothing made in Canada from recycled and organic cotton.  Boom!