Category Archives: roadtrip

Canada, history, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA, vehicles

They let us in!

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It didn’t dawn much brighter in Waterton Lakes on Friday, unfortunately.  That place must look stunning in the summer.

Heading out looking for a small hike, we met Dan driving the other way on the Red Rock Parkway.  Valerie was not amused by his warnings to watch for bears – “we’ve got a grizzly in a trap up in the campground, but the campground is closed; watch for others – they’re waking up & they’re hungry”.


In the end, we didn’t get much of a hike in as everything was still covered in snow, & quite deeply too.

Consequently, we started our run to the border.  In the town of Carsford we got distracted by a large carriage museum.  We were told that it’s the second largest collection of carriages in the world – the biggest is in Lisbon.  It sure seemed big – I’ve never seen so many bleeding aerials, I mean carriages; there were all sorts: working wagons, cabooses, sleighs, society, fire engines, dump wagons, chuck wagons, stage coaches, sulkies & more I can’t remember the name of.

The history was fascinating – especially as a lot of it related to the settlement & pioneering of the West.  I resisted the chance for a photo in the carriage Jackie Chan used in Shanghai Noon (it was comparatively boring).  There was a restoration workshop attached & one of the old guys who worked there (reminds me of the Kauri Museum north of Auckland) delighted in showing me how they make those big wagon wheels.

A contrast showing restoration work improvement (of the carriage, I haven’t had any restoration work done).

Lunch done with, it was a short hop to the 49th Parallel & the border crossing.  We did rather a lot better than the couple before who were turned around & with no hassles we filled our forms out & paid our six dollars & we were in Montana.  I had hoped to have a look around Glacier National Park, but it was just more frozen lakes & I’ve been seeing them all winter so we continued south.  The Road to the Sun, when it opens for summer, sounds amazing.  Highway 89 continued south through stunted & sparse forest climbing & winding up & through some of the largest snow banks I’ve seen all winter.  There was a noticeable change in prosperity from Alberta – it seemed that to live in NW Montana you had to have a hodgepodge of trailers littered with at least half a dozen old cars & pickups in various states of disrepair.

Gassed up (somehow managed to have someone else pay for a few gallons) we decided to push on to Helena for the night.  As we left it, we realized we’d been in a reservation & once out of it, the farmland started to look more intensive.  I was surprised to see a lot of irrigators, particularly large centre pivots.  We definitely were in the Big Sky State as we chewed up the miles (yes, I’ve had to start reading the inside dial on the speedometer).

Just before the Interstate (I-15) we went through a neat canyon, with the sun shining on the foreground & an ominous black clouding the horizon it was spectacular.

I think I’m on to my tenth state now & I’m pretty sure Helena is the first state capital I’ve been to.  We haven’t seen much so far except the inside of a motel room & a diner.  Hopefully we can have a little look around this morning before pushing on towards Yellowstone.  The diner last night was very much a Ma & Pa operation – it was packed & the food was simple with large portions.  To borrow a unit from Megan, flaginess was at a very high level – you couldn’t find a square metre of wall without some representation of red, white & blue (& those colours weren’t arranged in the way of the rather boring New Zealand flag).

On a side note, Montana has some great county names:  Fergus, Petroleum, Musselshell, Carbon, Treasure, Lewis & Clark, Rosebud (my ol’ son), Sweet Grass, & Beaverhead are noteworthy.

Distance Traveled: 492 km
Gas Price: 377.9
Best Meal: Finger Steaks (turned out to be wiener schnitzel)

around home, Canada, family, friends, roadtrip, travel

On the Road

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My last couple of days in Canmore were spent organising, packing, sorting out car things in Calgary, a short trip to Banff so Valerie could see the Banff Springs Hotel.


& spending time with friends.  I even got to go on my first bike ride with Finn in (literal) tow.  Granted, it was only along the riverside & pretty flat – but after this winter, it’s always nice to be on the bike.  For the last game of Settlers for a while I managed to dish out a good thrashing, while drinking the last of the Amarula & fittingly toasting Adrian & Carmen’s baby news.

With a great all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ meal & some amusing farewell gifts (those purple tassles are going to look great on my handlebars), goodbyes were said without any tears being shed.

So this morning, with the car packed up (there is a surprising amount of space left to fill) we hit the road & drove south.

on the Cowboy Trail.

Stopping for lunch in Turner Valley we managed to avoid this place:

I enjoyed driving further south through the foothills, it was a nice change from huge mountains or prairies.  At times it felt a bit like driving at home – rolling country, similar road surface, cloudy, a bit of livestock around & not much traffic.

We took a little detour west towards Crowsnest Pass as I was keen to check out the Frank Slide.  I had been hearing about this slide off & on in various conversations for the last year.  Early one morning in 1903, while the town of Frank was sleeping Turtle Mountain pretty much collapsed.  30 million cubic metres of limestone fell & slid down over the river & up the other side of the valley three kilometres.  Part of the town was swept away & about a hundred people were killed.  Driving through on the highway, we were staggered by the size of some of the boulders & how far they had traveled, in some places the rock is thirty metres deep!  It was all quite astonishing.

We continued south to Waterton Lakes National Park.  They’ve had an incredible amount of snow this winter & there are still two metre high drifts around parts of town.  We rolled up to the Parks information center just as it was closing & I was surprised to meet Dan closing up, I met Dan a few months ago on the avalanche course I did.  With promises to come back in the morning for tips where to go the next morning, he sent us off looking for somewhere to stay in the mostly closed-until-summer little town.

Distance driven: 409 km
Gas Price: 125.9 (Canmore)
Best meal: Alberta Beef Burger & Yam Fries

bikes, MTB, roadtrip, travel

Roadtrip Planning!

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Here is the long promised Summer 2011 West USA Roadtrip outline.  Ever since I realised that I would be ending a year in Canada with a car (probably), my long held pipe-dream of a classic USA roadtrip with my mountain-bike in the trunk (or on the back or on the roof – you get the idea) took many steps closer to reality.  My visa here expires mid-May, so the plan is to leave sometime just before that & travel down from the Alberta-Montana border to San Diego (with much time spent in Utah & Colorado) trying to do as much riding as possible.  As I’m also a bit of a sucker for famous sites & sights, plenty of National Parks & other such things will also be included – maybe even some hiking &, dare I say it climbing, could be in order too.  After spending time with good friends again in San Diego it’ll be up the west coast to British Columbia & then back across to Canmore to sell the car & leave for London again.

I’ve done a bit of research on the mtbr.com forums & other useful websites, but I’m keen to hear the ideas of others.  Here is a loose plan (in vague chronological order & which I haven’t really looked at for a while) of the places I intend to visit so far.  I fully realise that by the time I get to ride in some places, it will be stinking hot – but that’s just the way the visa timing works out; I think I’ll be doing quite a lot of early morning riding.  If anyone has any suggestions of great places to visit or ride that I might be able to work in to such a plan – please, please let me know.  Perhaps more importantly, if riding in such places appeals & you’re keen & possibly able to join me (for whatever part) – let me know, it’d be fantastic to share some sublime riding with friends.

Now I know why I was putting this off – there’s still six months to go & just writing about it makes that seem so far away.  If the taste of riding I had in the South West last year is anything to go by – it’s going to be a ripper.

Canada, roadtrip, snow, travel

A weekend of driving

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It seems that I’ve been sitting in a car for much of this weekend.  But I seem to survived & have managed to conquer the reward huge-steak dinner & waddle up to my room (perhaps the first time I’ve turned down the chance of cheesecake).  Yesterday started well too early for a Saturday, with a drive to Calgary in the dark.  Perhaps against my better judgement I ended up babysitting a three-month old for close to four hours.  I’m sure this would’ve been a bit easier if it hadn’t been -15ºC outside & I had some idea what I was doing.  As it happens, I had to traipse diagonally across Calgary in search of a tail light for my car; the first wreckers didn’t have any & the only other one that was open was of the pick-a-part variety (that is, where you have to go & extricate the part you want yourself) & they wouldn’t let me take a baby in.  It must be said you get a lot of amusing comments when you turn up at a wreckers carrying a wee baby from the sort of people that frequent those places on Saturday mornings.

The drive back across town was somewhat interrupted by a forty-minute screamathon – of which I couldn’t pinpoint the cause.  Never mind, there were some moments of quietness – eventually just before we reached our destination sleep & quietness descended (not for me, I was driving – it was safer that way) so I spent the rest of the time until the rendezvous driving around suburban streets trying to drive over as much bumpy snow as possible (of which there was quite a lot).  Relieved of my duties, I made it back to the wreckers to try & track down the elusive tail light.  I eventually found one – but trying to remove it from the car was problematic.  Firstly, it was -15ºC and all the cars were covered in snow (inside & out); secondly, the nuts to undo were tiny & very difficult reach when one’s fingers are freezing & legs are at risk from the tail gate falling at any moment (I had to prop it up with the parcel tray as the struts were gone).  It wasn’t a complete waste of time – I got a lighter socket for the exorbitant price of $1.04; that will come in handy for keeping the iPod charged on the roadtrip.

Speaking of the roadtrip, after Air Canada being completely unhelpful (& too much time spent on hold) it looks like I will have to fly back to London for three or so days in February & come back on a completely different booking just so I can back to London when I want to in August.  Grrrr, that $1000 could be put to much better use.

Back in town in the dark & after a quick tea it was round to Alex & Megan’s for a couple more games of Settlers.  That’s only really worth mentioning so I can link to Megan’s neat little post with some delicious looking game boards.  I’m unconvinced that any of those would make it through an entire game (usually forty-five to sixty minutes) intact.  I had a shocker first up, reevaluated my strategy a bit & snuck in for a win before going home & pretending to pack.

I was out the door by quarter past nine on Sunday morning for the drive to Kamloops.  A tad over five hundred kilometres, I was hoping the snow & ice wasn’t too bad.  It turned out the biggest problem with ice was getting the trunk/boot open – I couldn’t.  So my luggage sat on the back seat through to Revelstoke by which time it had warmed up a lot (well, from -20 to -6ºC) & I could pop the lid.  The drive was beautiful with all the trees covered in snow & the cloud sitting mysteriously & low all around.  I was surprised that this drive was so much easier than in the summer – that was mainly because there was markedly less traffic (I went for about half an hour at one stage with no vehicles on my side of the road; this is a good thing as passing on the unused lanes is sketchy at best) & the extraordinary amounts of construction had been stopped for the winter (the TCH is now twinned all the way to Lake Louise).  Most of the rest-areas/turn-outs were closed for the winter, so there wasn’t any good places to stop for photos.  So these two snaps will have to suffice to give some idea as to what I saw for most of the day.

The rental (some sort of large Buick) was rather a mixed bag.  The big plush seats looked nice, but seemed to have forgone any sort of lumbar support for the airbags; consequently, I was rather sore after an hour or two & could never find a good driving position.  Also, the car seemed to inexplicably shake/vibrate quite often – this seemed to be independent of speed & road surface, perhaps the wheels were out a bit but that doesn’t explain the intermittent nature.  On the plus side, the large V6 (large if you come from NZ, probably just ordinary if you are North American) was quiet & effortless (and surprisingly economical – less than 8.5 L/100 km), the audio system was good.

So I’m in Kamloops now & spent the rest of my afternoon (extended by going back in time crossing in to the Pacific time zone) napping & reading.  Apparently Kamloops is pretty nice, so if I’ve got time after work this week I’ll try to have a look around (in the dark probably, but better than nothing).