The final day of our road trip was the longest driving day
of the whole trip. To give you an idea of how long it was: we left Calgary at
7:30am (6:30am BC time) and dropped Cam and Sarah off in Kitsilano at 8:40pm.
Barb and I got back to Tsawwassen by 9:15pm, emptied Stan with the help of my
younger siblings, returned Stan at YVR airport, and got back home by 10:30ish.
To say I was exhausted after all that would be an understatement.
In some ways it was a good thing that it was such a long
day though because by the end I was so sick of being in a van. There is no way that I could’ve survived
another day of driving. That is not to
say that I didn’t really enjoyed my road trip.
I did. I had an amazing
time. I’m just glad to be home now.
It is crazy how much has happened already in the day and
half that I have been home. I took my
little sister Ashley to an interview at BC Ferries, had lunch at my Aunt’s
house, drove my little brother Tyler around town to hand out resumes, made
pizza for dinner and nearly burned down the house, played cards at my Gran’s
house, and finally took a trip to the hospital at 12:45am because the lady who
has been watching my younger siblings, Debbie, fell into a sliding glass door
and sliced her arm open. And that was
just one day in the Johnson household..
Now back to summarizing the last day of our road trip.
Sarah took the first driving shift. She drove from Calgary
to Canmore. We hadn't driven very long when the Rockies came into view. To see
the mountains rising up in the distance I can't tell you how happy that made
me. It was like I was struck with this overwhelming sense of that's home. The
next thought I had was "I love mountains." I voiced this thought so
many times throughout the day I'm pretty sure I started to annoy my travel
companions. What can I say I really do love mountains. I feel like I belong in
or near mountains. They make me happy.
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| Little rainy... |
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| Coffee break in Canmore |
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| Breakfast.. Yum! |
From there Cam drove us as far as Golden with a stop at
Lake Louise. I’m pretty sure I have been
to Lake Louise as a child but I hardly remember it. I was slightly disappointed that the lake
still had ice on it. I wanted to see the
green/blue water it is famous for.
Either way it was a nice stop and we got some good pictures.
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| BC!!! |
Once we made it to Golden we stopped for some food. In front of the DQ were these bears. Sam and Cam decided it would be fun to climb them. It wasn’t until after they had climbed them and posed for pictures that we noticed the sign, “Warning, bear unstable keep off.”
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| Sarah got a phone call while she was on the bear.. |
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| Only noticed this sign after the photo session.. Whoops! |
Barb took the next driving shift. She drove from Golden to Salmon Arm. This was probably my favourite leg of the
journey for two reasons. First because the
scenery was stunning and second because Barb and I sang along to some good music
while Cam and Sarah were tuned out in the back.
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| Pic of the day! |
The one scary part about this leg of the driving is for most
of it the lines on the road were practically invisible. Barb did a wonderful job driving despite
that. But I was ready to write a letter
to the province, basically saying how dangerous it was and that they should do
something about it. As I was formulating
the letter in my head we encountered a paint spray truck that came by and
re-painted the lines.
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| Barb and I were complaining about the severe lack of painted lines on the road and then we came across this! |
It was cool to see. I
had always wondered how they painted the lines on the road. We definitely felt safer after that, when we
could see the middle line clearly.
With the lines there I focused less on the road and more on
the scenery. I know I’ve said this a few
times already but BC is just so beautiful.
I had fun trying to capture BC’s beauty but I feel like I fell short.
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| Look left, rainy, grey grossness! Look right, sunny, beautifulness! |
Sarah drove the next leg from Salmon Arm to Merritt. What I liked about this portion of the drive
is the bright colours – lovely blue sky with white fluffy clouds, rich green
hills and dark blue lakes.
In Merritt Cam directed us to a coffee shop he really
liked. While there I took a picture of
Stan because when I talked to my Aunt earlier in the day she mentioned that I
never posted a picture of him.
Unacceptable.
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| Stan the van! |
Cam drove next, from Merritt to Abbotsford. From Merritt on I took fewer photos because
it is the part of the drive that I am most familiar with.
It was during this part of the drive that I developed a slight headache from hunger and minor dehydration. These factors are hard to control while in a moving vehicle for hours and hours. For one I was sick of the snack food we had in the van – I had been eating the same stuff for a week. And for two it is really hard to stay hydrated without having to stop every hour to use the washroom. We stopped for some food in Hope, which definitely helped with the headache.
We decided to do our final fill-up at the Costco in Abbotsford. Gas was 122.9/L there, which was more than it
was in Calgary but significantly cheaper than Vancouver.
Barb drove the final leg of the day. We decided to drop Sarah and Cam in Kits
first before heading to Tsawwassen. So
we ended up continuing on Hwy 1 long past Abbotsford. Barb and I found this part of the drive
interesting because we’ve never driven on Hwy 1 past Langley. We would always exit at Langley to get home.
This route took us right past downtown and Science World (I
know it has been renamed but I will always remember it as Science World).
It was strange dropping Sarah and Cam off. After spending a week together in a van it
seemed weird that we were parting ways.
I was really glad when Barb and I got home. My younger siblings – Ashley, Cody, Amanda
and Tyler – were there ready and waiting to help us unload the van so that we
could quickly be back on the road to return it.
While we unloaded the dogs, Lucy, Safari and Keisha were running around
like crazy, excited to have us home.
We bribed the girls with ice cream so they would join us on
the drive to the airport. Amanda went with
Barb in the van and Ashley came with me in my car. My car... that is still strange to say. I bought my brother’s car a couple months ago
but wasn’t able to drive it until now, obviously.
It felt so good to be behind the wheel rather than the
passenger seat. Sure it was awesome to
be chauffeured across the country but I really like driving.
We returned Stan, grabbed some treats from McDonald’s and
called it a night. That was the end of
my trip from Ottawa to Vancouver. It was
a wonderful trip. I really think that
everyone should drive across the country once in his or her lifetime.
I realized the other day that in the last month I have been
to 7 provinces. How cool is that? I was in Nova Scotia for Easter Break, Quebec
to see Montreal for a day and a few museum visits in Hull, and then the 5
provinces we drove through – Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and
British Columbia.
Now all I have left to visit in Canada is Newfoundland &
Labrador and the three territories – Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest
Territories. I’ll get there one day!
