Deeks Summary

Hey there, whomever is lucky enought o find this blog of our adventures .. here is a quick (man style) summary of our trip thus far.

Day one, we drove to the farm .. dropped off Oscar and had a rest before our 17 day road trip. Accomodations were nice, meal was included and the B&B hosts were friendly.

Day two, we left the farm later than I had hoped, but this is our holidays so we really don't keep track of time other than we have to be at Jeff & Candace's wedding on Vancouver Island the 24th of June. Anyhow, we made tracks through Stoughton (a place I had lived at while working as a rig pig back in the late 90's) had a great supper at Georges restuarant, being fathers day the place was packed. After hitting the road we made it to Swift Current Saskatchewan, decided to go cheap and stay at a 2 star hotel ... one star for having a roof and one star for having wireless internet ... other than that I would say stay away from this place ... I wore my socks in the shower .. nuff said!

Day three had us on the road again .. we drove to the bad lands of Alberta, north of the #1 hwy by a little bit, but definitely worth it .. the scenery was very impressive. Luanne was more adventurous than I when it came to getting close to the edge of some of the cliffs ... you should see the pictures! We also visited the dinosaur info booth and took a self guided tour of the lower bad lands .. again, you need to see the pictures.

After leaving the park we made our way to Calgary .. home of the flaming flames .. our only stop was at a tall tower with a 360 degree look out tower .. this was very cool .. except the part of the glass floor .. that was too much for me .. I stayed clear. You could see miles in all directions, the mountains were obviously very nice .. but what stood out more was the amount of construction going on in Calgary ... there were cranes everywhere!

We left the tower, and made our way to Banff national park ... a highlight of any trip. We set up camp, and then toured Banff the town to see what was going on. I had been there in the early 90's on a ski trip with some pals, and not a lot has really changed ... very touristy in nature and a lot of upscale hotels on the strip ... I can't imagine what real estate would cost there, but I am sure it would be worth every penny (if i had that many pennies).

The next morning we woke up frozen like popsicles ... I had not taken into consideration the mountains and everything so a bit of a learning curve was had. Nature 1, naive Manitobans 0.

A quick tear down and a few pictures later and we were on our way to Banff to check things out ... after a few hours shopping (a few hours too many in my humble opinion) we checked out the scenery offered by such a beautiful setting. First the Bow River rapids and then a cruise to the golf course ... followed by a dip in the Upper Hot Springs.

It was now time to hit the road again .. next stop, who knows. We headed west and drove through some crazy turns and hills. I kept thinking these truck drivers are nuts! Some slopes were roller coaster like ... with turns that produced 2 or 3 G's at least!

After it got dark we decided to find a place to sleep .. learning from our earlier experience of saving money by staying at a cheap motel we decided to look around ... we checked out every Hotel/Motel in Revelstoke and came up to the Motel 8 ... I said to Luanne "Lets stay here if its 88$ or less", she agreed .. I went inside to see how much a room was and beleive it or not, it was 88$ .. normally a 100$ was put on special that night ... fate was playing around this night ... and let me tell you, we were appreciative. The room was super clean, the breakfast was simple yet filling, a Tim Hortons shares the same parking lot and the pool/hot tub was much needed!!

Ok, so this quick man style summary has turned out to be anything but ... so thanks for reading it and stay tuned for an update from our next destination .. Vancouver!

Derek, over and out.