A CANNY GOOD READ!

1450km and 15 hours later we arrived in Banff from Winnipeg. We drove through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and then ½ of Alberta. We were expecting a long day but it was one hell of a lot longer than I thought it would be.

We got up @ 6am (Atlantic time) had some Timmy Hobo for breakfast, gassed up and then were tearing down the highway at 730am (530am central time). As it was so early we traveled for about 2 hours in the dark. There was plenty of road kill – all of it seemed to be mown down by a huge truck in front of us. Total annihilation it was.

At 730ish local time the sun started to rise over the plains, it was actually quite a site. We decided that today we would only stop to eat and take a leak. Any photo shots would have to be taken by me on the fly from inside the car.

I had always imagined that the plains were totally flat, with nothing but grass and the occasional cow or something. To begin with it was actually quite hilly and rolling; there were still miles and miles of grass with absolutely nothing on them.

We stopped for lunch at a Husky Gas Truckers Stop, ate quick, filled up with “go-go-juice” and were once again tearing down the highway. After passing through Regina and then Moose Jaw about an hour later the plains suddenly started to flatten out; as I imagined it to be. They call this area (along with Montana etc) the Big Sky country and rightly so. You could see for miles with no end in sight. We decided that we wanted to have a picture of us in the fields of the Great Plains – thus we decided to pull of the highway and drive down a dirt farm road, a road that was very rough and at one point I thought the red hawk was going to sustain some damage.

That was our last stop before supper in Medicine Hat, Alberta. We now knew we were close to our destination of Banff. Back onto the road again we were once again tearing down the highway and basically owning the road.

We knew the day before that we would hit Calgary right at the peak of rush hour, it sucked. I spent about 1 hour going at speeds less than 20km/h and it was all constant brake, clutch, gas, brake, clutch, gas – my knees were pretty sore at the days end. I thought that with the Rocky Mountains being so huge I would see them rising up from the plains but it wasn’t until we had passed thru Calgary that I saw the Rockies in the horizon. Even though we were quite a distance away they looked very formidable. The closed we got to Banff the larger the mountains became, they were slowly engulfing us. I knew the Rockies were big but until you are within a hundred feet of the base of them you just have to stop to take them in…WOW.

We located Andy’s residence and set up HQ however we would not go to sleep just yet, it was off the local for a few beers and some hockey. After 5 pints and at about 12 (2am Atlantic time – we had been up for 19 hours) we made our way back home. I thought Andy was joking when he said “watch it boys, we might see some wildlife en route to the apartment”, BUT as we made our way home a deer came crashing out of the bushes and onto the street in front of us. All I could think to say was “Holy f*#k A deer”, I was so amazed to see a deer it was all I could talk about. It was as though I had never seen a deer in m life. After than excitement it was time for sleeps.

More Plaines

A Train

The Little House on the Pararie

Searching for the Rockies

The Rockies