RV collection day!!!!

She is HERE! After a hairy ride through the neighborhood T bought Mandeep Arvie (her first name chosen by Skye) home.

First day of our cross country trip! T and I worked like mad dogs to get out the house and still felt like we left a lot of things but off we went! After a quick sage burning session for luck!

Day 2 of cross Canada (well some of Canada). Lovely morning at Chutes with another swim near the waterfall and then off to Lake Superior. We are at Agawa Campground with another epic campsite right by the beach. We got here just in time for a beautiful sunset evening play and dinner.

We stayed another day at Agawa Bay campground on Lake Superior today and gave T a break from driving. It was a lovely beach sunny day. Though the waters of the largest surface volume lake in the world are on the chilly side Jabba swam 5 times! The water is \240completely clear with soft sand after you get past all the perfectly round pebbles.

Tomorrow on we go west west west

Double day post for July 25 and 26 as we didn’t have signal at Sleeping Giant.

So yesterday was a big drive (or felt like it) from Lake Superior Provincial Park to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. The weather was dicey but T handled it like the pro he is. Once at Sleeping Giant the weather cleared and we even got a rainbow.

Now we head to the border of Ontario/Manitoba to a site called Rushing River. Everyone is well but there is a lot of driving.....the road is LONG but scenery beautiful as we traverse the Canadian Shield.

Biggest drive yet ahead of us - Ontario to Saskatchewan via Manitoba! We are on the road early and it’s another blue sky day. We are chasing the sun out west.! I’ve attached some of the Arvie activities we do while we are on the road.

Alberta Alberta! Where you been so long?

We are here in Alberta after visiting the quaint Indian Head town to check out the bakery and fruit/veg street stall. The drive through Sask was filled with big blue sky, grain elevators and CP trains. Quite the views.

What a day! No big driving today so we spent the morning catching up on life stuff (emails diary laundry etc) and headed to check out Lethbridge BUT \240most importantly we went to Barons! Yesssssss! This is the town where T’s dad Tom grew up. It was scorching hot so on the way home we stopped off for a swim at Park Lake Provincial Park. Sweet day all round.

BADLANDS!!!!!

Not enough adjectives to describe this place - spectacular, incredible, magical and more. The video & pictures will speak for themselves. We had two nutty incidents today - a mistaken call to the police which then got patched through to RCMP! They now have all our details! And then as we turn up at the camp we find out we booked two nights at the end of August. All camps are booked for the long weekend but luckily we know some people in Edmonton who have hooked us up - phew.

From desert to mountains!

We started off going to the Tyrell museum which was an incredible museum and my only wish is that it was NOT \240f’ing Covid-19 so we could have really enjoyed it without worrying about moving the kids along. Anyway, c’est la Covid. We stayed at the site as in the afternoon we had booked a guided tour of the badlands. This was excellent though Skye did think up a question for our very patient guide Dan every few minutes. Some related to his Dino Peaches and other times actually related to the Badlands. It was great and very informative. Perhaps Peaches is related to Chinese Albertasaurus’?!

After we headed to Canmore where it was such such a thrill to see and be so close to the mountains. The air is so fresh and we were lucky to be invited for deck drinks and aperitifs which made for a lovely evening. All in all very excited for the next 6 days in the Rocky Mountains.

We came to Banff today. As soon as we got here we headed to the Sulphur Mountain Gondola.

It’s great that T knows Banff so well - we had our own personal guide.

The views were amazing. The boys loved the ride up although I was rather nervous with the 2,281mile climb! We walked around, spotted mountain sheep and had a delicious lunch in the mountaintop restaurant. A few cocktails later I was much more relaxed going down the mountain and even dared to look down.

Started the day with a good ol’ hike along the Bow River. We were all full of morning energy and were rewarded by stunning views of the river and waterfall and then further by cocktails and lunch at the Banff Springs - ha!

We saw the house that T and his family spent many happy summers in and the spots where he made home movies. After an unsuccessful and frankly painful walk through Main Street looking for souvenirs for Jasper (too many people!) we went for a drive to Lake Minnewanka but could not park (again too many people!) though saw the beautiful lakes surrounding Banff.

After a chill out in Mandeep we headed off for a perfect sunset picnic on top of Mount Norquay. It was truly spectacular.....and there were hardly any other people! Double win!

We said bye to Banff and headed down the beautiful Bow Valley Parkway to Lake Louise. T and I were so excited to bring the boys here as it’s one of \240the places we visited before we were engaged. We did a 6k hike around the lake and the boys were totally game with Jasper even going in for a little cool down (up to his knees only - report - \240it’s colder than Lake Superior).

Tomorrow we head to Jasper and we could not be more excited. For Jasper to see his namesake and for us to have a little break from the RV. Yes, it’s been an incredible drive so far but a real shower and beds are MUCH needed and will be so appreciated!

T woke up to shouting outside our RV which he realised was a park ranger greeting a bear! We \240just missed the bear but did see a large pile of fresh poo right in front of our RV! We were gutted to have missed a grizzly and her cubs but we were wide awake and up and out to hit the road again to Jasper.

We went along the Icefield Parkway and it was incredible with humongous stunning mountains every which way we looked. We stopped at many lookouts and then went for a short hike to see the Athabasca Glacier, again, truly spectacular. AND then as we continued our drive we saw lots of cars parked on the side of the road and pulled over to see a black bear! It was very quick as the bear ambled by but it was magical!

After two weeks in Mandeep we were very excited to have a little RV break and check into the Jasper Park Lodge for a few nights. I’ve already had two showers. Ha! It’s also very fun to see Jasper’s name on everything. We are excited to explore the park tomorrow.

Chilled out lovely sunny day swimming in the empty pool, then lake and eating yummy food.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves in terms of what we did today......

SO! It’s been a while - from Jasper we went straight to Edmonton and spent 6 wonderful days visiting family and celebrating Jasper’s 9th birthday. We were very sad to leave Edmonton and today, after a tearful goodbye, we started our journey home! First stop Indian Head - now we are pros in a trailer park and have settled in for a quick turnover. Tomorrow off we go straight through Manitoba to near Kenora. Ontario we are coming for you baby!

We keep on keep on driving east and are slowly making it home! We crossed through Manitoba in a day and camped overnight near Kenora and then the next day came to Kakabeka Falls. A swim and walk were much needed after two long days of driving. It’s great to be in Ontario and back with my new love - the SHIELD!!

Came to Neys Provincial Park this afternoon. On the map Toronto still looks incredibly far away but this is our second to last night. Jasper and I were so excited to be back at Lake Superior and ran into the water and it was just as wonderful as we remembered (from two weeks ago). After a long swim, walk along the beach and a fort building session, we had dinner and hung out by the fire. Sweet. Tomorrow Chutes and then HOME!

The last day! After another immense drive - 8 hours - well done T - \240we came to Chutes Provincial Park, in between The Sault and Sudbury. Chutes was our first camp site nearly ONE MONTH ago and so it felt appropriate that it’s our last. The kids have already asked to stay in Mandeep longer and are refusing to go home. But home we will go tomorrow and T and I, at least, are looking forward to it! Uber eats curry here I come.