The Journey Home

I know I have missed a portion of this journey in Vancouver and Victoria, mostly because of network issues, and just being too busy enjoying the sights and sounds. It will come - eventually.

We stayed at a Best Western in Sicamous on the way home as our first stop out of Vancouver, it was fantastic sleeping on the first bed in about three weeks and having a pampered shower with amenities supplied. Our day started out at about 34C, very hot and sunny through the mountains from Sicamous, so drove straight through to Calgary where we were met with high winds, rain and ominous clouds and a temperature drop of about 20 degrees Celsius as soon as we hit the foothills around Cochrane. We got into warmer wear at a gas stop just outside of Calgary.

While here we checked out the town we once lived in for our old haunts and contemplated continuing on but it was very late and the van was acting very strange and slow. We decided to stay here and found a Starbucks and a Super Store to stock up groceries and check the web for RVing spots. We found a site on the web called Symons Valley Ranch RV site north of Calgary that sounded quite intriguing and set out to find it. Construction and problem with streets randomly ending and restarting somewhere else made it quite a challenge to find our way anywhere – we would have had an impossible time without the GPS.

About GPS, we chose Microsoft Streets and Trips which would have been fantastic had it not crashed every time you tried to zoom the map in or out. Absolutely impossible to work with, no matter which system we tried it on.

We woke up nice and early in Calgary, about 6am, however, the van wouldn’t start and an hour later we were still sitting in the campground with everything out of the back so we could check the engine. Nothing seemed to help and we contemplated calling CAA or at least threatening to and the van finally started but didn’t sound at all healthy. We managed to limp our way back to the same Starbucks to get internet so we could try to find a Volkswagen repair shop. With a combination of suggestions from a couple of the patrons there and a look through the list available in the Calgary area, we settled on Tony’s repair shop on 11th Ave SE. Remember I said the streets didn’t go in a straight line and we broken and picked up throughout, well 11th Ave is the prime example of this. As we drove around picking up the pieces of this horrible little Ave, I made the decision to call Tony’s and get actual directions amidst negative responses from everyone else that if we called we’d be turned down. I was really frustrated and called anyway. First call netted the voicemail, very disappointing, however, not one to give up I kept trying until I reached a warm body that apologized saying he thought we were just solicitors that he keeps getting calls for all the time and said he had a blast ready if we were. He also told us he was booked until Thursday, however he did listen to our story and told us to bring it in and he’d see what he could do. We discovered we were actually very close to his garage, it would have been our next foray onto yet another short link of 11th and we limped on over. He promised he would try to see if he could fix it, but it could be a couple of hours.
Here we were, on the bad side of town on foot for who knows how long. A fellow who had just come from the shop offered to give us a ride over to the downtown core of shops and after listening to his stories about the horrors of where we were currently, we opted to take him up on it.

Here I’ll add that the day before we had decided to drive through Calgary and not see any of the core, thinking this was just like all the other major centres we had just come through, even though I had expressed an interest in seeing it. I got my wish, but, at a cost of $180 repair bill and 3 ½ hours of walking around the shops and restaurants. Finally, hot, tired and surprisingly not hungry we walked back (yes, all the way through the bad part) to find the van repaired and working like a dream, even better than when we left Ottawa in the beginning.

As we left the garage we were treated to one of the reasons you don’t walk through that neighbourhood – cops and a street fight in front of one of the hotels only about 2 blocks away.

I am writing this while on the road to Estevan, Saskatchewan on Tuesday August 25th. Interestingly enough, many transports and pick-up trucks are passing us, even though we are going at least 10km over the speed limit.
Earlier, we stopped at Rouleau, Sask. Where Corner Gas was filmed – it’s pretty dead now but still has the set and there are still signs of Dog River on everything in the town. We wanted a postcard but nothing was open except the local hotel bar, and yes we went in to buy something. I can’t say yet what we got, but it wasn’t a postcard.
Even earlier on this same road, we went through Drinkwater and stopped to see an amazing 2000sq ft home being built out of old hay bales. This house is being supported by wood trim and structure and will be stuccoed in the final phase – but essentially insulated with straw.
We are now in Weyburn at a great little city park / campground where the showers are free and the internet almost works and soon to be heading on to Estevan, Sask. I’ll catch you up again as soon as we find another spot to upload.