It's a rocky road
Seasons end
It's the end of the Bluenose II season, and all summer long my coming-workers and I were coming up with half-baked plans about what we were going to do and what to see once we were finally done working. With all of the money we had managed to save - not.
A week before we're done, and an idea begins to stick. One of the girls wants to move from Alberta to Nova Scotia. Leaving the ocean of wheat for the real ocean, I could get behind that.
Travelling across Canada from Alberta back to Nova Scotia, slowly enjoying the drive through each province. Stopping off at all of the major landmarks we'd never manage to see. A national park here and there. Sounds like a super-fun idea right? Only partially right.
There's a little back story I should probably mention to you before you get too excited about this amazing road trip. Well, have you ever thought to yourself how great an idea is except for one small detail? And how that one small detail couldn't possibly amount to anything major? Those were my thoughts.
It's been 6 months of ups-and-downs, on the ocean and off of it. I like to think I get along with most people.. most. One of the girls on the ship and I had a summer of getting along splendidly and then hitting some rough patches. And you guessed it, she's the one we were helping move back to Nova Scotia.
"It'll be fine", I said. Now I say, "you don't truly know whether you like someone or not until you're stuck in a car driving non-stop for 52 hours".
Reservations Ignored
Alberta is a province I had never had the good fortune to visit before, and it killed me overtime one of my friends posted photos of the iconic Banff National Park, Lake Louise, Jasper National Park, or any view of the Rockies. As a Nova Scotian who loves to ski and snowboard let's just say that I have serious mountain envy.
We hop over to Alberta by plane, all reservations ignored. I wish I could tell you that I felt awe as we flew over snow topped mountains, but I'd be lying. As soon as I step foot into an airport I start feeling drowsy, and by the time I get onto the plane it's as if I've been given sleeping pills. The landscape was lost to me.
Arrive in the Calgary airport, and I'm immediately happy I put on long pants and a jacket, leaving my warm fall clothes at home for heavier winter fare. It's mid-October, the sun is shining and snow flakes are falling lazily in the air.
Days of driving
For a week all we do is explore. Jasper, Banff, Moraine Lake, Lake Louise, Golden BC, Waterton. I think we hit every national park within a two days drive and it was incredible. If you're reading this and you're also from out east and haven't seen glacial water before, book a ticket right now, it's worth it. Take Peyto Lake for example, it's as if someone emptied out the basin and filled it with jello the colour of Blue Bolt Gatorade. It looks absolutely ludicrous.
We walked across natural bridges in the middle of the woods.
It was like a fairyland, Emerald Lake was named so aptly. The water such an elegant blue-green that the trees stagnant ten feet down looked to be an inch from the surface. The mist shrouded the trees and the snow shone like diamonds.
We made it all the way to Jasper National Park where I saw my first elk, moose, and mountain goat all within an hour.
One night in Jasper we stayed in a quaint wood cabin called Pocahontas lodge and were told to be weary if we went outside late at night, as bears were known to roam. Fitting.
I'll move to Alberta someday, I was so enraptured by it's wild beauty.
If you'd asked me during the days of driving whether it was worth it I would have said yes, it was an ethereal experience. But if you ask me now, after the drive across Canada I'd have a different answer for you.
Cross-Canada disaster
It's time to drive back home. We'd given ourselves an open ended return date and had discussed the endless possibilities of going for a quick jaunt to a glacier, hooking down into Yellowstone, bounding across to Niagara falls, and so on. It was going to be an adventure.
We decide to leave at night so that we can watch as the early sun painted Yellowstone in it's golden glow, but instead the packing still isn't finished and the girl we're moving back to Nova Scotia is having mixed feelings.
No jaunt to a glacier, no hook into Yellowstone, no wistful glances at Niagara. Nothing. Instead in our mutual distaste we decide to drive straight home, for 52 hours without stopping (except for gas and coffee) back to Lunenburg.
A trucker bought us our breakfast at Denny's that first morning, we were still feeling moderately fresh at that point. Not quite realizing what particular hell we had confined ourselves to. And it was hell. The car was so packed I, at 6'1, couldn't fit my legs behind the drivers side without crunching them into the seat in front, and there were so many things paced back with me that stretching them out to the side was an exercise in futility. I'll never hate an object as much as I did that guitar pressing into my side for endless hours. Driving was the only moderate escape.
There are a few good moments along the drive, but they were all during quiet moments of solitude watching the sun rise, set, or moments in the middle of the night zipping along Ontario's winding roads.
I'll save you and me the agony of reliving it by summarizing to say that Alberta was stunning, but please promise me you will never agree to lock yourself into a car for more than an hour with someone you're not sure you can handle on a good day.
Lessons learned.
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