Alberta

Carstairs, just north of Calgary - The Johnson Family

We were received warmly, late at night by the Johnson family. They lived in a small town and we set up our tent in their front yard, steps from the house and the hustle and bustle of this family of seven, plus two other workawayers. It was a great home, filled with laughter, screams of joy and little brothers, great food and great company. We went to Drumheller for the day with the family, then Oscar, Molly and I went to a ghost
town in Wayne, with an old saloon. It took crossing eleven bridges to get to it, nestled in between the sand mountains, in cowboy country. I loved the landscape and scenery of this area, some of my favourite so far.

3 night stay at BNB in Hinton, Alberta, along the Athabasca River

Well, this where we took a wrong turn. After Banff, you have the option to continue up to Jasper or move west along the Trans-Canada and into British Columbia. We missed the option to continue up to Jasper, because well, we missed the turn off. When we finally realised that we were actually in Golden BC, Oscar ran into the tourist info center. We were miffed. Oscar told them what had had happened and the little guy at the counter pulled a huge book from under the counter and said "you should sign this then.". It was a book
entitled "Oops, I can't Believe I missed the turn off to Jasper." It was signed by hundreds and now Laguanwiththewind was now added to the list.

We knew we couldn't drive another 5 or more hours to Jasper and our booked accommodation, so we had to bite the bullet and stay in Golden, and that would come at a fee. A hundy ($100), but that's okay for the place we got. A hostel on the edge of town at the base of the mountains, which some great roads to drive on and explore. You gotta do whatcha gotta do sometimes.

The next day, we drove the last bit through Jasper National Park. We were so happy to finally made it to this part of Canada and see this majestic, magic place. We had a fright when we could smell 'burning' from our engine and we could see a bit of smoke wafting up through the hood. We stopped, did a full check and discovered it was our brakes, smoking from the work they had to do, slowing down on the declines. We let Cara the Van rest for an hour, right in front of an ice field, so that was as good a place as any to let the brakes cool down.

We made it to the bnb and camped out alongside the Athabasca, while horses roamed free on the property, For three days, we relaxed in our hammock and screamed as we dumped icy Athabascan river water on each other to cool down.