Life is a Highway - Duchette style - Take 2!

We had a great 2.5 week trip! We didn't see as much of USA this time, but saw a lot of northern USA and Canada too. Here are some numbers and favorites: We visited 15 states, 5 were new to us completely (Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin). We visited 5 Canadian provinces--British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario.  Jason and Brooke have now visited 45 of the 50 states. We haven't visited Hawaii, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama yet.  Ella and Blake have now visited 44 of the 50 states (Rhode Island being the one different than us). Evan has now visited 43 of the 50 states (New Jersey and Rhode Island being the two different than us). All of us have visited 7 of the 10 Canadian provinces. We haven't visited Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, or the three territories. We visited 6 National Parks and 2 National monuments (Craters of the Moon and Mount St. Helens) and 2 state parks in USA. We hav...

Today is the last day of our 2.5 week adventure. We’re excited for the end but also sad it’s over (Jason and I, anyway). Since we got in late last night (after 2am!), we "slept in" until 7:30am and were on the road by 8am. We drove all day and had very few stops so we could get home by the original ETA of 9:30pm. Of course that time crept up anyway because of hauling the camper. In Wisconsin, we had wanted so badly to try some of their famous cheese. One of the quick gas station/bathroom stops had cheese wheels! So we got one for us and one for a gift. The rest of the day was driving and ending with back roads through Vermont and NH, so we got home at 12:15am. The kids were not happy because they have their first day of work at summer camp tomorrow morning, but they also slept much of the way in the car. We unloaded what we needed or really had to unload, and hit our own beds quickly! Yay for being home!

Well today was probably the toughest day we’ve had on the trip. We again woke up super early and headed for the closest gas station on our route because yesterday all of the gas stations near our campground had either turned up to be only for truckers or nonexistent. We “knew” there were a few on our route today. Well, none of them existed…or they weren’t open yet (despite checking hours last night). As we got more and more anxious, the dashboard gas light came on and we just went to the next (closed) gas station, which was still 25 miles away, to wait for it to open since it was a full service station. We would have to wait 1.5 hours but had no other choice. When we got there, it said that their new hours on Sundays meant they didn’t open until 10am so that was another 2 hours or 3.5 hours of waiting at the tanks. As some glimmer of luck would have it, I read another sign saying that their new pumps were 24 hours. Well at this Co-op gas station, since it is a full service, you have to...

So we thought we’d been getting up early, but this morning took the cake. We were on the road by 4am to start our big trek back east. Today we traveled through Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba on the Trans-Canadian Highway. We covered close to 900 miles and have hopes of making it back home by Monday night so the kids can get to work on Tuesday! In Calgary, we saw the sun rise and a beautiful sky coloring. Then it rained most of the morning. We have felt very fortunate because after all the rain this spring and early summer, we didn’t have any rain on our trip with the exception of today and part of one other travel day. We got to the very tiny town campground a little after 8pm, had some dinner, and went to bed for another full travel day tomorrow.

We woke up extra early today to do some hiking in Banff and still have time for sights in Yoho National Park. We walked the Fenland Trails and got a picture at the big Banff sign (no one was there that early in the morning!). Then we walked across town and up to the Tunnel Mountain trail. It was a 5K to the summit and back. We found the traditional red Adirondack chairs at the summit! Then we visited the history museum with many taxidermy animals and finally Cave and Basin. The history of this was that the National Park started because of a hot spring, which we saw in the cave at the museum. It was finally broken into 5 smaller national parks (Banff—called Rocky Mountains at that time, Yoho, Jasper, Waterton Lakes, and Glacier). We then drove about 50 minutes north to Yoho which is in British Columbia. We went to the visitor center then headed to the top sights. We saw National Bridge, which is so neat because it’s rocks with water flowing through and underneath it. Then we went to Eme...