Skip to main content

Closer Every Day


Our trip itinerary is finally as complete as it can be. We heard back from BC ferries that our reservation request is confirmed, and that allowed us to finish mapping out the last leg of the journey. Booking campsites in Banff was the most stressful part - reservations opened on January 9th for the entire summer season and the reservation website crashed repeatedly for the first hour. I was one of the many people who were frustrated by this process - isn't camping supposed to be fun? It was a relief to finish this stage of planning, as now we need to move on to thinking about packing!


A couple of years ago, Voych's sister Jadzia gifted us these amazing tapir patches. For those who may not know, the tapir is our official family mascot. This weekend we held a patch-sewing party and all added the patches to our backpacks. Some of us have more sewing experience than others, and although Voych won the 'Home Economics' award in elementary school he needed some instruction to help him secure his patch. In the end, they were all attached securely enough that they won't be torn off by curious mules on the way down the Grand Canyon. :) 




Comments

  1. Love the patches! Will the flag be joining you on this adventure? I

    ReplyDelete
  2. No flag...we figured the patches were a good stand-in though. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Um..at some point, remind me to send you the photo of a very close up mom and baby tapir in the wild that we took in Costa Rica.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd love to see it! One day I will tell you the long story of how it came to be our family mascot. :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trip Blanket

Back in the fall I spent some time brainstorming ideas about how I could knit a blanket with yarn I picked up during our epic roadtrip. I wanted to include data (such as km driven, km hiked) in the blanket somehow. I knit a couple of prototypes and got some great ideas and advice from Lisa Noble ( @nobleknits2 ) It is thanks to her that I tracked homesickness and created our 'getting along index,' which I agree makes it much more personal. The photo here shows the orientation of data in each of the 19 squares that code for a state or province. The state/province abbreviation and number of days we slept there are noted at the bottom. One side of the mitred square gives the number of km driven and the other side has number of km hiked. Homesick index and getting along index are at the top of the square. I used morse code in another colour for the abbreviations and for the distances. The rest are just indicated by a number of stitches in a different colour. The square below...

Ontario is Very Big

Today is the last day of the trip. We have been in Ontario for nearly a week, and driving across this huge province has been an education on its size. We knew it was big, but now we have an idea of how big ‘big’ is. As soon as we entered Ontario the landscape was becoming more familiar. We were back on Canadian Shield territory, with rock cuts along the highway and lovely lakes dotting the landscape. We stayed at Aaron Provincial Park the first night. It was a beautiful park. Our campsite was on a small peninsula which allowed us to enjoy the sunset and sunrise. It is definitely a place I would come back to if we make this trip again. The next night we passed through our last time zone change on our way to stay in Thunder Bay at the home of a friend. Deb, John, and Noah were great hosts. We enjoyed the opportunity to share a meal and conversation with other people! Their home is lovely and back onto some really gorgeous country. We loved hearing about life in Thunder Bay and...

Big Giant Post of Stats, Favourites, and Other Things...

The last couple of nights around the campfire we have been making lists of our favourite things about the trip, as well as some ‘non-favourite’ things. The list is for us more than anything, but if you like lists this post is for you too! Each list is in no particular order, and we all contributed. Summary Stats: 127 nights: 88 of them spent in our tents, 93 in our sleeping bags (some cabins and yurts did not have beds!) 14 states and 5 provinces ~27 000 km driven At least 317 km hiked Favourite Campgrounds Fruita (Capitol Reef National Park, UT) Indian Garden (Grand Canyon National Park, AZ) Lake Pleasant (near Phoenix, AZ) Skidaway Island State Park (GA) Needles Outpost (near the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park) Agawa Bay (Lake Superior Provincial Park, ON) Sleeping Giant Provincial Park (ON) Echo Lake Provincial Park (SK) Favourite Non-camping Accommodations Ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert (BC) Earthship (NM) Chelsea ...