Canada Trip Stats

We have been collecting some fun trip stats to share as we finish up our journey. This shorter post is dedicated to the Canada portion of our journey.

Number of nights: 34

Nights in a tent: 23

Nights on a ferry: 3

Provinces: BC, AB, SK, MB, ON

We have stayed in 9 Provincial Parks and 3 National Parks.

~7000 km driven

No major car problems, though a red squirrel stole something from under the hood. Insulation? Cabin filter? We can’t be sure. Watch out for red squirrels at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park! :)

Animals spotted in Canada:

Sand dollar, deer, slug, bear, raccoon, Richardson ground squirrel, dog tick, chipmunk, black fly, mosquito, bald eagle, sea otter, crabs, elk, big horn sheep, rabbits, crayfish, ravens, bison, leech, garter snake, red squirrel

We have had the pleasure of seeing friends 3 times! (Yes, we have friends. Sort of.)

Tom and Nicole graciously hosted us in Vancouver. We apologize for the bloody nose. We feel responsible. ;)
The Knights rendezvoused with us in Jasper. We blame you guys for making us homesick, but trust us, it’s a compliment!
Deb, John, and Noah were wonderful hosts in Thunder Bay. The girls appreciated the piano and we all appreciated the food, drink, and company!

Number of bug bites sustained....

After each averaging ~3 bites total in the USA, we are pleased to report that our family has sustained about 500 black fly, mosquito, tick, and horse fly bites. We will recover. And we should apologize to Canada for waiting until bug season to visit...

Items lost:

In Canada we have lost the lower half of Miriam’s pants and our favourite BBQ pan. Not great. We have replaced the pan and Miriam will have to replace her own pants. Lucy would like to add that we have lost the ‘state of non-itchiness.’

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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...

Manitoba

Manitoba June 20, 2019 Yesterday was a day for everyone to just relax and recharge one’s batteries. The kids played at the playground and beach at Echo Lake. I went for a 10km run, a first in a while and therefore tough. Today we headed out on the 3.5 hr drive to Riding Mountain National Park in our penultimate province: Manitoba. We’re staying at Wasagaming Campground that has more than 700 sites. The visitor centre had some really well done taxidermied animals: wild cats, black bears, owls, deer. We also walked to the beach of Clear Lake, which is lovely. Troop moral is a bit low these days. Lucy and Amy are quite home sick from what I can see. Miriam is quite happy to plan things like the pool game at Grollis’s house a week after we return. I’m sad that less than two weeks of our trip remains and then only 2 months before going back to work. June 21, 2019 Last night Lucy came back running from the washroom. She was freaking out because she had discovered...

Utah Part 2: Rim to River Adventure!

On April 12 we went on a really fun day-long adventure in Utah. We took a ‘Rim to River’ trip with a company called Red River Adventures that involved canyoneering on the morning and rafting in the afternoon. We had to be up really early...it was dark and cold and we ate oatmeal in the car. We met our guides Mitch and Dan in Moab, and our driver for the day was Charlie who is also a manager. We drove to a drop-off point where Mitch and Dan led us and the four other clients (Dan and Amy from Washington, Dawnette from Louisiana, and Cory from Texas) on a hike across lots of sandstone to our first rappel. We were all very excited, particularly the girls, as it is the closest thing they’ve had to rock climbing for quite a while. The first rappel was beautiful; we took turns dropping down into a beautiful narrow canyon. It was only 8 or so in the morning so the light was amazing. The girls did a great job leading the way, and Mitch and Dan did a great job helping everyone feel...

The Great Szerminski Adventure

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