DAY 1: Our first day of the journey ended in Montreal PQ, where we visited Sarah King at McGill
University. That night it fell to about -3 degrees and me, not thinking of the drive out to
BC, only had a cotton filled sleeping bag...if you could call it that. It was more like
a 1cm thick piece of cotton covered in nylon. Needless to say I almost died of hypothermia.
DAY 2 and 3: The second leg of the trip took us to Toronto where we stayed with Jackie's Grandmother
for a couple of days. It was pretty cool. I almost got in a fight with a psycho trumpet player because I was filming
him!!. Duravan was still acting funny so we had it looked at but nothin' doin'.
DAY 4: After leaving Toronto, we didn't know what we were in for! We drove to Sudbury
which was a nice drive but took us to the middle of nowhere. We camped out there for the night in a
hotel parking lot.
DAY 5: From Sudbury we headed for the boarder at Sault Ste. Marie...big mistake!
The drive from
here was by far the worst part of the trip. Never ever take this route (mind you I've
never seen the other
way but I'd imagine that it couldn't be much worse). Anyway, we drove for what seemed
like 20 hours through
fog as thick as cotton, and we finally had to pull over in some hotel parking lot...I
don't even know where we
were, Deluth Minnesota maybe.
DAY 6: I think we drove from Deluth, through Wisconsin and North Dakota up to Winnipeg. As nobody had
thought, the boarder was no trouble. The customs guy just asked if we were tree planters or snowboarder. Not knowing
this was a trick question, one with no right answer, I answered "snowboarder". Following this he asked if we had any drug
and that was that! Into Winnipeg we went and stayed at a Hotel because we hadn't showered in 3 days.
DAY 7 and 8: We drove up to Dauphin Manitoba to visit Mitch's mom. We stayed for a few days and had a
really good time. I wouldn't want to live there but it was nice to visit. I got to ride a horse for the first time in my life
so that was cool.
DAY 9: We set out for Edmonton via northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We got into Edmonton OK and stayed at another hotel
because we were getting Duravan checked out. We shopped at the West Edmonton Mall (BIG!) for a while and then I think that was it.
DAY TEN: We left Edmonton for Calgary that's about all.
DAY 11,12 AND 13: We stayed in Calgary with Mitch's aunt for three days while we got Duravan looked at yet again. Nice city,
we considered stopping here for the summer but Jackie had to be in Vancouver to fly home. I don't think we did much here but it was still
fun. Mitch's aunt and uncle couldn't have been any more hospitable! Here's how Mitch spent the entire 3 days...unit!
DAY 14 and 15: WE started into the Rockies not knowing for sure if the van was going to make it but it did. We stopped in Banff and
hung out with Cory Glauser for a night. Again with the cold though. I thought I was dead. We woke up to about 10cm of new snow at sub-
zero temperatures. We packed up and headed for Sunshine to snowboard for the day. I think we may have stayed in Banff for another night but
I can't remember.
DAY 16: Off to Whistler we go I think. We may have stopped for a night somewhere but I can't remember. In any case we were all super
excited to finally get to BC. We decided to stay north and got to Whistler right away. The drive through Kamloops was awesome but after that
was the scariest drive I've ever done. The highway, if you can all it that, coming from the north was absolutely terrifying! It was barely wide
enough for one car, let alone a van that didn't have any brakes. The steering fluid was leaking onto the rotors so that didn't work out to well.
We rolling into Whistler at about 10:30pm and stayed with Augie Coombs for the night. Here's a shot from just north of Whistler...pretty sweet eh!
DAY 17: We snowboarded the next day which was awesome!!!!! After that we made our way to Vancouver Island where we visited my aunt and uncle for
a night. They showed us around a little, what a sweet place!
DAY 18: We wanted to check out the old growth forest so we headed into the island and then drove down to Victoria to visit one of Jackie's friends
and then made our way back to the mainland.
DAY 19: We spent the night in Vancouver at a hotel I think. And I can't remember what the events were after this point. But eventually we dropped Jackie
off at the airport and landed a job at a climbing wall...where we lived for about a week and then got an apartment.
So that's the trip out here, I hope you enjoyed reading about it but I'd recommend doing it if you get the chance!!
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