road trip

We drove from Edmonton into Jasper National Park, then south on the Icefields Parkway to Banff National Park and Lake Louise. Simply put: the Canadian Rockies are beautiful. There are really no words to describe the awesome sights on the mountaintops and in the valleys and passes, as you look into the crystal-turquoise alpine lakes and see towering peaks and majestic glaciers looming high above steep waterfalls roaring into rivers. So I think it’s just best if I let the pictures do most of the talking:

After Lake Louise, we drove on in the rain through Yoho and Glacier National Parks (did you notice the last picture there is of lots of rain clouds obscuring the mountaintops in Glacier National Park?), and then right on through Golden, Salmon Arm, Kamloops…down the Coquihalla Highway…past more places with silly names, like Chilliwack…and…

FINALLY BACK TO VANCOUVER!!

Total mileage: 16,810 km (10,455 mi).

The drive from Moose Jaw to Edmonton takes you through Saskatoon, which is yet another hilarious place name, and then through Lloydminster, which has the Saskatchewan–Alberta border running right down the major north-south street. Edmonton also has a depressingly large shopping mall—North America’s largest and fourth-largest in the world; larger than the Mall of America in Minnesota, which is just…no.

We did see bison by the side of the road just outside of Edmonton, but other than that, the ride was pretty flat and uninteresting. The real exciting things are beyond Edmonton in the terrific national parks of Alberta and British Columbia. But you’ve got to do the boring before you can do the interesting. (Also, you have to walk around sketchy downtown Edmonton for a while before you decide to go to a different restaurant on the other side of town.)

Remember, full photo gallery available as usual. Next stop: the Canadian Rockies!

Before I left Winnipeg, I saw the Royal Canadian Mint—unfortunately, it was on a Saturday, so they weren’t actually running much of the machinery. But I did learn that the mint accepts commissions from other countries to mint their coinage, and they actually turn something of a profit on it—probably the only government department that is actually doing this. Currently they were producing coinage for Ghana, as well as Canadian money. I also learned that there is no adhesive in a toonie; the only thing that keeps the inner part of the coin tight in the centre is pressure. Regrettably but understandably, they won’t let you take photos of any of the machinery, so I’ve got nothing from there.

But then I went on to Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, and one of those cities whose names definitely belong on that list of words that sound dirty but aren’t. The building of the Saskatchewan Legislature is actually quite impressive; there were no fewer than four wedding parties taking photos in the gardens on the grounds and inside the building. On the other hand, there were only two people besides me on the tour, so we kind of felt like we had the whole building to ourselves, except we really didn’t.

From Regina, it was on to Moose Jaw, which is definitely up amongst the cities with the silliest names on the planet. Disappointingly, there is no moose jaw in Moose Jaw. However, there are plenty of really nice locals and surprisingly delicious restaurants. But other than that…there’s not really that much.

Remember to check out the full photo gallery. Next stop, Edmonton!

The weather today was pretty awful all nine hours of the way from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg. I managed to avoid all six independent tornado warnings for the area, but in exchange it was pretty much constant rain and hail. Also, Ontario goes on forever. I thought I was done with Ontario as of Thunder Bay, but Ontario simply just won’t stop. (However, to relieve the monotony, I saw a mommy moose with her kiddie moose by the side of the road this morning. That was special.) But finally Ontario did stop, and the highway turned into a proper divided highway rather than the two-lane undivided 90 kph limit road with the twists and turns that it had been for the last several days. What a relief. Once I finally got to town, also, the weather turned nice and pleasant and I took a marvellous walk downtown to The Forks. (Remember to visit the full photo gallery.)

Three interesting markers were passed today: that I was entering the Central Time Zone, that I was passing the exact longitudinal centre of Canada (just outside of Winnipeg), and that I had entered the Arctic Watershed—the other continental divide, past which every river flows north into the Arctic Ocean.

Next stop: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I hope there is a moose jaw!

The drive from Sault Ste Marie to Thunder Bay is one of the prettiest I have ever done in my life: trees, rocks, and Lake Superior constantly in the background. There’s this one bit where you haven’t seen the lake for about half an hour, then the road curves round and suddenly you can see the entire lake stretching out before you as the road dips down and all the beautiful blue water fills your entire field of vision. I hope the drive through northwestern Ontario towards Manitoba tomorrow is as beautiful—though there isn’t a Great Lake, there’s lots of smaller lakes dotting the landscape—and I hope the weather clears up; today it was all right for about two-thirds of the drive and miserable and rainy for the remaining third.

Still, I did manage to get one picture, as promised—not of an inukshuk, but of an innunguaq. These are inukshuk-like stone constructions in the shape of a human being; inuksuit are not shaped like this. (Think of the differences between the flag of Nunavut and the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and you’ll get the idea.)

You’re probably sick of hearing it, but remember to check out the full photo gallery here. Next stop: Winnipeg, Manitoba!

Sault Sainte Marie is a pair of cities across the American-Canadian border, more or less at the confluence of Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan. Its name, somewhat unintuitively, is pronounced “soo saint maree”, but people around here just seem to call it “the Soo”. It was a long drive from Toronto, but there were zillions of inuksuit scattered around the highway for basically the entire distance of the drive. They were heaviest between the outskirts of Toronto and Sudbury, but there were plenty of them the rest of the way. I regret not having any photos of them—essentially, I was zooming past them very fast for hours. I’m sure there will be more on tomorrow’s drive, so I’ll try to stop and take a picture or two.

Only a few pictures of Sault Ste Marie today. Full gallery still available here.

Next stop, hopefully: Thunder Bay, Ontario. Then it’s farewell to Ontario (at long last—the drive across the province is longer than going across Texas was, but it’s a darn sight prettier).

Toronto is simultaneously terrific, in that it has everything imaginable in it, and terrifying, in that it is basically all the bad parts of LA plus all the bad parts of NYC. It’s been hot, humid, thunderstormy, and smoggy over the past few days—enough that yesterday they told people to stay inside who didn’t absolutely have to be outside. Also, in this part of the world, when it finally rains, the humidity doesn’t break; it just goes back to being ugly and gross.

On the other hand, there is the Hockey Hall of Fame. A pilgrimage was made. We also visited the Royal Ontario Museum, which rather disappointingly tries to be all things to all people. One whole floor is pleasingly devoted to Greece and Egypt and Cyprus and much of the rest of the ancient Mediterranean, while another is devoted to dinosaurs and yet another to Canada’s aboriginal peoples. The curating wasn’t all that good or consistent either; often we had no idea what it was we were looking at, some dates and times were missing, and (possibly worst of all) there was a teensy bit of orientalist fetishization of aboriginal cultures…but more about all that in a future post.

For now, enjoy this sampling from all the photos from Toronto:

The plan for the next few days is to drive northwest round the Great Lakes. Next stop: Sault Ste Marie, hopefully!

Ottawa is a beautiful city—very much like Portland, we thought, what with the outdoor markets and bike-oriented citizenry and small-town charm in a big city. Also, everybody has terrific accents. We took high tea at the residence of the late Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and strolled around the beautiful grounds in the Parc de la Gatineau in Québec. The man was crazy: he decided to have fake ruins installed on the grounds because he thought they looked cool, apparently. Then we camped outside Ottawa for the night, where we successfully made stir-fry and fire—truly, we distinguished ourselves from the apes over and over again.

(As usual: All photos available here. There were over 50 added today again. Enjoy.)

In the morning, we went into town and observed the changing of the guard ritual on Parliament Hill. Essentially, over the course of half an hour about fifty people in bright red uniforms with shiny brass buttons and intimidating weaponry bark orders at one another and march around a big grass field. The ceremony involves music, marching, inspection of weapons, “exchange of compliments” between the commanders of the old and new guard units, and more music and more marching.

(I am mentally composing an angry letter to the Queen about how ridiculous the music selection was—half of it felt appropriately military, but the other half was bizarre and Disneylandish; not a very good feeling to try to evoke when you’re working with full brass band and a bunch of bagpipes. Seriously, it felt like they were going to start breaking into a show-stopping song and dance number at any moment. Also, they played the Wedding March from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro for quite some time, and not enough of good old standards like The Maple Leaf Forever. I don’t know what was up with that.)

After an excellent lunch and walk through the town and the outdoor markets, we took the tour of the Parliament building, which needless to say was terrific. We got to see the very spot upon which Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion traditionally yell at one another Mondays through Thursdays at about 2:15 pm. The Parliament buildings are full of terrific artwork and symbolism. I also proved myself an insufferable asshole by answering all the tour guide’s semi-rhetorical questions because nobody else on the tour appeared to (a) know and (b) speak English anyway. So she was all like, “Does anyone know what the first four provinces to enter Confederation were?” and everyone had one of those “party silences” until I shattered the mood with the correct answer (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, and Ontario, if you had to know). I also bought a coffee mug with the coat of arms of Canada to complement my coffee mug from the U.S. Congress with the First Amendment on it.

Next stop: Toronto.

Wow, so much to write about from Montréal…and yet it’s half past one in the morning here, so I’ll make it short. We did all the traditional touristy things here today—the Biodôme, the Place d’Armes, the Basilica de Notre-Dame—and a couple of not-so-touristy things. For example, the other church (the Cathedral of Mary, Queen of the World) is actually the seat of the archdiocese, not Notre-Dame; it is also, like St John Lateran in Rome, somewhat off the beaten path despite being ecclesiastically more important. But even the touristy things were awesome. The Biodôme is just as neat as I remember from when I was nine, or however old I was when I was last here. There was a special exhibit of lemurs, which had the good fortune to be curated in French, English, and Malagasy (!).

Anyway, enjoy the pictures; here are just six of the fifty-one that I added today:

Next stop: Ottawa! Also, lest we forget—happy Fourth of July!

Canada Day in Saint John was quite nice, except for the fact that it was so foggy (how foggy was it?) that they had to cancel the fireworks because they simply couldn’t be seen behind the clouds. We left fairly early in the morning, despite the continuing fog, and soon arrived at Fredericton—my old stomping grounds, as it were—where we saw soldiers drilling in a parking lot just outside the historic garrison. Some carried rifles and some carried axes, but I am nearly certain that a few of the axes were simply made of tin foil, so I can’t even vouch for the reality of the rifles. It was like some crazed LARP or SCA meeting or something like that.

After Fredericton, we turned north and went through Edmundston, New Brunswick into Québec, where we made a small detour to the town of Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!. Yes, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! is a real place, but you don’t have to take my word for it—check out its entry on Wikipedia. Apparently nobody really knows where the name comes from—it’s probably just as well. At any rate, I have photographic evidence proving that (a) it exists and (b) I’ve been there. Count another notch on my list of places with crazy names that I’ve been to.

We camped right near Québec City and went into town for the 400th birthday of the city, which was celebrated in a torrential downpour with church bells ringing simultaneously all across Canada at 11 am (eastern time, natch). Thousands of people turned out despite the rain, but we west-coasters were the only ones sans umbrellas, nyah nyah. There were boring speeches by dignitaries and a military parade that almost didn’t happen because of the rain. Of course, the anti-war protesters came out in force anyway and the Québec City police were ready to meet them face-on, as it were, in full riot gear with gas masks. I did not think it wise to try to snap photos of some of these events.

So, bonne fête, Québec ! To 120, or something like that.

As always, the full photo gallery is available here. Next stop, Montréal!

My prolonged absence, as it were, is mostly due to the fact that I stopped in Princeton, New Jersey for about a week so as to witness the nuptials of one of my friends from high school. I did not feel it necessary to blog about these in the Road Trip Update series because not only did I not have the time to do so, what with wedding preparations and suchlike, I have been to that part of the United States so often that it simply didn’t seem notable. (No offence to any of you who inhabit the Mid-Atlantic, of course.)

But now I’m back on the road, this time passing through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine to get to Saint John, New Brunswick, where my travelling companion and I celebrated Canada Day. I call it a celebration, but what it really consisted of was hanging out on increasingly foggy docks by the harbour waiting for them not to shoot off fireworks. On the other hand, we met some extremely nice Maritimers with Opinions About Things, who were delightful, it appeared, to finally find a new audience at last. (They also had great accents, but that’s pretty much a given with Maritimers.)

Not too many photos of Saint John; we didn’t get here early enough to get any really good ones. Hopefully we’ll be able to take some more on the drive today while it’s sunny and not too foggy. As always, full gallery available here.

Next stop: camping probably somewhere outside Québec City!

We rolled into the ‘burbs surrounding Washington, D.C. last night after a series of events during which it became apparent that the world was conspiring to prevent us from actually reaching any of our goals: finding and getting on the highway, finding restaurants whose existence was only implied by exit signs, finding what to eat in said restaurants when they were finally found, and finding the correct motel at which the reservations were indeed made. I don’t have any photos from the trip up from Nashville through Virginia—the reason, unfortunately, is that there really wasn’t anything to take pictures of, and anyway when I wasn’t driving I was dozing in the passenger seat.

But we got up early this morning and walked around the already astoundingly hot National Mall before I had to say farewell to my travelling companion Alice and see her safely off to the train depot. So I was on my own for the Air and Space Museum, which was every bit as glorious as my pre-teenage mind remembered. Assorted other adventures, including photography of some of the terrific architecture here in D.C., followed; then sushi dinner and Iron Man (for the third time, now, but it hasn’t become any less geigh) with newfound friends; then interesting adventures trying to find where to put the car for the night that wouldn’t necessitate my waking up before 7 am to move it.

Full photo gallery, of course, available here—go look at it; there are 27 new photos today for a total of 80 so far. For now, a smattering:

Next stop: the Philadelphia area up to and including Princeton, New Jersey, and New York City, New York. All right, not really one area, but…deal with it.

We departed Little Rock, Arkansas this morning and proceeded through Memphis, Tennessee, to Nashville, a city which is described as “the Athens of the South”—and it has a full-scale replica of the Parthenon to boot! Complete with restored friezes and metopes. Man, is that awesome. Apparently there’s a big gold and ivory statue of Athena Parthenos inside, just like there used to be in the original; we may just have to go back before we leave town tomorrow.

Remember, the full photo gallery is here; there are quite a few photos from today’s travels. Here are some of my favourites:

This morning, we saw the Alamo in downtown San Antonio. I remember learning about it in my history classes as a high-schooler, and I saw it referenced more times than I can count on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—as summarized perfectly in the Cynic’s Corner:

LAUGHINGSTOCKS OF THE WEEK: I’ve heard enough about the Alamo; how about you? Miles and Julian have become jokes; it seems like all they’ve done this season is play Alamo and/or get made fun of for playing Alamo. And I’ve got a bad feeling about the “moat” discussion that they had with Quark, namely that O’Brien will decide, “Quark’s right! We can’t build a moat around the station, but we can use a <tech> <tech> <tech> to create a <tech> <tech> <tech> around the station!”

So yeah, at any rate, there was the Alamo. A big battle was fought there. The white people lost. But then they won in the end because they remembered the Alamo, so I guess it all worked out. Also, there’s totally archaeology going on there! They’re uncovering bits of frescoes in the surviving walls that they didn’t even know were there until a few years ago.

We continued on from San Antonio through Austin, Dallas, and Texarkana. Two thoughts kept occurring to me:

1. Texas is simply too gol-dang big.
2. This part of the world has very questionable policies when it comes to naming towns. Hope? Italy? Texarkana? Arkadelphia??

Anyway, here are a few of today’s photos—as always, the full gallery is awaiting your browser.

Next stop: Nashville, Tennessee!

From El Paso this morning, we walked to Ciudad Juárez just across the Mexican border, and then drove for what seemed like forever across unending scrub and desert and at length achieved San Antonio. Here are a few choice photos from the ever-expanding collection:

It is hotter than Hades in Texas. Also, Texas is Way. Too. Gosh. Darn. Big. So that’s all from me for now—to bed. More adventures tomorrow!

The Road Trip of Awesome, which began a few days ago—sorry I couldn’t tell you about it, Internet, but the blog was broken for a while there—has already taken me from Vancouver through Seattle and Portland, to San Francisco for a while, to Los Angeles, and today to El Paso after a major drive across California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Total distance covered so far: about 4000 km (2500 mi).
Total money spent on gasoline: don’t want to think about it.

To sate your insatiable appetite for road trip photography, you’ll just have to wait until more photos can be taken, edited, and uploaded. You can visit the full gallery here; as for right now, please allow me to whet said appetite with a few choice tidbits:

Tomorrow: Ciudad Juárez and then San Antonio!