Welcome to Manitoba .

( Ahem.... So that last blog post, though short and sweet, was riddled with spelling mistakes. Chalk it up to too much caffeine and a low computer battery.  ( Praeries? Really?  Kinda sounds like Praelines... and the prairies are definately unlike any cookie I have known...  ( wait. are Praelines a cookie? or a cracker... oh hell.. never mind. ... )


 So here we are! Manitoba!!! Had a quick blast through Saskatchewan, ( about four days worth. .. ) stopped in Flin Flon, ( super cute, and bigger than we imagined! ) slept last night at a campsite at Winnipeg beach, ( have you ever seen this lake?? Lake Winnipeg, is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Felt like we were looking out at the ocean. ) and this morning, we are refreshed and ready to hit the town!!

 So far, Winnipeg is really nice. Cool architecture, open spaces, tonnes of parks! and I have family here, so we plan to do a little visiting while we are in town. :)  We plan to spend about three days here, exploring, touristing...  ( Royal Canadian mint? ... think they'll give us free money?.... hmmmmmmmmmmmmm......)

 In any case, we have remained relatively dust free, and are really enjoying our trip thus far. More photos and blogging to come in the next week or so... Heading to Ontario next... and Toronto for the North by North East festival!!!  :)

       Love from us and the van,  C & R.  xoxo

Photos of Dawson City... ( because I forgot to add them to the last blog...)

Welcome to the flat lands!

 Well, thus far, we've hit Mile 0 on the Alaska Highway, ( Dawson Creek.. and yes, Rob sang the themesong from the tv show...)  and from there began our gentle curve into Alberta. Stayed at the Moonshine lake campground our first night, and then hit the road for Edmonton.  Sunny and nice, and one of the best coffee's we've had so far! ( Wild earth bakery and cafe. )  The first night in town we stayed at Elk Lake National park, and slept soundly to the chorus of a million frogs. Refreshed in the morning, we explored west Edmonton mall, lunched with our friend Marcus, ( in town from Calgary! ) Rob had a jam session with some friends, and then we spent the night with our friend Shawn Dymtereko from highschool. :)   From there, we sped through on our way to Vermillion for a quick pit stop for the night, before continuing our travels to Sunny Saskatchewan!!

 I have to say, the praeries are quite amazing... desert like, with smatterings of oasis... its really rather breathtaking. We especially enjoy the fact that you can see for MILES!!! ( Definately have a good idea of what weather is coming your way... )  and have found some rather cool little towns on route. ( Being that we are taking some roads less travelled, we have thus far discovered a cheap campsite in St Walburg, ( right next to a cemetary, my kind of place! )  Visited the giant concrete turtle in Turtleford! , and are now, as I type out this little ditty,  sitting down and caffinating ourselves in Prince Albert.   Heading up to Flin Flon for a day or two... and then we will decend upon Winnipeg Lake to head into Winnipeg for more exploring and visits!!! :)


 Just a short note this time around,

            Greetings and love from the road, Carla, Rob, and Sir Vanagon. xo

Dawson City: Home of the Klondike goldrush, and the great maple syrup spill of 2012

Alright.. It's official. We're in love with Dawson City. This is a town where the goldrush began, and still continues today. Walking through here is a cross between the 1800's and today, a brilliant mesh of past and present. We camped out at the Yukon river campground, right at the river and surrounded by birch trees. The sun was warm, the foxes curious, and the free ferry to get across the river from town to the campsite, a nostalgic turn to our old beloved Albion ferry. ( Only this ferry is much much smaller! )

 ( Side note... It was just after disembarking from said ferry... that the great maple syrup disaster happened...

Just as we got off, I realized that I had forgotten to lock the upper cupboard in the van, where the maple syrup happened to reside... and it escaped in a spectacular explosion on the floor..... On a high note, the van was very clean until the Dust Apocolypse of 2012... more on that later.)

We found ourselves surprised at how much warmer the weather was in Dawson as opposed to Whitehorse too! Figured being further north that it would get progressively colder, and to our pleasant discovery, it was warm!And light. All night. Up at midnight? looks like 7pm....

 Dawson City was a great success. Explored the town, found cheap showers, ( hippies we may be, but we're nice smelling hippies!!! ) , great food, fabulous people, the local pub is a howl!!! ( velvet upholstery... manic ragtime piano player... ) and discovered, I dare say, that Dawson is high on our list of places to return to. ( Dawson City Music Festival ?? Hells yes!!! )

Upon leaving Dawson, we decided to trek our way down to Faro, ( a slowly dying mining town... ) and from there, to take the Campbell  highway back down to Watson Creek, to reconnect with the Alaska Highway. If you like a bit of adventure, and don't have vents in the back of your vehicle, by all means. Take this highway. If , however, you do have vents... or open windows... Don't do it. Just dont. Campbell highway is a secondary highyway, largely used for mining trucks and tourists . What they do tell  you, is that its largely a dirt and gravel road. No problem. The first 200 km are great. ... The next 250km.... hmmmm.... Ever had a Chinchilla take a bath in your car?... a Really big Chinchilla?... This is what our  van looked like , on the inside of the van, no less, when we finally arrived in Watson Lake.  Let the vacumning / dusting/ hosing out of the van begin!!!!  ( I think I still have dust in my eyesockets as I type this.... ;)    )  All in all, a good adventure, and the van, is , once again, impeccably clean.

Tomorrow, we continue our trek.. off into the  wilds of the morning to see where the day takes us next.

               With love from the road, Carla, Rob, and Sir Albert Vanagon Mercedes the Third. ( Esquire. )

B.C. , You, are Beautiful.

Good Morning from Whitehorse!!! Its been an adventurous few days on the road, tonnes of wildlife, we've counted 18 bears, ( 17 of which we saw in a 2 1/2 hour period! ) elk, moose, a lynx, rabbits, and an unconfirmed sighting  ( unconfirmed because Rob didn't see it... ;)  ) of a porcupine! ( fitting as it was just past porcupine creek. )  We've travellled through sunshine, passed glacier mountains so close you  could reach out and touch them, and travelled through snow flurries and cloud. ( For those of you who know Game of Thrones, we've kind of felt like we're heading for the wall and taking the black! )

  Spent a lovely morning in Smithers B.C, and located and made good use of their leisure center hottub.. ( an excellent way to spend the morning, i might add! ), saw an amazing raging river in Moricetown, spent the night camping at Morchera lake, ( went to bed in flurries, and woke up to 2 inches of snow on the ground!!!! ) , discovered Watson Creek and their post sign forest, and had breakfast at Cathy's restaurant. After which, we started our trek down the Alaska Highway.

 One phrase very common in our van, is WOW......  The only thing we can seem to say as we drive in awe... Truely. We're amazed at just how gorgeous the scenery is .... I mean, I knew we had a beautiful backyard. But until we started this trip, I don't think I had full appreciation of it all. Awe inspiring, jaw droppingly gorgeous. Words fail me....

 Last night , we rolled into Whitehorse, and its  here I sit as I type out this wee blog. Whitehorse is alot bigger than I had imagined... not sure what it was I was expecting, but its a really cool town! Spent the night at a cammpground with a hotsprings pool... ( its a rough life, but somebody's gotta do it!!! ) And today we are going to spend the day meandering about , checking out the local shops and scenery.  We've run into some great people so far on the road, and everyones got some great advice on things to see and do, so I think we'll keep pretty busy!

 Tomorrow, we have decided to head to Dawson City... more adventure awaits! ( and hopefully no more snow.... Really glad we packed warm clothes as well as our summer stuff! Though I imagine when we hit the heat of Toronto, we'll be wishing we were back here!!!! )

     Until the next post... Love, your travelling wild things.

Zombies love travel.. and other photos.

Greetings from the road!!

Greetings from Prince George!!! Day three into our trip!  And so, amid much fanfare; Cheers, ( ours), Stares, ( various pedestrians, ) and likely a few muttered curses ( from the people stuck behind us going up hills, ) we  embarked on our adventure on a very sunny sunday morning. Things we have discovered so far... Diesel prices are coming down, ( good for us!!! ) and the van is heavy. Think of a grey whale on wheels. ( Good thing we're not in a hurry to get anywhere! ) On that note, something I think both we, and our grey whale on wheels are going to look forwards to, is a long lovely flat stretch of prairies. Long, slow steep inclines , such as the road to Lillooet, are indeed.... long.... and slow..... ( grey whales on wheels prefer that we have discovered. ) The weather so far has been beautiful and hot though! Although there are patches of snow hiding about on the sides of the roads up here still...

 So to catch you all up on where we've been and what we've seen so far, we spent our first nights sleep at the Cinnamon rest stop, about 20 minutes outside of Lillooet. Armed with leftover curry, ( packed lovingly by mom. Thanks mom!!! ) and a few beers at our side, we lounged by a raging creek, made a small fire, ( good mosquito repellent... ) and were in bed by 8 30pm. ( we live on the wild side.. I know. )

Day 2, we thought we would drive up to Barkerville, but sadly it doesn't open till the 18th of May. So instead, we drove up to Wells! ( about 35 km before Barkerville. ) If you haven't been to Wells, or heard of it for that matter, well, you should really check it out. Its tiny, ( 150 people live there year round, which swells to approx 400 in the summer months.) super friendly, and as we discovered, hosts baby showers in the pub before it opens at 5pm. ( Imagine our surprise when we went to have a beer there and found the place overrun by tiny adults... )Had a shower at the campsite and spent the evening with a few locals and got a good feel for the place.  :) Not somewhere I think I would live, ( they had 26 feet of snow last winter!!!!!!! ) but definately well worth looking into for a fun road trip.

 This morning, ( may 15th,) we are up shiney early, and as I type this, Rob is driving up and down all the streets in Prince George checking out the town.  A bit cloudy so far this morning, but we're hopeful it'll burn off and give us another shiney day. We may look for a camp spot near here for this evening, stock up on supplies and have a relaxing night before we head out again tomorrow morning.

... The adventure continues!!! Until the next post...

                     Love, Carla and Rob. ( And the big grey whale. )

Well kids, its a sunny Saturday morning, and we are spending the last morning before our trip on the couch with a coffee, preparing the first leg of our six month journey. We have decided to head north, slowly hobbling our way to Whitehorse, and then dipping back down into Nelson to visit friends before we head out, meandering our way to Toronto! There. We're organized!!! At least a little. The rest of the trip is still very much afloat. Which really, is kind of nice. Also nice, that we are beginning our trip in SUNSHINE!!!! ( Which will hopefully follow us for the duration of our trip. *fingers crossed! *)  We will be keeping  you all updated here and through facebook as to where our current whereabouts are, and where we will be heading to  next, so if you see us being near, and think  you might like to see us, drop us a line here in the comments box, or find us on facebook and send us a message. We'd love to see you all!!!

So, until the first road post....

                        xo, Carla and Rob.

Here we go...

Well, here we are... alone at last. Ready? Deep breath.... Blog, begin.

 Its May 9th, a beautiful albeit windy day, and I am sitting on the couch  beginning our travel blog. On a high note, we are leaving on Tuesday, May 15th. ( one week behind schedule, but duty calls with work and cleaning! )  On a low (?) note, I myself, have never taken it upon myself to write a blog before, so my apologies in advance if this is a bit slow going... ;)

 CROSS CANADA!!! IN AN AWSOME SAUCE VAN!!!!   There. Got that off my chest. Yes, for those of you who may not know, ( as all of our friends and family already do, but I thought I would include any random person who happens to stumble upon this rambling of ours..)   Rob and I are embarking on a six month adventure across this great country of ours . We will be searching out great music, great art, good food, and I'm certain a few musical instrument and pawn shop stores along the way, ( Rob)  and more than our fair share of art galleries and used book stores. ( Carla.)

 So join us won't you? Follow along with us as we slowly make our way on what we hope is the first of many adventures.


 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain