Wow - things change.

Dylan currently resides in Calgary!!! No Vancouver Film School in the forseeable future.

But check out dylan industries for all sorts of wonderful updates on his life. Not to mention multimedia, photography and all sorts of miscellania created by him.

It?s been so long since I?ve bothered to write anything here I have serious doubts any of our faithful readership will ever happen across this - but ...

I recently completed coastal photography in its entirety. From day one to our final stretch through the Rocky Mountains coming home. It's all there.

It's highly unlikely that there will be any further postings here to do directly with Coastal itself. Although we still have extensive documentation recorded faithfully by Misha throughout the trip, that chapter in both our lives has drawn to a close. And I think that the real spirit of Coastal lives in the postings below, when it was fresh and exciting in our minds. Not cobbled together 6 or 7 months after the fact :-0

I do hope everyone who read these postings over the course of the summer of 2003 was able to extract even just a small amount of the sheer fun that the two of us had. I'm so happy that we could share it with you all.

The next postings after this will likely be specific to Dylan's upcoming enrollment in the Vancouver Film School. So don't be too alarmed if they don't make a great deal of sense.

Take Care Everyone!

September 1, 2003

well ... ahhh ... we've been back for a while ...

we've either seen you at a BBQ, or talked with you on the phone (so just about everyone has got the low down on our trip). HOWEVER ...

For the rest of you that have been tuning in regularly - my God, you should have stopped a month ago - it goes without saying we had a blast!

At this point we have every good intention of finishing up every single day of travelling (we're just trying to find the time between re-organizing our existence on the Lower Mainland and going throung our 1,800 photo collection) ... SO ... it'll be up eventually. But don't hold your breath.

Thanks to everyone who needs a good thanking, and thank you to those who we might have forgot [to thank]. From free hotel rooms to words of encouragement we needed it all - and we really appreciate it.

We're eagerly anticipating our trips to New West with an embittered old man ...

love

Misha and Dylan

xoxo

Ah ha! New Pictures are up!

Although the much sought after postings are still a little unfinished ... *ahem* *cough* We'll get to telling you about how we managed to ingest one of Dylan's contact lenses or how we experienced a bad case of the triple B's after having a blast with Trooper in Hamilton, soon enough :)

But do check out the photos!! You can meet our new coastal mascot - Maud. We picked him up at Green Gables on PEI. He's named after (you guessed it) famed author Lucy MAUD Montgomery.

Hopefully blogger won't screw this post up (things have been buggy lately). Rant rant rant ...

We're awesome - hope you are all too!!!!!!

love everyone!!


misha and dylan

Yeah, so, it's July-the-whatever-9th and we're posting our West Edmonton Mall stuff from June 17 :P

You'd think we had time on our hands or something :)

Hope you enjoy the day - we did!

Love everybody lots!!

misha and dylan
xoxo

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June 17, 2003

Four toilets, five sinks, five showers and fifty-thousand feet of toilet paper was at our disposal that morning. Each floor of the residences is comprised of 3 wings; each wing is occupied by one of the sexes during the fall-spring semesters and each gender specific wing has one large communal bathroom. We had it to all ourselves.

Hot water, a relative luxury since we started on our trip was available in multiples of five and didn’t shut itself off after 5 minutes when the timer you put your Loonie in clicked off. We discovered the inner beauty and soothing qualities of 45 degree water for about 45 minutes in our respective wings and readied ourselves for a day of pure Edmonton.

We bought two all day bus passes from the Macs across the street and caught a bus to our first destination of the day: Fort Edmonton.

The entire place is amazing. You catch an authentic working steam train and ride the rails into Fort Edmonton. The Hudson’s Bay Company originally operated the fort as a part of their vast fur trading empire. Completely restored and full of costumed period people in character greeting you with, Good day sir’s and How do you do’s? Dylan blurted out some kind of awkward twentieth century “hi” and later debated what he would say the next time anyone talked to him. No one ever did.

Although the fort itself is the center of attention, it is by no means a stand alone attraction. Walking outside of Fort Edmonton brings you (forward) to the early 1900’s. Once again complete with authentic buildings, period people, and early production automobiles sputtering and bouncing down the dusty streets. You can enter any of the variety of fully furnished period houses (complete with people), or buy some candy from the general store. On that particular day four hundred thousand elementary school children that were visiting were buying candy from the store. Later on in the day we discovered those same children had returned to the general store and bought harmonicas. Four hundred thousand elementary school children hopped up on sugar with harmonicas. Hmmm. It created a bizarre and strangely amusing piece of ambience that you would hear occasionally drifting in on the wind and sort of getting stuck in the lazy summer trees – you’d swear the kids were up there blowing and sucking on their pocket accordions.

After the 1910’s current development peters out – although they are currently collecting donations to recreate the 1920’s. THAT should be amazing.

All in all Fort Edmonton beat the period correct pants off of Fort Whoop-Up.

3 hours of Fort Edmonton and forged ahead to number two on our list. You guessed it, *said in Dr Evil voice* the West Edmonton Mall. Bwaaahhaaahaa.

Another excellent and easy bus ride and we arrived at the West ED (as the locals refer to it as). Misha had already been to the mall, however Dylan had yet to lose his virginity to the 48-hectare beast.

Our first experience with the West Ed was their bathrooms. Your completely non descript mall bathrooms with the very strange exception of the Xcellerators. After washing your hands you walk to what appear to be your average industrial grade mall hand dryers. Guess again. Discreetly and written in a type face as to not arouse any undue suspicion is the word “Xcellerator.” That’s your only tip off before the Boeing 747 Rolls Royce Turbine spools up and accelerates a jet of air to somewhere just below the speed of sound. You get the impression that the entire thing wants to break lose and punch a hole in the ceiling. Yet neither of us after a great deal of debate could decide whether or not the Xcellerators did a better job of drying your hands than those other perfectly average mall hand dryers. But it sure was cool.

Hands dried, we took to trying to figure out where exactly we were and what we wanted to do in the mall. Failing miserably we began to wander aimlessly around looking for absolutely nothing in particular. Although we soon developed an appetite covering all of the vast territory, and ended up on “Bourbon Street” (we shit you not), for some Mexican food at Julio’s Barrio. The entire street located inside the mall, is complete with a variety of restaurants decked out in southern United States charm and a comedy club running nightly shows.

Full of Mexican food we again started drifting like ocean plankton on the tides – all we had to do was avoid being devoured by an American Eagle Outfitter, instead of sperm whales. Yeah, so, we lasted about 5 minutes before Dylan decided that it wouldn’t hurt to check out Old Navy. Two pairs of shorts, 3 t-shirts and $115 dollars later we left thinking thoughts of “oh crap, we’re on budget – it’s Kraft dinner and Tim Horton’s to the Maritimes,” but vaguely satisfied nonetheless.

We also hit (one of three) an HMV, for a couple of CD’s that we had on our list of must buy items. The first of which was the Wayne’s World soundtrack – the urge to buy that one came from some anonymous drive in Alberta where we heard Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on a local radio station and impromptu head banged for a good 5 minutes. Sean Paul’s “Dutty Rock” which Misha has wanted to buy for quite some time, made up the other half of our dynamic duo CD purchase.

A little off topic we think we should devote an appreciation paragraph to the iPod. For those of you not familiar with Apple computers little piece of brilliant technology – it’s an MP3 player. MP3’s are music (files) that have until recently for practicality reasons, have been best played on stationary home computers. Our entire music collection is stored digitally in MP3’s on Dylan’s computer (plus or minus a few choice albums that we will just never listen to again – thank you Puff Daddy) the sum total of which is currently 5 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Carrying around that much music in its original Compact Disc form was a no way no-brainer in logistical terms for our trip. Ahh, so here comes Apple with it’s piece of genius smaller than your average deck of playing cards and weighing less than two CD’s. It is for all intents and purposes the same kind of hard drive that resides in your home computer, albeit stunningly dressed up in white plastic Lucite and polished chrome and a user friendly LCD display. It holds all of our 5 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 45 seconds worth of music with room to spare!! And fits in your shirt pocket!! Now THERE’S a no brainer!!

We should also rant a little about random play! You’ve all made mixed tapes or CD’s right? The ability to listen to a whole whack of different music all at once all put together by you – this a million times better. The iPod (and it’s computer stationary counterpart iTunes) have completely revolutionized the way we listen to music! Don’t feel like listening to The Beatles and more? *whack!* your listening to Bob Marley! *whack!* Frank Sinatra!!

*whack!*

Where were we … right, the West ED.

Our marathon nearly over we snapped a few more random mall photo’s – of course not all of your random mall photo’s have a 3 story pirate ship in the background do they – and hopped an equally fantastic and easy to catch bus back to our university residences.

We returned desperately hungry, so, Misha (wisely) decided that she would make herself something healthy and nutritious while Dylan returned to the communal kitchen on the residence floor to get his leftover Greek pizza from the other night - *whack!* - and to Dylan’s dismay found that someone had EATEN his pizza only to return the empty pizza box to it’s original location underneath the other (healthy) groceries we had stored in the fridge.

Maybe it was the anticipatory bus ride Dylan had just taken, thinking all the way about his delicious Greek pizza just waiting to be eaten, maybe it was the traveling – maybe it was the West ED. Dylan freaked out and grabbed the sharpie from his Tom Bihn bag and scrolled profanity all over the empty box lid and left it on the communal table. Needless to say, it wasn’t there the next morning.

Dylan settled for a healthier diet of rice crackers, pretzels and half flat Western Family cola that we had picked up at Save on before we left. We spent the remainder of the evening writing posts and listening to track number one off of the Wayne’s World Soundtrack - Bohemian Rhapsody.

Yes, it was a good day. We’ve started to label certain moments in every day as “vacation moments” – in which all responsibilities have been shirked, tension released and brain waves leveled. Periods of time in which we completely love what we’re doing and feel great about doing it and can’t imagine being anywhere else. You have to give yourself over to the machine and accept that you have every little or no control over how your day will unfold and just enjoy it.

Today we had an entire vacation DAY – not just a moment.

June 16, 2003

We awoke feeling like junk around 7am. We had no want to spend any more time here than at all possible.

When we checked in the previous day the park ranger had managed to put us next to one of five other occupied sites in the entire park. Our neighbors were a set of mosquito resistant Albertans with two children – a young girl of about six and another young girl of about six months. The latter of the two managed to cry for 7 out of 8 hours of sleep.

We managed a half assed packing of our campsite and left DPP with a deepening Alberta funk, that if left unchecked was going to eat us alive. Our destination for the day was Drumheller, which promised more barren landscape, more dinosaurs and yes, more hoodoos.

Put bluntly, the township of Drumheller is an ugly, tacky waste of otherwise premium desert landscape that’s only reason for being there is long dead dinosaurs. Upon arriving in the town you are greeted by a plethora of “make your own dinosaurs” done in extreme bad taste littering everything from gas stations to private residences. We later decided that making these road side distractions must be something of a local past time for the residents of Drumheller.

Thoroughly unimpressed as to the way our day was unfolding we pulled into the parking lot of the Royal Tyrell Museum. Nestled in the sand covered hills around Drumheller, the Royal Tyrell promised to be something at least half way decent in our day.

The building itself looks to be getting on (although in our opinions it appears some of the newest sections age corresponds with the release of Jurassic Park in the early 1990’s). Outside are a few life-size replica’s of several popular variety’s of dinosaur which Dylan took a moment to inspect (see pictures).

Inside a well laid out thoughtfully designed excellent museum awaited us and our travel weary brains. We meandered through exhibits of prehistory and a variety of archaeological periods eagerly soaking in the distraction. Dylan managed to exhaust both of the batteries for his digital camera (about 300 photos) although upon later examination had about 50 that were worth keeping. The Royal Tyrell was absolutely excellent and we’d both recommend that people go there (even if you have to drive through the town to get to it).

Accommodations for the night were supposed to be in one of the many local campgrounds around Drumheller. However, knowing our readership is always on the ball, you already know what we thought of Drumheller, so that need not be repeated. The landscape already full of vaguely familiar shades of our previous two nights we decided that we wouldn’t be missing out on much. Finished with the only thing we had come to see in Drumheller (the Royal Tyrell), and no extra special death wishes waiting to be fulfilled by local populations of rattlesnakes, black widows, scorpions or Luftwaffe we made the drive to Edmonton. Excellent choice.

Not looking to be ripped off we thought we’d try our luck at the University of Alberta. For those of you who don’t know, most universities rent out their student residences during the summer months for more than reasonable rates (we paid $25 a night). This particular gamble turned out to be completely excellent. From our painless check in on to our clean, comfortable and entire floor of an apartment building to ourselves room – everything had an imperceptibly relaxed vibe that all great vacation moments seem to posses. Where everything clicks in without so much as an ingot of stress.

We spent the night eating some really good Greek food that we picked up across the street from the residence and drinking as much water as we could and writing posts. It was great.

A lazy summer breeze flowing through our fifth floor university windows and over our tired minds, we slept.

June 15, 2003

Enjoying a relatively rare good night sleep, we showered and readied in the parks hygienically challenged (cold water only) washrooms and headed off to stand in line for the guided walk through the restricted areas of Writing on Stone.

Dylan had already decided that there would be a massive lineup for this limited spot adventure into the hoodoos – so in rock concert like fashion we arrived early and staked our place in line. At 9:00am when the free tickets were handed out we snagged our tickets along with an equally excited throng of three other people.

The ride into the restricted area of the park was accomplished fashionably in an air-conditioned “short” school bus, driven by an exceptionally friendly and knowledgeable park ranger in her 50’s, who looked like she had spent had spent most of those years in the sun. We set out on the 10 minute ride with a full compliment of good natured tourists, who all strangely hailed from Calgary or somewhere close to it.

More interesting than the tourists or weather beaten bus drivers, was our guide for the hour. His name which we (unfortunately) can not remember as we’re writing this several days after the fact. A man of the Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Nation – the traditional peoples who are responsible for the majority of the sand stone carvings at the park. Apparently he and his brother had been snagged from Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump in some sort of inter-provincial park coup, and were now doing the guided tours through the hoodoos. What’s even more odd/significant is that these two men are the first two Blackfoot people to ever spend a night at Writing on Stone – ever. The austere and significance of this sacred place still strikes fear and respect into the hearts of many Native peoples.

Our mid morning walk along the base of the sand stone cliffs was absolutely amazing. The entire area reeks of long ago and a spirituality that is hard (for us) to define. Our Blackfoot guide brought us along a marked off route through what is supposed to be the most concentrated area of pictographs and carvings in the entire area. Although we later surmised that what the public is shown is all that the parks board is allowing them to see. A hundred years of defecation and public graffiti on the sandstone has left some of the carvings all but unrecognizable and undoubtedly plays a role in the public’s limited access to the park.

Everyone in our small group of tourista managed to take about a gazillion photographs of the ancient rock face, everyone but one Japanese man and his North American wife who managed to take a gazillion and one. He was packing one high end Pentax film camera, one Cannon film camera, one Sony digital and one Nikon digital combined to create a symphony of clickity-clack-whack-film change-beep-flash-beep and a chorus of sighs from our gallery of fellow stone watchers – it all managed to perpetuate a few stereotypes and provide us all with a healthy dose of, “Do we look like that when we take photographs?” This guy managed more angles with his Pentax than a porn star does in the average flick.

Temperatures routinely reach into the 40’s in Writing on Stone, and were marching steadily onward during our morning hike and reached 34 by the time we were back on our bus. Feeling little sympathy for Lawrence of Arabia we polished off the last of our 1.5-liter bottle of water and Dylan developed the odd talent of being able to affect the specific direction of sweat on his brow by altering his facial expression.

Returning to the campground we both agreed that despite our beautiful experience at Writing on Stone we were both feeling like we were in a bit of a stuck-in-Alberta funk. We’d managed to be on the road for more than a week and were still in Alberta. Not that we weren’t having an amazing time, but the entire idea of our physical geography remaining constant on a trip where we’re supposed to be covering over twenty thousand kilometers was a bit of a drag. Strange.

So we drove out the park in an Alberta funk, and rolled on to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

An uneventful drive and a couple of hours later we arrived in the rugged terrain of DPP (Dinosaur Provincial Park). Brochures extolling the natural beauty of the park were bang on – but then again they weren’t. Yes, everything was very lunar-esque and very sci-fi and everywhere the eye looked there were hoodoos hoodoos hoodoos. Maybe it was our stuck in Alberta funk, or maybe the overwhelming spirituality and beauty of Writing on Stone that set the bar a little too high – we just didn’t feel all that impressed or connected to the land. Maybe it was the 450,000 signs warning of the combination of Black Widow spiders, scorpions and rattlesnakes. Liability is a funny thing isn’t it? Maybe they get a lot of American lawyers as visitors to the park.

We were impressed by the local field outpost of the Royal Tyrell Museum. Loosely affiliated with the world renown Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller (which we are going to later visit) they house a small but impressive collection of fossil’s taken from the moonscape of the local hills. It was good fun for $3.00 per person.

We retired to our campsite for the evening to cook a stir-fry with some grade-A Alberta beef that we had picked up earlier in the day. (Note: It appears that as of June 28, we are Mad Cow free). However, we tossed the Geneva Convention out the window when it came to dealing with the bugs, out and out genocide was on the menu for this evening. Every available centimeter of skin was covered in clothing or bug-hat and Muskol was applied generously enough to have us worrying about its long term affects. Although we appeared to have won the war against the Axis of Evil for the evening, we lost the battle by retiring to the air conditioned Volkswagen to eat our meal.

Soon after finishing our meal the park ranger appeared at our site and told Misha that her Mother had called, and wanted Misha to phone home right away.

Sumo van Veen, Misha’s cat and adoring companion of eleven years had passed away. There is no way to express the bond between Misha and Sumo. There is also no way to adequately express how much he will be missed by everyone who had the opportunity to meet him. Sumo, we love you.

Our Alberta funk got worse. We went to bed feeling like shit.

June 14, 2003

We awoke (it wasn’t hard – whap whap whap) and packed up our camp. Which managed to go ok until we discovered that caterpillars had started to make their cocoons underneath the fly of our tent – gross. Our tent had managed to attract every manner of four, six and eight legged creature within a kilometer and attach themselves, spin a web or secrete some goo over everything. Gross gross gross …

Dysfunctional family had gone to drop DD (dysfunctional dad) off at work (something military) and soon returned to resume sitting in their tent and bickering. We were happy to be leaving.

On to Writing on Stone Provincial Park! Both of us had been looking forward to this for quite some time.

Writing on Stone is not only home to the hoodoos (sections of sandstone oddly shaped by erosion over millions of years – see pictures) but is also an intensely spiritual place for the Blackfoot - they wrote their tales and stories on the sandstone cliffs.

The drive to Writing on Stone was not without aggravation – which Dylan fervently blames on the Germans. Not in any historical context but in their ability to not be able to build engines that do not require premium gasoline. Which is something that small towns do not have or do have but manage to put it places where we just can’t find. Not yet knowing this we drove from Lethbridge down to Milk River (close to Writing on Stone), and discovered their premium void. Undeterred we piloted the VW down the road to the Canada/US border town of Coutts, which shared the same distaste for anything premium. Pissed off and hungry we took the highway and 35 degree afternoon temperatures BACK to Lethbridge and filled our bone dry gas tank.

Our stomachs equally in need of refueling we hit the local Subway and drown our sorrows in foot-long subs and cold lemonade. At least 300 wasted kilometers later we arrived at Writing on Stone sometime between 5 and 6 in the evening. *Yawn*

Unable to accomplish much we took the self guided hike in and through the hoodoos. The warm tones of the setting evening sun crafting imperfect shadows off the peculiar/beautifully shaped hoodoos, lent a familiar and comforting spiritual quality to the whole walk. We intuitively understood why the Blackfoot peoples had come here for generations, and to this day still consider it sacred.

Not much else happened that evening aside from a bug bite on Dylan that dramatically swelled, and had us both wondering if we should consider amputating his leg with a Swiss Army knife. We settled for some antibiotic ointment and a band-aid.

Our stomachs full of Subway and our minds spiritually renovated – we slept well.

June 13, 2003

Awaking to a gentle Alberta breeze, the sun dancing through the leaves of the trees superimposing beautiful shadows on our tent walls we made our plans for the day.

We drove into Lethbridge not expecting anything much from the town. However we were immediately impressed by its laid back atmosphere, pretty tree lined streets and friendly people. The librarian at the city library was particularly helpful in helping us procure some time on one of the library’s many computer terminals to feed our internet addiction. We spent 45 minutes laughing and answering everyone’s email and doing a little coastal research.

Our communication fix filled we sought out one of the local big box complex’s with a Chapters/Starbucks combo to fill our other life shortening, teeth staining coffee habit. We planned out the rest of our day in Lethbridge and waited for our coffee to cool down to some sort of reasonable temperature. On our list:

- Fort Whoop-up: a fort built a long time ago by the RCMP to stop whiskey traders from doing their business in Canada.

- Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump: an ancient site used by local native populations to run herds of buffalo off cliffs and to their deaths.

While Whoop-up held some serious promise in many of the several travel brochures we had accumulated, it fell just a tad short of that benchmark. The first real giveaway was the 300 plus spot parking lot – that was completely empty. The brochures held promise of historically correct period people walking around and doing their business complete with a blacksmith making horse-shoes. Everything was eerily quiet, too quiet, so we hastily balanced Dylan’s digital camera on a picnic table and set the timer for one of those random travel photos in front of some uninteresting place. We quickly (and without making any noise to alert any period people to our presence) left Fort Whoop-up.

Buffalo Jump managed to fill the void that Whoop-up had managed to leave in our day. For thousands of years Native peoples have used buffalo jumps around North America to kill herds of buffalo in one fell swoop. The process is in the name, “buffalo jump,” it says it all. Through relentless and careful preparation one successful jump could feed and an entire tribe throughout the winter. The entire site and surrounding are is protected by the United Nations and as a consequence receives some decent funding (unlike Whoop-up) and has a spectacular interpretive center/museum. We spent several hours discovering the art of running buffalo off cliffs – very fun stuff.

The only things left on our list for the day was to pick up some food and hit a cash machine. The latter of which was amusingly dramatized by Dylan, through a series of 6 ill fated encounters with machines that didn’t like him or his Surrey Metro Savings ATM card.

Returning to Bridgeview however, we discovered our piece of isolation that we had been enjoying so selfishly at the back of the property was no longer ours. A rather dysfunctional family from Alberta had moved in next door, with a really big tent and an equally impressive big foamie. We tried not to listen to discussions of why their five ear-old son should or should not be allowed to hit their Ford Taurus station wagon with a stick - but we had little luck.

It was about this time at Bridgeview that the winds picked up and within half an hour were blowing at mach 3. They pushed all of the hot and sticky air out of our campsite and on to somewhere else. But what’s really interesting or significant about the wind is not the wind itself but how our tarp interacted with it. Having said all of that this blog should backtrack a little.

Remember Whistlers campground? lots of rain – sound familiar? Well part of the reason we had received the biblical soaking was we had neglected to bring an adequately sized tarp with us. And the one we did have was littered with holes (and our feeble attempts to patch it with a role of Air Canada baggage tape that Dylan had borrowed from his days at YVR were equally as useless as the tarp itself). So we bought another one following the adage of “you can’t have one too big.” If you’re wondering it measures 21 x 25 feet. Stop laughing. Back to those mach 3 winds.

We soon learned in some unscientific way that the square footage of your tarp is directly proportional to how stupid you will feel when ambient wind speeds reach over 5km/h. We spent an evening and most of our sleep unable to hear anything over the whap-whap-whaping over our 525 square foot blue Canadian Tire special tarp. Just roll down your windows the next time you drive through the George Massey tunnel and you’ll hear half of what we heard. Not to mention that even Misha’s 5’6” frame was much too tall to avoid being hit atop the head by the undulating blue mass - Dylan faired much worse.

We slept. Well, sort of.

good evening or goodmorning everyone!

blogging is going slow (but steady). Here's a few days more worth of experiences for you to laugh, cringe and talk about.

pictures page have been updated as well. At this point it's faster/easier to update pictures so thats why the pictures pages is a few days ahead of the blogs.

off to bed in edmonton now (yes edmonton). Love you all! We'll call everyone soon.

love


misha and dylan
xoxo

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June 12, 2003

With reluctance we said our goodbyes to our Comfort Inn and headed south (you’d think for people traveling across Canada we’d at least be going west by now).

First order and first piece of bad news of the days came when we stopped for gas and a few phone calls to book some of our remaining dates. The Nordik Express was booked. As many of you know the Nordik Express is a cargo/passenger ferry that runs from Rimouski in Quebec, and further up the coast to Blanc Sablon and several places in between providing the only crucial link in and out of town for many people. We were to catch a ferry from Newfoundland to Blanc Seblon and enjoy the scenic 39 hour boat ride and replace a good chunk of driving with an equally large dosing of relaxation and sea breeze. For any number of bizarre reasons the car could go, but we couldn’t or we could go but the car had to stay behind. So we’re totally hooped on that one.

As a direct result of our being sandbagged on our cruise, a whole bunch of great opportunities have opened up in the Maritimes. We’re no longer going to be running through the area with some archaic ferry deadline looming in the back of our minds. We now have the freedom to eat three all you can eat lobster dinners at the Fisherman’s Wharf instead of two.

mmmmm … lobster

Our minds beginning to dehydrate in the mid-morning sun in the parking lot of a Calgary Petro Canada we sought something better in Lethbridge and got the hell out of Calgary.

Arriving at our place of destination was one of those exercises on highway driving that we hope we encounter more often – it was quick and painless. The Volkswagen made only one short stop in Nanton where we took a few impressive looking photos in front of their Lancaster Air Museum and bought some Ice Tea from the local Subway.

Our two night stay in Lethbridge was hosted by Bridgeview campgrounds. Not unlike anything else in Alberta, there’s no confusion or complication as to where it gets it name from, simply from the massive (and impressive) railway bridge that it overlooks – the largest in the world.

Bridgeview itself consists of an exceptionally large number of well manicured gravel RV parking spots interconnected by paved roads. At they very very very back of the campground was the place where campers like us could pitch a tent and boil water with a Coleman stove. We decided later that the whole patch of grass (about half an acre) was something of an afterthought and we were viewed as “silly” but brave to be traveling in anything under thirty-five feet long and had less than 3,000 cubic feet of storage space. We had a few conversations with the local residents and their concern as to our ability to fit everything in a “little Volkswagen.”

We spent the evening walking through a local nature preserve that ran underneath the really big bridge. Feeling at peace for perhaps the first time in days we walked against the setting sun and saw two white pelicans moving gracefully up the [ungraceful] Old Man River. We also saw something neither of us had ever seen here before – a license plate from Hawaii. Explain that one.

We went to bed confident that everything was going to be alright.

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June 11, 2003

We took the liberty of sleeping in a few hours until about 9am. The previous nights exercise in frustration had left us feeling drained.

Today was pretty much a maintenance day (think stuff that really isn’t blog worthy like Canadian Tire’s and finding a decent cup of coffee. Not to mention finding Dylan an article of clothing that didn’t absorb rain).

One thing that was essential was updating our coastal site – which was something that proved to be WAY easier and backwards compatible than it had earlier in Jasper. No offense Jasper.

We found an out of the way place called the Wired Cyber Café on 17th Ave tucked away in some anonymous street level shopping complex. The guy who appeared to be running the store spoke just a little English but who was exceedingly nice and in no time handed me a piece of Ethernet cabling and a power cord for my laptop. We forgot about the rain and our sunken-in postures and posted some pictures and blogs. It was really fun (and cheap … whewwww).

On a particularly aggravating note we’d like to rant just a little about Calgary’s roads, drivers and signage: they all suck. Totally and completely and without failing each of these things are a total pain in the ass.

We coasted through the bright sunny day as if it were the last day of our trip - taking moments to enjoy the unceasing lack of responsibility which we had laid out before us.

After an extra special “Wings Wednesday” at an Earls we spent the rest of the night answering email and doing laundry (which we also really enjoyed – send us mail!) which we did at the same time. Misha likened the whole laundry experience to be an added feature of our hotels list of facilities (like the pool and hot tub). The laundry room was no bigger than your (below) average broom closet and housed 2 washers and 2 dryers. For $2 the resulting combination of heat and moisture left you feeling like you were in, well, a broom closet sauna. After sweating out dirt, grime, and a layer of frustration we went to bed feeling content and with hopes for more days like this one.

we slept.

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June 10, 2003

We spent our last night at Whistlers in some kind of cold and unpleasant purgatory. Stuck somewhere between believing we were supposed to be having a good time and thinking about abandoning our coastal horizons and heading home, we packed our (soaked) belongings and headed off on our road to Banff.

Our scheduled stops for the day included the Columbia Ice Field, Lake Louise, Banff and plenty of unscheduled photo ops and bathroom breaks.

The drive to the glacier was thankfully uneventful and beautiful. The hundreds of anonymous mountain peaks shrouded in thick grey mist and cloud left us feeling somewhat disconnected from the natural beauty. However, we have it on good authority that the tops of the mountains DO NOT exist and have never actually been seen – by anybody. And all of those pretty postcard shots you see of the Rockies are in fact, cheap Photoshop knockoffs.

We opted not to go on one of the cool looking tours offered by the ice field center. The same feelings of disconnection to our surroundings were still present at the glacier, and we felt that $45 per person to feel disconnected with a bus ride and a voice over was a little too steep. We opted instead to walk to the foot of the [receding] glacier and part of the way up for our photo opportunities (see pictures). At yet another tourist trap it was fun to listen to the multinational cuisine of people cursing the thin air and steep climb.

Providing the best entertainment we’ve had yet on our trip was the local high altitude raven (yes a raven, not a big crow as we first assumed). Apparently somewhat of a fixture at the glacier he or she would approach the tourists in the hope of a free handout. And judging by the apple core, bread and smarties we watched him scarf, he wasn’t doing too badly either. His humor was matched only by his tenacity in acquiring free meals – he actually followed us from parking lot to parking lot until finally giving up sometime after Dylan managed to take a Quicktime movie of him on his digital camera. We got the impression he was feeling a bit mocked …

Lake Louise was next on our list. Upon arriving at the chateau, you are ushered into a “public” parking facility while the one for hotel guests was flanked by a guardhouse and a feisty looking man in his 60’s in a quasi-lederhosen getup armed with a clipboard and presumably a guest list. Feeling a little like groupies at a concert not allowed backstage, we strolled the grounds of the chateau and took a few choice pictures of the absolutely beautiful lake Louise. We gained minimal acceptance/entrance to the chateau only by purchasing 3 overpriced postcards from one of their several gift shops, and browsed the halls that looked reminiscent of the chateau Whistler and (oddly) out of the movie adaptation of Stephen Kings “The Shining.”

All work and no play makes misha and dylan dull travellers.
All work and no play makes misha and dylan dull travellers.
All work and no play makes misha and dylan dull travellers.

Outclassed and creeped out by the chateau we pushed on to Banff. Upon arriving in Banff we got some gas and attempted to locate cheap accommodations in or close to town. Now, anyone who has ever been to Banff please stop laughing at our naivety. Seriously, stop. We located a flea bag motel in town and went inside and walked immediately out, not because of the rooms but because of the price. At $150 a night we just couldn’t stop thinking about all of the starving children in Africa and left Banff for Canmore.

The Canmore visitors center located just off the main highway and under 6 inches of water from the deluge of rain was little help in locating accommodations. We were given some random eight inch book of “Accommodations of Alberta” and told where the phone was – although it’s fair to point out that the woman was very nice, just not helpful (at all). During the course of our (hopeless) phone marathon Misha began to seriously feel the affects of that tomato that was mentioned in yesterdays post. The very nice woman was able to vaguely locate a clinic that was open for another 35 minutes – in Banff. Crap.

We made record time back to Banff, and up to the clinic where the “doctor” (who asked Misha which of her symptoms she wanted him to treat and could choose only one – we’re totally serious) prescribed Misha some anti-spasmatic medication for her cramps. We booked it to the nearest pharmacy which was located in the bottom floor of Banff’s super mega shopping mall. While there Dylan ate some mediocre mall pizza and Misha hunched over like one of those contortionists from the circus and cried. It sucked.

Whether it was the hormone pumping teenagers hanging around the mall, stomach cramps or the vibe we were getting from Banff, we decided that cheaper accommodations and clearer horizons awaited us in Calgary. A couple of 1-800 calls and a few hundred kilometers we arrived at the Comfort Inn in Calgary and were greeted by a young woman from Newfoundland. We had the best conversation we’ve had with anyone on our trip so far with the lonely desk clerk from Newfound who was in the middle of getting her hotel management degree, but who was unfortunately stuck in Calgary on a co-op program.

The room that we had called ahead for was unavailable and unbelievably for a $10 discount she gave us a suite and some good advice on what to do in Newfoundland. Two TV’s, a living room, a kitchenette, full bathroom, king-size bed and $75 a night later we set up our tent in the living room to dry out and went to bed.

love you all!!! miss everyone!!!

stay tuned for misadventures in internet cafes and road rage in Calgary.

June 9, 2003

We awoke the 9th to a typically cold and grey morning in the Rocky Mountains, soon after it began to rain, which Dylan likened to 40 days and 40 nights of rain in 40 minutes. After stopping for fifteen minutes it, continued for the next 40 hours with equal or greater intensity.

Our spirits dampened (ha ha) we moved with great speed and morning un-coordination to Whistler’s free showers. These high traffic, low maintenance showers are perhaps the highlight of the campground.

Feeling physically, mentally and perhaps even a little spiritually cleansed we drove to Jasper for breakfast and an internet café. Breakfast was in one of the many restaurants that line the main strip of Jasper – it would however change the course of our trip (literally). More on that later. As for the internet café, well ahh, it went something like this:

Dylan: “Do you have a wi-fi connection?”

18-year-old: “Uh …?

Dylan: “You know, a wireless internet connection?”

18-year-old: “Uh …?”

another failed attempt at the “Digital Den” yielded even more frustrating results. Delete the 18 year old and replace with a 40-ish scraggly looking man with a skullet (it’s a mullet on a bald guy) and those thick black 80’s glasses that Christopher Reeves wore as Clark Kent in Superman. When I asked if he had a wireless internet connection he looked at me in an odd confused sort of way and told me that the technology (which by the way is about 5 years old and built into everything from laptops to cell phones) was too new. Aggg.

Showered and fed we drove on to Maligne Lake (see pictures). Maligne is the largest glacier fed lake in the Rockies, extremely beautiful and very cold. The rain which had mysteriously disappeared for a short time, returned and we said some chilly goodbyes to Maligne and headed back to Whistlers.

Our drive back was accompanied with one of our first encounters with a Big Horned Sheep. These multitalented four-legged rock crawlers have the nasty habit of leaping off an outcropping of rock right in front of your car - one did so in front of an RV we were following. After escaping certain death the big horn stopped directly in the middle of the two-lane mountain road and waited. For what we did not know until five equally brazen sheep thundered past our stationary car, splitting around us like water does around a rock on a fast moving river. Our only thoughts at this point were ‘how do we explain this to ICBC.’ Luckily the Jetta was spared and we soon began our journey back to Whistlers.

We should have followed the sheep into the mountains, it would have been drier there. Four hours of steady rainfall had left our tent looking like a used coffee filter. With another brief reprieve from the rain we dried off everything the best we could and hurriedly returned to the road and on to Miette Hot Springs.

Judging by the size of the parking lot, Miette looks as though it regularly accommodates hundred of travel weary people looking for some sulphur laden rejuvenation. We arrived on a blessedly slow day. At 55 degrees celcius it is the warmest hot springs in the Canadian Rockies - thankfully the temperature is cooled down to a balmy 40. There are three pools: warm, hot and one filled with ice water (which neither of us opted to try out). Our 45 minutes in the ‘warm’ pool defies superlatives – it was very relaxing. It was also interesting to see the continental representation of people at this tourist trap. We heard a variety of languages and saw many different nationalities (mostly German/Scandinavian – you think they could get this stuff at home?)

Sufficiently soaked we headed back to Whistlers and cooked a rushed meal underneath one of the campgrounds cookhouses (provided for people like us, who are unable or unwilling to cook in the biblically proportioned rain) which were oddly empty. As we were cooking several people walked by to see what we were doing. Several shot us the “you’re not allowed to be in there look.” However by the time we left our once empty cookhouse had become something of a Mecca with two families preparing their evening meals.

If we have some time later we’ll explain the “attractant factor” both of us seem to posses. The property where by which in any given area if Misha and Dylan enter, people will be attracted to them. It’s almost scientific but certainly very strange.

We went to bed cold and wet. Our only expectation for the following day was to leave Whistlers.

It’s not as bad as it sounds … honest :)

love everyone!!

Hi everyone!!! These blogs are being posted at the same time as they were written in a tent and (obviously) had no way of being posted at that time. SO ... they run in the same backwards chronology. There's way more to come ... so stay tuned.

ps- we've updated our pictures page. Check it out!

pps- we're going to be updating our web itinerary as well (ie. we're not in Banff, we're in Calgary ... weird huh? :) There will be blogs to explain everything.

love and miss everyone and a big shout out to SUMO

misha and dylan

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June 8, 2003

Waking in le Jeune hell we soon waged a war on two separate fronts. The pollen, which during the night had deceptively stopped, started strong fifteen minutes after we awoke at 7:30am. The axis of evil was soon to be complimented by the local Luftwaffe mosquito division (aka. the Bloodsucking Pirates of the Sky). Nothing could repel our attackers. Not light colored clothing, Muskol, or mosquito coils and were forced to dawn our beekeeper mosquito hats (courtesy of the van Veen’s … thank you, thank you, thank you). The whole thing sucked and was drawn out of some long forgotten Monty Python episode – we exited the campgrounds quickly.

We then proceeded to the nearest Canadian Tire (in Kamloops) to pick up, among other things, citronella candles to join the allies in the fight against the Axis powers.

Took highway 5 to Jasper, with a weird mix of sun, rain, cloud and mist (see pictures). There’s not much to tell about the drive. The towns we passed through today lacked the same degree of economic ruination than those we came across yesterday. Some even had espresso bars.

Anyone who has driven through or around Jasper/Banff is already familiar with the breathtaking scenery so we’ll spare you the blow by blow account and direct you to our photography pages. However, we must add that Mt Robson (as always) was truly spectacular, basking in the clear air only high altitudes can provide.

On a weirder/rare note – we witnessed a chain of three rented RV’s passing on blind mountain curves in excess of 135 km/h in the blinding misty rain. From all appearances they were in no particular rush with the possible exception of looking for an early death. It was almost comical but we spent most of our brief encounter with them more frightened that we were about to witness a horrible accident.

Tonight we sleep at Whistler’s Campground nestled somewhere in the Rockies near the town of Jasper. When we arrived our new gate attendant informed us of a “little black bear problem” and gestured to the twenty foot long bear trap just opposite the gate house. He also rather benignly disclosed to us that Whistlers is positioned on Elk calving grounds and the females are especially aggressive this time of year. Yeah, sure, he can say that so nonchalantly when he has a warm, wood framed, well cordoned off house to go back to – we’ve got like 1/16th of an inch of nylon between us and angry hormone laden elk and a “little black bear problem.” Great.

Having fun. Love you all!

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June 7, 2003

We bypassed the Coquihalla on our way to Kamloops and took the Fraser Canyon. All in all it was much more scenic and fulfilling. Along the way we noted numerous run down dilapidated hotels and inns which Misha described as very “Norman Bates.” Creepy.

We stopped only twice. Once at a rest stop to stretch and pee the other to contemplate taking the Hells Gate Air Tram – which we did not end up taking as it was decidedly hot (37 degrees celcius) out and had become far too attached to our air conditioned (21 degrees celcius) bliss.

Arriving at Lac le Jeune Provincial Park around 6:15pm, we were greeted by a gatehouse attendant who was “filling in for someone” and had no idea about any reservations we had made. He however was very gracious and informed us the campground was nowhere near capacity and promptly let us in. Wheww…

Lac le Jeune itself is a quiet, family oriented campground with a medium sized lake and a dock for the fishermen who frequent the waters. Thus far it’s making a decent overnight stop on our long journey – with one exception: the pollen.

When we first arrived Dylan noted a significant amount of dust swirling through the trees and down the road. On closer inspection we both soon realized the dust was yellow. Strange we thought. Further study soon confirmed that the yellow dust was indeed pollen. Pollen swirling in the air, dancing in the sun and coming to rest on EVERYTHING. It’s in our hair, our clothes, our stove, our camera’s and in perhaps the most bizarre place of all, in the lake. The shores of Lac le Jeune are a soupy, granular, goopy mess. Yuck. Dylan’s Volkswagen is three shades away from a banana – see our pictures.

Aside from that everything is excellent. We’re going to bed early tonight to get some liberal amount of sleep (and to avoid the pollen).

Our 24 hour countdown is only 28 hours away.

We’re both experiencing a wide variety of emotions. Way too much of our time is being consumed by the everyday things that, under normal circumstances, we would do leisurely over the course of two months. Hair cuts, dentists, doctors, we both got new glasses, car insurance, an ugly experience with an iPod, and the list goes on … and on. It’s stressful. Although oddly enough I think I'm taking some bizarre sense of satisfaction in this hyperactivity – I’ve never got so much done at one time. I also get the impression that Misha is only running at 50 percent of her capacity to get things done, while I’m somewhere around 200. Her ability to multi-task is amazing.

We’re also both stuck in some sort of vague pre-travel purgatory where our minds are locked into thinking about our travels and not actually being able to do anything about it. It’s very strange. I keep picturing us eating limitless quantities of lobster at the Fisherman’s Wharf on PEI.

mmmmm ... lobster

I can't wait!!!


dylan

html hell.

I hate html. It wants me to blend my creative juices in ways that are completely uncreative and decidedly boring. Anyone who is remotely familiar with web design should have a vague if not visceral understanding of what I am going through. To give you an idea of how long I've put off designing our simple coastal photo's page - I've been re-ripping my iTunes music library from the standard 160kbps to the higher 192kpbs. Simply put I'm well on my way to getting my masters in procrastination.

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday." -anonymous

It gets worse. There are a variety of programs that have been designed to theoretically make the web page creation process easier called WYSIWYG editors (What You See s What You Get - Pronounced wiz-ee-wig). They work very much like text editing applications like Microsoft Word - only Word makes sense. I've come to the simple conclusion that WYSIWYG's and all of their hell spawn, were designed by monkeys flinging crap at a keyboard from thirty feet away. WYSIWYG's do make the process of designing a web page less complicated, but fail to make it easy or intuitive in any way.

Dylan at 3 o’clock in the morning: "Grid?? We don't need no stinking grid!!! Crap weasel."

So to my techno guru, you were right – web design is a total mind-fuck.

I promise at least the majority of future postings will be less rant oriented and way more interesting. I just really hate html.

dylan

here will reside our thoughts and experiences. Our weblogs will circumvent time and space.

now blog damnit.

blog.