West Coast Trip and more
So finally back from my trip out west. Let's just say it's been a long 2 weeks. Drove 2500 km on my trip then drove 700 km from TO to Kingston to Hamilton back to TO.
Flew there on a Monday..7 am flight (ARGH)...got there around 10 am Vancouver time, rented a car and drove for like 8 hours that day with stops. On the way we stopped at the Enchanted Forest (a Must see for tourists especially those with kids or those who are kids at heart). It's a small place where this artist made fairy tale characters out of paper machier and has them set up all over an area of the forest. A huge tree house (which you can climb up)...very cute. We also stopped at Crazy Creek off the highway which had a suspension bridge. My friend Tas and my sis were too afraid to go on that so we didn't. But I stood at the edge of the highway and got some great pics (with trucks zooming by inches away from me...scared the crap out of my co-travellers :P). Spent the night in Revelstoke. Some random place off the trans canada highway...turned out to be a really cute, quaint, clean town...surrounded by mountains. During the night we heard what I thought was someone coming in to our motel room and playing with the blinds and gunshots...it was just Tas' batteries exploding in her charger. I guess the lamp I grabbed to use to defend us wasn't that useful after all. The batteries continued to explode after they were removed from the charger and put outside.
From there we made our way to Banff the next day...touristy...cute. Saw mountain goats which walked right up to our car. Did half of an hour long hike (i find hikes very anti-climactic). Spent the night in Canmore, 15 minutes away...total hick town. But saw a very pretty and bright rainbow there against the mountains. Sigh...
Drove slowly to Jasper. Did a hike on the way off the highway to a pretty waterfall. Saw glaciers (needed a winter coat). Did some very scary windy driving up and down a bunch of mountains. Driving at 150 km/hr on a two lane highway on the mountain with no shoulder guards I passed 5 huge trucks driving in a row, pissing me off b/c they were so slow. That was fun! Saw lots of lakes and rivers, ranging from seafoam green, emerald green, blue and grey. ALso saw lots of waterfalls.
Onto Jasper. Spent 2 nights in a fairly old hostel. 36 ppl to a room. Shared Bathrooms. Jasper is super boring. Did white water rafting there (lots of fun), Tas did some bollywood style dancing in the forest in front of a lake and trees. Saw elk, deer, etc. etc.
Went to Lake Louise. Awesome hostel there with fantastic food. Tas had salmon, I had a fish burger and my sis had mac & cheese...all wonderful. (first bit of really good food on the trip). no need to spend more than half a day there though...boring city. Did see lake louise and morraine lake. very pretty.
Next day drove 8 hours and reached vancouver. spent 2 nights in a sketchy hostel with mice. ate awesome sushi. went to victoria for the day for whale watching...saw many, many whales. Although the trip was spoiled by the fact we had some very very good but really really spicy food at a thai place...and had to drink lots of water before getting on the zodiac. and then these ppl were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no gas and we had to wait for an hour with the boat till the coast guard came. so our three hour tirp turned into four hours...with a very full bladder and a rocky ocean (and rain hitting us in the face)...not fun at all :P but unforgettable nonetheless.
The last 2 days in vacouver were spent in a nice hotel (listel vancouver...great downtown location, reasonably priced, highly reccomend it). went to stanely park and granville island. had more sushi. then the next day caught our 6 am flight back to TO.
The day after arriving back in TO, my whole family went to Kingston for an awards ceremony and convocation. Very anti-climactic. Packed up my place. Movers came on Sunday...moved everything to hamilton, dumped it there and came back to TO.
next day, leased a car (YAY my first one)...today I'm just looking for car insurance.
All this in 16 days. Sigh...now I have a month with almost nothing to do! :P
Flew there on a Monday..7 am flight (ARGH)...got there around 10 am Vancouver time, rented a car and drove for like 8 hours that day with stops. On the way we stopped at the Enchanted Forest (a Must see for tourists especially those with kids or those who are kids at heart). It's a small place where this artist made fairy tale characters out of paper machier and has them set up all over an area of the forest. A huge tree house (which you can climb up)...very cute. We also stopped at Crazy Creek off the highway which had a suspension bridge. My friend Tas and my sis were too afraid to go on that so we didn't. But I stood at the edge of the highway and got some great pics (with trucks zooming by inches away from me...scared the crap out of my co-travellers :P). Spent the night in Revelstoke. Some random place off the trans canada highway...turned out to be a really cute, quaint, clean town...surrounded by mountains. During the night we heard what I thought was someone coming in to our motel room and playing with the blinds and gunshots...it was just Tas' batteries exploding in her charger. I guess the lamp I grabbed to use to defend us wasn't that useful after all. The batteries continued to explode after they were removed from the charger and put outside.
From there we made our way to Banff the next day...touristy...cute. Saw mountain goats which walked right up to our car. Did half of an hour long hike (i find hikes very anti-climactic). Spent the night in Canmore, 15 minutes away...total hick town. But saw a very pretty and bright rainbow there against the mountains. Sigh...
Drove slowly to Jasper. Did a hike on the way off the highway to a pretty waterfall. Saw glaciers (needed a winter coat). Did some very scary windy driving up and down a bunch of mountains. Driving at 150 km/hr on a two lane highway on the mountain with no shoulder guards I passed 5 huge trucks driving in a row, pissing me off b/c they were so slow. That was fun! Saw lots of lakes and rivers, ranging from seafoam green, emerald green, blue and grey. ALso saw lots of waterfalls.
Onto Jasper. Spent 2 nights in a fairly old hostel. 36 ppl to a room. Shared Bathrooms. Jasper is super boring. Did white water rafting there (lots of fun), Tas did some bollywood style dancing in the forest in front of a lake and trees. Saw elk, deer, etc. etc.
Went to Lake Louise. Awesome hostel there with fantastic food. Tas had salmon, I had a fish burger and my sis had mac & cheese...all wonderful. (first bit of really good food on the trip). no need to spend more than half a day there though...boring city. Did see lake louise and morraine lake. very pretty.
Next day drove 8 hours and reached vancouver. spent 2 nights in a sketchy hostel with mice. ate awesome sushi. went to victoria for the day for whale watching...saw many, many whales. Although the trip was spoiled by the fact we had some very very good but really really spicy food at a thai place...and had to drink lots of water before getting on the zodiac. and then these ppl were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no gas and we had to wait for an hour with the boat till the coast guard came. so our three hour tirp turned into four hours...with a very full bladder and a rocky ocean (and rain hitting us in the face)...not fun at all :P but unforgettable nonetheless.
The last 2 days in vacouver were spent in a nice hotel (listel vancouver...great downtown location, reasonably priced, highly reccomend it). went to stanely park and granville island. had more sushi. then the next day caught our 6 am flight back to TO.
The day after arriving back in TO, my whole family went to Kingston for an awards ceremony and convocation. Very anti-climactic. Packed up my place. Movers came on Sunday...moved everything to hamilton, dumped it there and came back to TO.
next day, leased a car (YAY my first one)...today I'm just looking for car insurance.
All this in 16 days. Sigh...now I have a month with almost nothing to do! :P
posted by Anokhi at
8:11 AM
2 Comments:
hhaahah i heard about ur awesome fast driving skills! :D
one month with nothing to do - sounds like heaven to me :) so what kidn of car did u lease!? congrats by the way
By
F.S.Kabir, at 10:08 AM
corolla
i figured in 4-5 years my parents car is gonna be pretty old. so if i get a mid size dependable car now, i can give it to them then and buy myself a kick as car. it'll be hard to pay for 2 cars at once 4 years down the road :)
By
Anokhi, at 8:20 AM
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