Zachte prairie Frans eet een Huckleberry ijsje

Get ready for some other great adventures in the Canadian Boonies!

We will start this epic episode in Taber, where we started the Hoff on Wednesday morning for a 50 k drive to Lethbridge, a small city where the Greyhound took our Notorious Sander away for a wedding of Kaylee's girlfriends sister. Jasper and me continued towards Calgary, where a join-up with my other uncle and aunt, Jake and Ann, failed. Banff was the next stop for us, we bought a map, picked some day hikes and planned a 4-day backpacking trip.

The day hikes were nice, we stayed at a campsite near Castle Rock. The day hikes at Lake Lousie though were spoiled by the mist and rain. A beautiful viewpoint was just a beautiful viewpoint on the picture at the info-sign. At Saturday we drove to the town of Banff in the morning, skyped and got some food for the backpacking trip. Around 13.00 we started the hike up to the first campground, a trip of about 12 k. At the campground, we put up the tent and did a small hike to Elk lake, a very desolate and silent place with the rainclouds above the high ridges. Back on the campground we teamed up with two couples to build a fire and had a very pleasant evening with these young folks from Calgary and Vancouver.

On Sunday, we walked a trail of 26 k to the next campground. This distance is quite big but with a nice trail with good views, some challenging slopes and bends this distance wouldn't matter. The fact was though that the trail decided to go right through the forest without bends and without views. So it became a hard, hard game. Our dinner wasn't that good either. The frozen pre-made hotdogs were gross already at the first day and the second day the zip-loc bag of pasta salad was totally crushed and awakened the nice feeling of nausea. This was also the meal of the third day so we decided to combine the third and fourth day into one long day-march on Monday. At night it rained, so a muddy day followed, with some showers and a lot of mosquitoes. Pretty tired we arrived at the Hoff and after a short stop at the Starbucks and Safeway we planted ourselves at a campsite near Canmore. The toilets at the campground had the same effect as the crushed pasta salad.

Tuesday we did a dayhike to the middle sister, one of three high peaks on a row. We started in the valley of the Bow River, followed a trail up through a creekbed and had to climb the rest of the way over steep debris slopes. The view from the top was marvelous and amazing. The peaks of the Rockies looked like waves of a ocean (the were all thrust facing the east) with some snow on top like the foam during a steady breeze.

Then, finally, a big day was there for Nienke and Jasper, as they were reunited again on Calgary airport. Maybe a bigger day it was for me, as we did some laundry and bought the new George RR Martin book. More of the adventures will be told now by Nienke. Enjoy!

And here speaks Nienke

My Wednesday was a long one. It started at 6:50 a.m. in the Netherlands, with lots of rain and me panicking over plane tickets, backpacks and whatever you can worry about when about to start a journey. In spite of all my panic, everything went well. My first flight brought me from Amsterdam to Frankfurt. My second flight took off at two and brought me back to Amsterdam (well, we just flew over the city) and then Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland. By the time we reached the American continent, the timid Swiss guy next to me had dared to accept the stroopwafel I offered him and would even talk.

And then at four, after a flight of nine hours, I landed in Calgary. Stealth and cunning bought me a place in the front of the queue, and a chat with some customs officer entrance to the Promised Land. Jasper waited for me outside with a band playing country music behind him. Frans was sitting somewhere else in the hall, while reading the new GRRRRM book.

That same afternoon, I acquainted myself with the Hoff, its noise, and all its rules (keep the fridge from opening by strapping elastic band around the opening, push down the little metal thingy while closing the closet above the stove in order to not break it, and most important of all, the rule that Some Hard Object Will Be Wherever You Put Your Head So Watch Out. As of yet, I haven't really figured out that one). We drove all afternoon to end up at Crow's Nest very late and with me sleeping through most of the bumps in the gravel road.

Thursday proved to be shorter and quite uneventful. We spent most of the day reading, chopping wood with our extremely blunt axe (I still have blisters) and washing ourselves in the COLD river next to our campsite. By then, the competition between Frans and me had started in earnest: who would finish GRRRRRRM first? It was all for the greater good: so that Jasper and Sander could start reading. (of course, in the end, it wasn't necessary because those yups both bought an e-reader)

On Friday, Jasper and I made a hike, but the weather seemed to be turning foul and we didn't want poor Frans to be sitting there alone in the woods with only a book, a folding chair and an axe for company, so we started back without having seen any pretty views. We did however succeed in buying the very necessary new roll of toilet paper at the local chinese shop.

We got back to find 'Poor Frans' gone. We yelled and searched, and only when we sat down to weep and mourn him did some unknown truck drive up to us, miraculously revealing our lost friend. The others (all the Canadians plus Sander) had arrived at one and decided that our campsite wasn't good enough so had moved to a place which supposedly was better but there were many more horseflies and other horrors as well. It was, however, a great camping trip. There was lots of BBQ, lots of campfire, 'smores' (I hope I spelled that correctly), and LOTS of fireworks. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Hundreds of millions of dollars must have gone up in smoke within 40 minutes.

We left Canada on Sunday. Another customs officer (U.S. this time) decided to question me thoroughly with questions such as 'Where are you staying?' (uhm... everywhere) and 'Why did you fly to Calgary?' (uhmm.. because I could?) but we were allowed to continue our journey to Glacier N.P. The picturesque RV campground we found had free showers (most people would call those sprinklers) and much less mosquitoes and horseflies. We slept blissfully, woke at 7.30, and went for a hike – my very first one during this trip!

So far, it has been the only one as well so I can't judge how it relates to other hikes but I thought it was really beautiful. We started at Two Medicine lake, and hiked up a U-shaped valley (geologists!) toward Old Man Lake (which happens to sit next to Boy and Young Man lakes). It was really hot, but quite a lot of snow still remained near the lake and the sky was clear so the views were amazing. It was a long hike as well, 24 km for my untrained legs, and in the end, we all agreed that we deserved: a) a bath in the cold stream running from the lake, b) a huckleberry ice cream and c) a good night's rest. We succeeded in everything, although it took quite some time before we could sleep. Efficient young people as we are, we decided to drive for a bit, so by the time we drove into the very first KOA campground of the boys' trip, we had already crossed 40% of the distance from Glacier to Bozeman, where Sander's uncle still lives. To make the most of the 42 bucks it cost us, we stayed in KOA's hot tubs until we nearly dissolved, took long showers and free firewood which we didn't use in the end. And we slept like babies.

Then came another driving day: uneventful, apart from the road constructions that seemed to have gathered all along our route especially to vex us. The 300 km took us six hours, but we arrived in Bozeman in time to do some serious shopping. I bought a bra and Sander and Jasper both an e-reader (Jasper actually got most of his from me as a very belated birthday present).

Today, all we did was laundry and me and Jasper some walking in the hills. Tomorrow will be for driving to Yellowstone, so your next update will be all about geysers and hot bubbling pools.

Uhmm

Welcome back boys and girls! Are you ready for some new adventures from your favorite road trippers in the whole western States and Canada? We saved a couple of them the last 3 weeks, because we are just lazy at keeping something like a blog up-to-date.

Well, the last post was about Pokemon, a nice way to kill the time if the Hoff is taking a holiday. But before the Hoff decided to become a stubborn little van with a dead battery in Columbus, we had our breaks checked in Rapid City. Afterward we drove to the Badlands. This national park was created for Boss Bruce to live safely with his enormous jaw, but contains some nice landscapes too. The plains at the park have been eroded like crazy, leaving a rugged landscape with all kinds of wildlife. Too bad there was a acute shortage of hiking trails in the park, which made us decide we had to go to the Devils Tower, as the lack of trails was surely this block's doing.

The Devils Tower in Wyoming is an old magma reservoir which is beautifully exposed in the surrounding landscape, a real surprise for us. We camped at the foot of it and joined a nice lecture by a ranger about porcupines. This nice lady had some interesting points of view about this creature, for example: it can be compared to teacup and a little porcupine is called a porcupet. After this moving story we went to bed with heads bulging with porcupine thoughts.

The following day, it was a Saturday as I recall, we headed out for a long driving day. The three bends in the stretch of 400 km kept us wide awake and alert, and this day ended at the free campground in Columbus. How that went is already described in the previous two posts. The mechanic who helped us on our way on Monday told us it was a dead battery and something might be draining it. We, having faith in the Hoffs capacities, decided not to let him look any further and headed out to Bozeman, a nice college town in Montana, fully enclosed by hills and mountains. In this town Sanders uncle, Ewout, and his family live.

The following day we visited the Rocky Mountain Museum in Bozeman, a museum with all sorts of things, especially the dinosaurs are impressive. Though when we came back, had a nice bike ride and a small hike, we tried to start our Hoff which was parked on Ewout's driveway. I wouldn't have written the last sentence if our effort had been successful, so the Hoff was broken down again. The same thing happened: a dead battery. We towed the Hoff to a shop with Ewout's car, meeting strange and entertained looks on the way. The next day, after the mechanic checked a lot of stuff, he couldn't find any draw whatsoever. We decided we would disconnect the main battery every night when we were parked somewhere.

So after some really nice days in Bozeman, we left again, stuffed with cookies, cheese and sausage for on the road. After a long long day driving the Hoff finally stopped his noise in the National Forest near Glacier NP in northern Montana. After a deserved nights rest, we woke up and hiked up one of the mountaintops which was accessible. A lot of the park is still not opened yet due to the harsh winter and snow. The hike brought us to a fire lookout, a nice wooden building surrounded by two meters of snow. The inevitable outcrop-dance was preformed not on a outcrop but on the building itself.

A visit to lake MacDonald was preformed the next day, Sunday, where we hiked over a ridge down to Trout Lake. The weather wasn't good, a lot of fog and some spatters of rain. On the way back over this ridge, we had lunch in a switchback. Suddenly a brown creature appeared some way down, cutting of the switchback and lazily continuing his way down the trail. This brown creature proved to be a grizzly bear. Thankfully our bear bells and our scents must have warned him of our presence. Back at the parking lot a second surprise waited for us. The Hoff had drained his battery again! With some help of a family from Arizona, I (Frans) drove to the ranger station with them, meeting halfway with the law enforcement ranger send for us earlier by an old lady. So I drove back with this friendly but stern woman, in between us two big shotguns. And so we discovered that the National Park Service of the US has rangers with battery chargers which they use for free on the Hoff! Not long after, we were on our way again, towards Columbia Falls where we parked next to the shop. Jasper pitched his tent on a even weirder place then his Walmart-camping trip, this time it was behind a autoshop next to a supermarket.

We got up early, got the guy from the shop to look at our battery and he decided the battery was bad. Though Sander and me had bought this battery last year, so we got a waranty! We went to another shop, picked up the battery and went on our way again, over the continental divide towards the east. We stopped at a beautiful lake and after the hike and a bath in the lake, the Hoff's battery was dead again. Luckily we could call our friends of the National Park Service with a payphone and a ranger quickly charged our battery again. From now on we disconnected the battery every time we are parked for more then an hour. After our second Ranger meeting we headed out to Canada, to Waterton Lakes NP. As it was getting late we camped in the campground in the park, which hurt our wallet, as one night was 28 dollar!

Waterton lakes took two days to discover. The dude at the visitor center warned us for snow, but apparently he must have thought we are really old, as the snow was almost non-existent. The second day we had some more snow. That evening we drove to Pincher Creek, where we stood at a campground again, this one with a better price. The following morning we skyped, or at least as long as the internet could hold it. We got some food and beer and headed out to the Crowsnest pass area, where we would team up with my family and all the friends which where camping out there.

Though this camping was a bit different from the standard Dutch holiday traditions. Almost everyone had a huge trailer or big RV-touringbus. Besides that, everyone had a quad or crossmotor. Thus the following three days Sander and me enjoined ourselves with quadding, Jasper couldn't come as it would have broken his back even more than it already has, so he made some nice hikes in the area, including a hike up to Turtle Mountain, a mountain which collapsed in the early 1900's onto a mining town. The adventures of getting stuck in mud, rivers and bumping over rocks, trees and steep hills are countless. Though the biggest story is about Sander, who decided to fly a bit with the quad. He got launched from his quad after bumping in a ditch with a speed of 40 k per hour. He hit a tree, followed by the quad, and ended up some 10 meters below the trail under the quad. Luckily, very luckily, he didn't break anything and is walking like a daisy again now. The quad is riding like a daisy again as well.

This happened on Sunday, the last day of camping in Crowsnest. In late afternoon we drove back to Taber where we stayed at my aunt and uncle on Monday en Tuesday. We did some laundry, got some hair cut, visited a doctor due to tickbites and got our van fixed. At least, that is what we hope. Our eight year old auxilary battery was cooking so we bought a new one and had someone check our divider. Some wires where weird and we have to get a new electric divider. Hopefully the Hoff won't let his batteries drained again by the draining ghost!

Sander will be heading of to E-town (Edmonton) for a wedding of Kaylee's sister, Jasper and I will head to Banff NP for some more hiking before picking up Nienke and join up with Sander again during the fireworks festival Thunder-In-The-Valley in Crowsnest pass.