8th August ’12 Spokane to Portland So today it’s 350 miles to go, it was hot and for the first chunk of the journey we just drove and drove through flat, yellow prairie. When we reached the Columbia River the scenery still wasn’t much better and it was really windy. We pulled off at a service area in the middle of nowhere, which had eating places and petrol stations. As we were leaving I spotted a very unusual character on the corner of the junction holding a sign, at first I thought he must be hitching as he was staring at every car or truck really hard. As we got closer I could read the sign properly and despite what I first thought it said it wasn’t swearing but just said SMILE. So I gave him ... read more

6th August ’12 Fort McCloud to Whitefish, Montana, USA. After our sneak look at the Mounted Police show in the Fort we set off for the border crossing, which was out on its own in the middle of nowhere. There was quite a queue for the one booth that was open – I guess this was due to the Bank Holiday also. Everything went ok until the officer asked us when we were leaving the US, when we said we had a flight booked for the 22nd he pointed out that our visas run out on the 2nd September, oh dear! We were then told to park up and go inside……….. as it turns out we just had to pay 6 dollars each, fill out a form and we got a new visa until November. This ... read more

3-4th August ’12 Calgary, Alberta Oh dear it wasn’t easy to get up this morning! I dragged myself to the car and then we set off on the drive. We had a lunch stop and I still didn’t feel human. We reached Calgary and then it was a case of using the sat nav to help us navigate through all the busy city streets. We found the hotel quite easily and luckily it had an underground parking area as there was nowhere to park on the streets here. We checked in to the Ramada Hotel and were given our key card, went up to the 4th floor, opened the door and walked straight in on a girl sat on her bed! Back down to reception and they checked and gave us a new room key, the ... read more

1st Aug ’12 Banff to Jasper, Alberta Today we travelled along the Icefields Parkway from just past Lake Louise to Jasper. We followed mountains that looked like the spine of the Rockies – all sharp, jagged angles leading one into another forming a massive long ridge. The other side of the valley were equally huge mountains and lots of glaciers. We stopped several times to take photos and then arrived at the Icefields Centre. Yesterday at the Banff Gondola we bought double attraction tickets so today were were going on our other attraction – the Ice Explorer. The tyres of the vehicle were 5 foot in diameter! We set off down a 32 degree slope and then out onto the blue glacier ice, past glacier meltwater streams and hanging glaciers in the mountains at the sides. ... read more

29th July ’12 Kamloops to Golden, B.C. After a scrum in the motel’s breakfast room I managed to get a cup of tea and then we set off for Mount Revelstoke National Park. Once again lovely scenery – mountains and forests, like Alaska but with more trees. We drove into the park and then up 32 kilometres of hair pin bends to the car park near the Meadows in the Sky summit – there are lots of alpine flowers everywhere, hence the name. There were two car parks both of which were full so we ended up part way back down the road on a bit of verge. We got out of the car and were instantly attacked by mossies and biting flies, nasty! Once back up at the top car park we caught the shuttle ... read more