If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

So we hit the border last night around 3:30 AM (slightly later than planned – damn fruitless Yellowstone detour). I was wondering how they were going to receive us… Two Americans, a Scotsman and an Aussie – staying for less than 24 hours in the country except for the Aussie who is staying on a 12 month work Visa… all very complicated. But the only part that caused trouble was Dan’s visa. Apparently, the systems were down at all of the checkpoints across the border and there was no way for them to issue him his work permit. Now we panic for a solid 30 minutes probably. He either has to wait on the US side until 8 AM and then try again, or he can go into Canada as a visitor and return to the border within 10 days to get his permit. Seriously? Not cool.

So we opt for option 2, leaving the border patrol station just glad to be in Canada. That didn’t last long. We quickly realize that we’re almost out of gas and that the next official gas station is more miles away than we have gas in the tank. Now we’re also wondering if we will actually make it to Panorama in time to get Dan to work at 9 AM. There are HUNDREDS of deer off the side of the road and I, having been driving for almost 45 hours at this point without a break, am starting to see things. Thankfully, Mark chimes in with the perfect distraction and teaches us a great Irish drinking song called “Seven Drunken Nights” which we sing and perfect while coasting down the Canada mountains towards the gas station – which we luckily made.

We continue towards Panorama, it’s about 6 AM now, and now the REAL animals start to jump out at the car. We’re talking gigantic horse sized Elk hiding in the bushes and lurching out at us when we drove by. About 15 minutes outside of Dan’s apartment, I hit my brick wall and he takes over driving the home stretch. We arrive at the employee lodge and his apartment is ready and waiting for him. We stumble in, he takes a shower and we pass out three deep on his twin sized dorm style bed while he heads to his first day of work.

After a couple hours snooze, we say our goodbye’s and the three leftovers head towards Banff where Mark has now decided he wants to go for a couple days. We drive through Banff national park, which is, of course, beautiful. It’s always been one of my favorite places and it never gets old to drive through there. We attempt to take our picture at the Alberta border, but that was a disaster without our stellar time photographer, Dan. We meet up with Mark’s friend at the McDonald’s (go figure) in Banff and grab some lunch. After saying another set of farewell’s, Brian and I start the long trip home. As we calculate it, we have 25 hours to get back before the Chris Cornell show starts at 6:30 PM on Sunday. That’s going to require yet another straight through drive – yippee….

We drive through much of British Columbia and stop a couple times to take pictures and once to watch what’s called the “Spiral Bridge” which is a set of tunnels and bridges where trains descend from the mountains down to a lower elevation valley. It’s way cool and at one point you can see the train going in one side of a tunnel, out another and then through a spiral in the mountain and coming out right below itself. It’s just like a train set you would build in a garage, only… real!

About 30 minutes after the spiral train… I am done driving. So Brian takes over and starts his 24 hour streak. I pass out in the backseat for about the next 8 hours while Brian does his thing. We hit a pretty bad storm outside of Vancouver and run over a couple trees (or at least that’s what they looked like to me). Needless to say, I was laying in the backseat with all three seatbelts on in a strange fashion. I knew we had to book it, and I knew if I kept watching, I’d freak out, so I just laid down and said some prayers. I guess it worked fine!

Kalispell, MT --> Vancouver, BC, Canada
Miles travelled: 863
Time travelled: 23 hours

XOXO

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