My Copilot Is A Troll

You may be thinking,  haven't the Trolls been here before? Yes, they have, about 3 years ago, on their first road trip. Today they were sharing the experience with others, who hadn't been. Rob actually worked for the Carriage House Theatre in the 90s, a paid acting position, but had never been to the museum. Even though his family all live in Magrath, he and his kids have never been to the museums and historic sites in the area. We never play tourist at home! Good thing they have me, to remedy the situation.  Leif and Saga are ringing  up the phone bill! The Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston is beautifully curated. There are a few carriages you are allowed to sit in. Some have a video, to recreate a journey or teach about harnessing a horse. I love that the enclosed winter sleigh is called a caboose! I miss cabooses! (caboosi? cabeese?) Riding a Caboose to School The Trolls do love miniatures! They were excit...

In addition to yardwork, holidays, camping, lakes and mountains- summer had a lot of family events. Milestone birthday parties, family reunions and weddings. For Rob's niece's wedding in Magrath, we packed up Gudrid and are camping in his parent's driveway.  Highway 2 South of Calgary is a very pretty drive. We stopped at a Japanese Korean restaurant in Claresholm for supper, Antrée. The food was fantastic. The lovely thing about a bento box, besides how cool they look, is that you can try lots of different dishes. I chose a Korean seafood pancake. It was so rich, I could only eat half. Good think we are traveling with a whole fridge! Directly across the street, from the driveway we are "camping" on, is the Magrath Museum. Our driveway campgroud gets low marks for traffic noise, but high marks for the view. A couple weeks ago, We got to see my Great-Grandmother's wedding dress in a museum. Here we got to see photos and the cattle brand of Rob's...

We were up bright and early in our Hinton dorm room. Part of my preparation on Thursday was making rhubarb muffins. So all we had to to is fill gas and hit the road because breakfast was taken care of. Today was going to be a good day! There is no road trip without red licorice I had only been to Jasper twice briefly in the past. Neither time was long enough to explore. The first was chaperoning a school ski trip (with an infant). The second was coming home from BC, and the weather was so bad we had to stop for the night. This summer, until September, all the National Parks have free admission. So if you can, take advantage of that and visit a park close to you! We have 48 National Parks in Canada, and I want to see them all! An interesting thing I noticed as we drove, which I have never seen before, was some of the campground signs. Being new to RV ownership, I had never paid attention before. Many of the National Park campgrounds had maximum RV size at 25 ...

Summer flies by so quickly. I work every other weekend, which cuts the summer weekends down to 2 a month. June had a wedding and a funeral. July had a very important birthday and a family reunion.  Add in the garden, yard work and stormy weather and Boom! It's August.  Thursday morning I realized that Rob and I had one day off, in common, on Saturday. So I suggested a day trip to Jasper.  We could leave right after I got off work on Friday.  Pack a picnic supper. Come home late on Saturday.  I could cross 2 National Parks off my Adventure List in one day! (You drive through Banff National Park to get to Jasper) I got right onto all the hotel apps, and was feeling very smug that I found a room in Jasper, on the long weekend, for $200. With a lake view! Feeling smug...my first mistake! Things were all falling into place. I made up some egg salad for sandwiches. Had everything packed up before I went to work. I stocked up on drinks and car snacks. My la...