Travel Tales part 1

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First off, let me say that travelling overseas with a 5- and a 6-year old is MUCH different from travelling with a 2- and a 3-year-old. This became especially clear on our flight back to Germany, where we boarded with a mother travelling alone with three small children, the youngest just 3 days younger than Sophie, so around 9 months old. She ended up sitting a few rows in front of us and it seemed at least 2 out of her 3 children were crying at any given time. The turbulences probably didn't help. She never left her seat the whole 9+ hours, and I am sure she didn't get to eat anything either. The baby was especially unhappy, but of course Neil was drawn to this beautiful little girl like a fly to an outhouse and eventually Emmalina ended up in his arms where she finally succumbed to the endless knee bends and humming and fell asleep. They don't call him the "Baby Whisperer" for nothing. :)

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Finn and Lily did exceptionally well on this trip - on the train, on the plane and during the many hours we spent in the car in Canada. We drove more than 3000 km (1900 miles), and covered a lot of Alberta and Saskatchewan, from Calgary to the Rockies

and north to Edmonton, then east all the way to the cabin at Candle Lake (near Prince Albert), then home to Saskatoon, then the trips to Murray Lake (near North Battleford) and to the ranch in northeastern Saskatchewan through endless prairie

and finally back to Calgary through the southern part of the provinces, with a stint in the Badlands and "Dinosaur Valley" (Drumheller).

Thank you again, Grandma and Grandpa, for so graciously providing us with this neat van!

And for getting us a GPS navigations system, too. While it's pretty hard to get lost on a prairie highway the GPS really helped us navigate through a city like Calgary with all its Crowchild

and Deerfoot and whatnot trails and avenues and construction sites. 

It was a real blessing to have because Neil and I and reading maps in the car and getting lost and driving around in circles just don't go together very well. And frankly, it took us a few days to adjust to the different time zone and to the four of us being together 24/7 anyway. I distinctly remember taking the following picture during our first days in Calgary, with this evil little laugh going off in my head and visions of - oh well. Some things are better kept inside. :)

But adjust we did, and more than that, we had a really really great holiday and the car trips were fun. We travelled at night

or early early (well, for us) in the day:

Good Morning, Lily, have some breakfast!

Good Morning Fi... - oh, never mind.

If we were lucky we drove on asphalt

but we also learned that the van gets EXTREMELY dusty on the inside when you're driving on dirt roads

especially if there is "traffic".

We stopped at the one or other Greasy Spoon to have a bite

we attracted curious glances when we decided to have a picnic right in the middle of a little prairie town (we couldn't find any picnic tables anywhere)

we ate our share of fast food

and we kept a cool head

when we (nearly) ran out of gas on highway 41. We somehow forgot to fill up and were caught by surprise when the warning light came on pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We made it to the next little town on our map, but it didn't have a gas station and Neil was momentarily distressed ("What am I DOING here on 41 with an empty tank!? Let's turn around, maybe we can make it back!!"). He calmed down though, we drove on, saw a little farm by the side of the road and decided to ask where the next gas station was. And would you believe it, Neil found the farmer in the process of filling up his truck. He managed to refrain from begging for a cup of gas and learned that the next gas station was in fact not that far away, in the next little town.

Enter this place:

Population: 70. Attractions: one gas station slash convenience store. And a playground (Finn and Lily are on the very left in the above picture). There was a moment of tension when the pump didn't seem to work, but then we were saved. (For the record, Neil thinks we could have made it to Wakaw, but I'm not so sure. That van sure is a thirsty one.)

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More to follow, this is getting too long and the kids are begging me to watch something on here.

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Happy trails!

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