So I was cleaning out my camera before my trip, and I found a photo from this summer that my dad took. We were about to hop in our rented ford escape and drive out to Calgary, where my cousin lives. Apart from looking really sheepish, I was really excited to hit the road. 
So the first day we took a ferry off the island, drove past Vancouver and then through Whistler. We made it pretty far into the mainland before finding something resembling a campsite. The forestry service runs these semi-campsites where you can camp for free. Our site was right next to a rushing river, which would keep me up later that night. My dad and I talked in really loud offensive German accents and ate hot dogs. Then we had a short campfire and went to bed.
On day two, we drove, and drove, and drove, and ended up in a small town on this big lake called Sicamous. We tried to camp, but there were millions of mosquitoes so we set up our tent and drove away. We went and got some dinner, then came back, ran into our tent, and fell asleep.
We wanted to make it to Calgary on the third day, so we pushed towards Banff national park. We drove through Revelstoke and then Golden, before stopping at a forestry service station. When we went in to get some maps, they told us that there had been a mudslide on the highway and that it was impossible to get to Banff. So we had to turn around, drive back to Golden, and search six motels before we found one that had a vacancy. There was a thunderstorm that night, and we sat on our hard beds and watched the lightning while eating ice cream.
The fourth day, they had cleared the mudslide, so we drove through Banff and made it to Calgary that afternoon. This all sounds like a much nicer trip than it actually was. The car we rented was a brand new 4×4, but somehow it managed to break down just outside of the city. We were also running around on day two in Sicamous trying to get 3G signal so that my dad could send a really important email.
The drive home was pretty lame actually. No exciting new bugs trying to drink our blood, no geological features trying to run us off the road, it was really pretty boring. But we did go to a beer factory.
I’m going to stop because I’m terrible at storytelling. Right now I’m in the process of packing for both a trip to central america, and moving houses. So I’m pretty busy and rushing to pack as fast as I can. 
More posts coming. I promise. In the meantime, why don’t you head over to the panel to your right and follow via email. That way, you won’t have to check my blog, see I haven’t posted, and feel bad about everything.
-A
Reporting live from Guatemala in T-minus 3 days.
Letters From The Great White North 