Let's see... I think I'm in Montana.....

It's been crazy since I last posted - we've been so busy! Many late nights and early mornings and some very spotty Internet connections.... I haven't been able to get on-line to do more than read my e-mail in quite a while. I did manage to get the proof for the Fall issue of ANPT and I actually did my proofing while we were driving to Whistler! How's that for dedication to a job?

But, I'd better back up a bit.....After Merritt, we drove on to Vancouver. We stopped at Hell's Gate to ride the gondola over the rapids and poke around a bit.


Then we found a park that had 4 abandoned railway tunnels that we could walk through. They were built around the turn of the century and it was incredible to see how they'd tunneled through solid rock with 1890 technology.....

DH's aunt and uncle live in Vancouver and very kindly offered us the use of a condo that they own in downtown Vancouver while we were there. It was wonderful to see them and it was overwhelming to be able to have such a wonderful space to stay in while we were in Vancouver. The laundry room was a mega-bonus as well...

Our first full day in Vancouver had us being urban hikers and we walked over to Gastown and enjoyed browsing in the various shops and stopping to watch the steam clock do its thing - it has a bunch of steam-powered whistles that play the Westminster Chimes every 15 minutes.

We continued our hike over to see the Olympic torch from this past winter olympics. It's huge! We also happened upon a team of guys making an enormous sand sculpture. We watched them work for a while as it was really interesting seeing the process.

Then we walked all the way over to Stanley Park. It's a beautiful place with the most amazing trees - I've never seen anything that large. Here's DS#2 being a tree hugger....

We spent some time wandering the park and enjoying the sights and sounds. It's hard to believe that this park is right in the center of town.

The next day, we drove to the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge (it's very much like the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but has the attraction of being free!)... We had fun walking across the bridge and back again.

We spent the rest of the day playing at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver (again, thanks to the Ontario Science Center pass we have!). Here's DS#2 holding up the geodesic dome at the Science center. There's tons of great exhibits as this science center and lots of hands-on activities for young and old alike.


DH's aunt and uncle hosted a lovely dinner for us and we were able to catch up with DH's cousin and his family as well. It was the perfect end to a wonderful, fun-filled day.

The next morning we were off to Whistler.

Once we arrived, we wandered around a bit and looked at a few shops and figured out where we needed to be for the days big event. We were going to ride the zip lines. Now you have to understand something. I'm afraid of heights and I hate roller coasters. How did I agree to this zip-line thing?????


Clearly being of no sound mind at all, I did it anyway. And I discovered that zip-lines are fun and not at all scary. They're actually quite gentle. The view was stunning from the lines and I enjoyed every second (except the first second when you have to step out into nothing to get going on the zip line.....that's a little unnerving, but after that it's fine....)..... The zip-line tour took us about 3 hours to complete and by then we were starving, so it was off for dinner.

After dinner the kids wanted to go swimming, so DH took them to the hotel's pool while I wandered around the various shops. There are lots of really neat shops in Whistler. It's unfortunate that my budget didn't allow for much buying. Thankfully my eyes work just fine, so I looked at lots of stuff.

The next day had us riding ski lifts all the way up to a glacier. It was the last day for snowboarding and skiing on Blackcomb mountain, so there were lots of guys and gals with boards and skis heading up for a last day of runs before everything closed for the season. We were able to ride the ski lifts all the way to the top and then we rode the same lifts back down again. DS#1 and I decided to have a snowball fight. In July. While wearing shorts and t-shirts! Surprisingly it wasn't *that* cold.......

After heading down from the glacier, we rode the peak to peak gondola that goes between Blackcomb and Whislter (and discovered in the process that it's much faster to ride from Blackcomb to Whistler than the other way around - the lineups at the Whistler end were ENORMOUS!). We managed to get onto a glass-bottomed gondola (there's only 2 of them). The view was wonderful. Gorgeous mountains and trees and rivers everywhere you looked.

In one shop the kids found one of the bobsleds used at the Winter Olympics. Naturally they had to do a little horsing around.....


Once we finished playing in Whistler, it was time to find the ferry that would take us over to Victoria. Unfortunately when we got there, there was an enormous lineup. We ended up waiting over 2 and a half hours to get on a ferry. I, naturally, had a great way to occupy my time, and a great view out the dashboard of the van:

I couldn't help but feel sorry for folks who didn't have a hobby to occupy their time....

The day after getting settled in Victoria found us driving out to Butchart Gardens:

Oh, the gardens! This one is called the sunken garden:


The flowers and blooms and colours abound:


I could have moved in. Gorgeous.

Sadly, we did have to leave and head out to visit Craigdarroch Castle. This castle was full of gorgeous carvings, stained glass and furniture. True to form, I did find lots of needlework, but sadly, no one could tell me anything about the pieces I saw. It's very frustrating too when they put things so far away - most things I couldn't get close enough to determine just what type of needlework was done. I'm pretty sure most things were needlepoint, but I did find some beaded bags and I think an amazing crewel screen..... I won't show all the pictures I took there now, but here's a couple.....


And being me and seeming to have radar about these things.... I found this:



It was closed when I found it, but I got to go back the next day. Yes, stash was bought. No, I can't show you just yet as I've managed to separate the stash from the camera and the camera from its battery. I didn't really buy much though as the shop catered mostly to antique and primitive samplers which aren't really to my taste.... I bought more fibres than anything...

We left Victoria and boarded the first of two ferrys that would take us to Seattle.

.....and there's tons more pictures to show, but it's waaayyy past my bedtime. I'll have to share more about Seattle next time. We'll be home by Wednesday next week.

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Pictures, pictures and pictures....

Today we've made it to Merritt, BC. We spent most of the day driving along the Okanagan Valley and only really stopped for food and the odd bit of sightseeing....

Since my Internet connection didn't permit me to upload many pictures yesterday, I'm going to try and upload a bunch of pictures today of our adventures over the last few days....


Both DS' inside the Little Church. DS#1 is around 5'6" now and his head nearly brushes the ceiling. DS#2 is a perfect fit.

My 'boys' digging for dinosaur bones at the Royal Tyrell Museum....

Go-Karting in Drumheller.....


Playing in the bumper boats and shooting each other with waterguns at the West Edmonton Mall....
Their robot (named 'Steve') that they programmed while visiting the Telus World of Science....

Our first views of the Canadian Rockies....

Athabasca Falls

Our transportation to the Columbia Icefields (the wheels are about 5' high and 3' wide - DS#2 fits neatly inside the wheel rim...)


The DS' standing on the Columbia Icefield. It was cold!


The pair of rams we saw butting heads at the side of the road....


The bear we found browsing at the side of the road.....

Peyto Lake (which I really want to call Peyote Lake - I'm a stitcher wherever I go! )....

Lake Louise (the glacier behind Lake Louise was shrouded in clouds - it started raining about 10 minutes after this picture was taken!)....

And from today - we stopped in Craigellachie where the Last Spike was driven into the ground over 200 years ago...

If you didn't feel like following the link, it was in Craigellachie that the railway across Canada was all joined up. It was built East to West and then West to East, meeting in Craigellachie. DS#2 got to pretend to drive in the last spike. The real last spike is just behind him, off to the right a bit. It's spray painted gold (truth be told, it's not very remarkable, but we at least got a bathroom break out of it!).....

Now, more NN stash!

Here's some of the charts I picked up - a few Laura J. Perin and some Needle Delights are on the left. The right has a piece from DebBee's, My Big Toe and Needlemania. They're all very pretty - the question is, when will I stitch them????

And more charts.... VS' Fat Bat Cat, Bent Creek's Stitching Row (which is *so* not my usual style, but for some reason it really appealed to me...), Keslyn's 'My Day Complete' (which I really want to stitch soon), a LK snippet and the fibre kit for Wintertide (it was on sale and soooo cheap I had to get it)....

There's more stash, but I'll save that for another post.... Is it a bad sign when the helpful folks in the LNS ask if you need help carrying everything to your car????

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We're Golden....

Or at least we're in Golden, BC...

It's been a little while since I've posted - mostly because we've had no Internet connection. We have been busy though!

After we left Dinosaur Provincial Park, we drove to our hotel and collapsed into bed. The next day we were up early and our first stop was here:
This is the World's Largest Dinosaur statue. It's huge. We could actually climb up inside the dinosaur and out to an observatory at the jaws of the beastie. We had fun climbing the stairs.

After the big dino, we headed off to the Royal Tyrell museum for a really neat experience. The kids (the big one and the two younger ones) got to go on a dinosaur dig. I went along for the hike and the gorgeous scenery. They didn't dig up real dinosaur bones - they were casts of real bones that they 'bury' under dental plaster and dirt and rocks - it simulates a real dig though and the kids had much fun unearthing an arm and 'hand' of a dinosaur. We spent most of the rest of the day wandering through the very large museum there. It was very well laid out, had tons and tons and tons of dinosaur skeletons and was just interesting as all get out. I only wish we could have spent more time there.

We stopped briefly at the Little Church. The sign out front has to make you smile. It says 'seats 10,000 people - 6 at a time!'. It's a teeny, tiny little church - it was actually hard for DH, DS#1 and I to stand upright in it. DS#2 fit perfectly.

After that we found a cute little go-kart track and bought the boys 10 laps each. They had a great time racing each other - although DS#1 lapped his brother. Twice. Makes me worry what he'll do when he can get a license in two years....

Then we were off to Edmonton. After finding our hotel, we had a brief look around West Edmonton Mall. I think the best description of the place would be that it's an amusement park with a mall around it. There are multiple mini-golf courses, an amusement park (with roller coasters), a water park (with lots of waterslides and a wave pool), a full aquarium.... I could go on and on. Unfortunately, the price to do things there was MEGA $$$$.... However, we returned the next day to play some mini-golf and paddle around in the water park. We had so much fun!

The day after the WEM, we stopped off for a quick tour of the Telus World Of Science (thank you Ontario Science Center reciprocal membership!). The kids got the chance to program some Lego MindStorms, along with looking around at all the other cool things they have there. We could have spent the day, but the road was calling and we were off again.....

We started to see our first view of the Canadian Rockies. What a sight! The mountains are just so majestic - they're like nothing I've ever seen. I felt very, very, very small.

We drove through Edson:

Now there's nothing particularly special about Edson really. BUT, when my father emigrated to Canada from Denmark in 1955, he and his brother first came to Edson to work on a farm. They took a boat from Copenhagen to Montreal and then the train all the way out to Edson. They spoke not a single word of English and went to work for a Ukranian farmer, who also spoke no English, nor any Danish. I'm still mystified that they managed to work together, but there you go.

When we got to our hotel, we dumped our stuff quickly and then drove off to the Miette Hot Springs. They're a natural hot spring that comes out of the mountain at around 56C - it's so hot that they actually add cold water to the spring to have it in the pools at 40C and 38C. We had a lovely soak for a few hours..... Then back to the hotel for bed!
The next day had us officially entering Jasper National Park. The project jumped out of the van for its beauty shot:

(and yes, the Q-snap has finally moved on this project - it's been hard to stitch much - the scenery is beyond divine!)
We hiked out to Athabasca Falls first - it is such a powerful waterfall and really, really, really cold. If you fell in, hypothermia would probably kill you before you could be fished out again. But it was still beautiful to see!

Then we drove into the town of Jasper proper to be real tourists and do some shopping (actually, more like browsing - stuff was pricey!):


Then we were off to the Columbia Icefield. What an amazing experience that was - we got the chance to stand on over 1,000 ft. of ice - right on the glacier. It was pretty darned cold, but neat. The kids were fascinated!

After the icefield we were driving towards our next hotel when we saw two mountain sheep butting heads on the side of the road. They were very close to us and kept stopping what they were doing to stare at the tourists. They they'd go back to butting heads again. The noise it makes when they bash into each other is surprisingly loud.
They soon took off for the forest and we continued driving until we came across a very large black bear browsing in the bushes right at the side of the road. I've never been that close to a bear before - I almost could have reached out the window and touched him (being of a sound mind, I didn't!).....

That brings me to today where we stopped first at Lake Louise. The weather hasn't been the most co-operative, so it was raining off and on all day and we didn't get the best pictures of the lake. It was still beautiful though. Then we drove into Banff and did some more browsing and a little shopping. We headed up to the Banff Springs Hotel and then on to the Banff Gondola ride up Sulphur Mountain. Thankfully the weather cleared up by this point that the Gondola ride was awesome!!!!!


And then we drove here, to Golden. I apologise for the lack of pictures but the connection is quite slow and it's been a challenge to upload the pictures that are here!

Blogger has now decided that I can't upload any more pictures - and I was going to show off more stash acquisitions from NN! Sorry! Maybe in the morning before we leave here I can squeeze out a quick post!

Keep your fingers crossed for a better Internet connection tomorrow!

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Drumheller

No, I'm not using bad language. It's where we are presently. Go check out the map here. How did we get here? We drove. Then we drove some more. Then, we drove some more. Then we drove. Then we crossed the border back into Canada. Then we drove some more. Then we drove some more. Then we drove some more. Then we slept. Then we woke up. Then we drove.

So, do you think we've been driving a lot? I believe since yesterday morning we've driven a total of over 20 hours. 20 hours. In a mini-van. With 2 children. Aren't you impressed that I'm coherent?

We have been doing a few things besides driving though. Fun things.After we left Fargo (*sob* - I couldn't take the entire store with me), we drove out of town for a while to our hotel to bunk for the night. We knew yesterday was going to be the drive-until-you're-cross-eyed day, so we were up early (painfully so) and on the road. As we were now in mostly prairie land, we frequently ran across sights like these:

Abandoned and falling down houses and barns are so fascinating to look at, aren't they? I can't help but wonder what led to it being abandoned and what it all looked like when it was in its glory....We started seeing many of these as we drove westwards:

Grain elevators and their corresponding train tracks.

And we ran across this funny, abandoned little building:

I can't help but see eyes, a nose and a mouth.....

Of course, now that we were heading west, we started seeing more and more of these in the middle of various fields:

This is called an oil derrick. You can read more about them here. There's lots of oil in the west and we saw lots of it being brought to the surface with these little machines. They remind me of a horse...

Finally after much driving, we made it across the border. The travelling project was up for celebrating, so it posed for a shot with this sign:

We made it to the rectangular province, otherwise known as Saskatchewan. Tough to spell and tough to say. But, we made it there. Shortly after this picture was taken, we were greeted by another fun sight - a deer decided to go charging across the road in front of us. I didn't hit her (it was a doe), but managed to stop in plenty of time for her to cross safely. So far it's wildlife 2, me 0 - everyone is happy and uninjured.Saskatchewan is known for growing lots and lots of wheat. So, after we crossed the border, the sights were (un)surprisingly familiar:


Yes, I've seen more grain elevators in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible. The Canadian ones tend to have more variety in their paint jobs than their American counterparts, but beyond that, there's not that much different about them.

But being good Canadians, there was one grain elevator we *had* to take a picture of:


If you don't know why this was a must-do - go read about Corner Gas for a while and you'll understand why. Watch a few episodes. Great Canadian comedy.

After seeing the never-ending stream of grain elevators, we finally crossed into Alberta:

My apologies for the really bad picture. The weather had turned quiet foul and was so windy that it was difficult to get a picture at all. We discovered later that night that there was a tornado two provinces over (in Manitoba) and some of the high winds we were driving through were due to that.

A few hours later we made it to the hotel and all fell upon the closest horizontal surface and slept as if we'd been concussed. 15 hours driving. We ate our lunch and dinner in a moving vehicle. Don't try this at home. Don't try it on vacation, either.Today dawned cool but sunny. We were off to one of the most amazing places I've ever been to:


Getting out of the van and walking a short distance led us to this view:


Think Grand Canyon, but green! It reminded me of the Grand Canyon, but it's much, much greener. The views were stunning! We drove down into the Canyon and spent much of the day hiking through portions of the park. Archeologists and paleontologists have found more than 300 different species of animal and plant life here, including many of the world's dinosaur fossils. We saw lots of dinosaur bones today.

We also stopped today to see a coal mine (now defunct) and a suspension bridge, before making it to our hotel. We've managed to find a hotel with a good, fast Internet connection. Sadly, it has the thinnest walls. We know for sure that the folks in the next room have two children (boy and girl) *and* a dog. We think there are massage beds in the rooms above ours..... Ah, the joys of travel!

If you've managed to read this far, I guess I should throw a little stitchy stuff your way.... Here's a couple of pictures of my newly acquired stash (sorry for the bad pictures - hotel lighting isn't particulary great for taking pictures!)....


First up are some great mesh bags. I've only seen these in Canada once before. I bought one to try it out and fell in love. Naturally, my LNS didn't have anymore after that.... I found them at NN for a song, so I snapped up 3 of them (2 are already holding projects). I found the little purple bag too. The mesh on it is something I could actually stitch on, so I'm thinking a bit about that.....

I also picked up these:


I already own one Tacky Bob and I really love it when I'm doing beading. I decided I needed another one. Being that Halloween is probably my most favourite time of the year, I had to grab these cute little Mill Hill kits too. You would not believe the number of Mill Hill kits Nordic Needle had - the walls seemed to be covered with them - or at least two of them did! I've never seen so many in once place at one time. I enjoy having a few of these little kits around - they're always a fast stitch and they sparkle like mad when they're all done.

One more picture, for the road? Okay - I picked up a few fibres too..... I did restrain myself a little bit, although it was really, really, really hard.....

Most of the fibres are for one of the colour study projects from Needle Delights and some others are just for random other projects. The selection of fibres at NN was outstanding and it was hard to not just buy one of everything. Wasn't I a good girl???

.....then again, you haven't seen all the *other* things I bought.......

BUT, it's nearly midnight and I need to get to bed. Tomorrow will find us on a real dinosaur dig and doing some other fun stuff, but I can't remember just what!

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