I think I broke my toe.

We arrived in Kelowna tonight, after an amazing couple of days of visiting with friends. The only bad thing that happened, was I shut the RV passenger-side door on my big toe this afternoon and it's not looking so good. After Victoria we took the ferry to Mayne Island, a place we had never heard of before Andy's friend, Jeff, moved there. We spent the day on Jeff's farm, apple picking, gathering eggs from his hens, and eating our first 'edible' flowers. The flowers were far from delicious. Jeff took us to the Japanese   gardens and Dinner Bay park. The park had a zip line that was really fun.

Me and my two Dads.

Ziplining.

We took the ferry back to Vancouver Thursday night and spent the night in a downtown Wal-Mart parking lot. I've never seen such a bustling Walmart. It was super late before that place settled down.
Friday morning we headed to the Vancouver Aquarium and met up with my old friend Christy.  Christy and I were roommates at Capernwray Adventure Bible School in New Zealand (way back in 2000). We hadn't seen each other in ten years, and eight kids later, we had a lot of catching up to do. Christy and her 4 kids explored the aquarium with us and I'm not sure Annika even noticed the fish because she was so wrapped up in Christy's daughters, Tenesae and Ayrian. I think she's been seriously missing female friends. Soren, however, was loving the whales, dolphins, seals, and hundreds of fish. Kai said at the start of this trip that one of the things he really wanted to see was Beluga whales. So he was quite thrilled that we could check that off our list.

Absolute wonder. She stood there transfixed.

After the aquarium we went for a family bike ride/rollerblade around Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver. The weather was warm and the park was beautiful. It was so much fun.
Friday night we spent at the Bennik's farm. They have everything a kid could ever dream of: animals, playground, trampoline, tons of space to run around, etc. So our kids were in heaven, having a campfire and running around like maniacs.

Wide load coming through.

This morning, the Bennik family took us to Crescent Beach in Surrey. The kids caught crabs, Sawyer ate her weight in sand, and Soren took a bad fall on some barnacle-covered rocks and ended up with some serious war wounds. A day at the beach when it is almost October was awesome. Saying goodbye to the Bennik's was not fun, but we had a blast with them and would love to get our families together again sometime.

Tenesae, sticking a crab on me.

Sand eater.

Thank goodness for Facebook...keeping in touch!

We stopped at Bridal Veil falls (the second bridal veil we've been at) on the way to Kelowna today and went for a hike. It was such a lush forest...it seems weird that nothing here is changing to yellow, red, and orange yet.
Tomorrow marks the ONE month point for our trip. Can't wait to see what month number two will hold!

Life is all about Plan B.

And sometimes Plan B is not so bad. We are on Vancouver Island, spending the day exploring Victoria. I really wanted to go whale watching because we have a kid who is OBSESSED with underwater sea creatures and I knew it would blow his mind to see orcas up close. After some research, we decided on the “Prince of Whales” because they were cheaper than most and they had seen whales on yesterday’s tour. So we forked over 280$ for our family to go. We spent an amazing morning playing at the ocean and exploring Beacon Hill Park. Then we headed down to the harbor to board our ship. However, we found out when we got there that our whale tour had been cancelled because there weren’t enough people. We had some very sad kids after that…and I had already drugged them with Gravol! I might have been even sadder than the kids. After that we headed over to ‘the floating village’. We played at a playground on the water and then had fish and chips at a floating restaurant. The floating village was cool. There were 2 seals there that swam around the docks waiting for people to feed them fish. So we bought some little fish from the fish market and fed them. If you twirled your little fish (the one in your hand), the seal would twirl around too. The kids were loving it. Even Sawyer tried to jump in the water and swim with him (luckily she was buckled into her stroller). The seals were so fun, they almost made us forget about our whale disappointment. I really love Victoria. It is a beautiful city with gorgeous buildings and gardens everywhere. Oh, and ocean and mountain vistas. Tomorrow we are going to try and catch another ferry to the Southern Gulf Islands and visit a friend of Andy’s. Wouldn’t it be awesome if some whales could come swim alongside our ferry?

Squamish--the outdoor recreation capital of the world!

Squamish is in between Whistler and Vancouver and it sits in the middle of tons of provincial parks. It is FULL of things to do, if you like to do outdoorsy stuff. Our kids are starting to become mountain goats. They climb and hike things that most adults couldn't do and their endurance is improving daily, which means we get to go on longer, less whiny hikes.

Last night we stayed in the Squamish Wal-Mart and then this morning we went to the Chief--a gigantic rock face that sits in a beautiful forest. We brought our climbing gear, hoping to get some bouldering in. However, after hiking and exploring for an hour, the kids wanted to eat lunch, so we headed back to the RV, hoping to come back another time SANS children. We found some blackberry bushes on the way, and took advantage of the free fruit.

Cave critters.

mmmm...blackberries!

In the afternoon we headed to Shannon Falls. WOW! This was an incredible waterfall. We hiked up the long, hard way and just loved it. Annika said, "not to brag, BUT we hiked up the way better way." We drove to Burnaby after that and are staying in a 'ritzy' RV park that has an indoor pool, a gym, a hot tub, AND a playground. We skipped dinner to go straight to the playground and the pool and tonight, while I did laundry in the laundromat, I got to go on the treadmill. It felt like we were at a hotel! Tomorrow we are hoping to head over to Vancouver Island....a first for me and the kids. Anyone know what we should see?

Peak-to-Peak

We traveled down the sea-to-sky highway and ended up in Pemberton last night. We camped out at Nairn Falls Provincial Park and in the morning did a little hike. After that, we headed into Whistler. We immediately fell back in love with this place. It's been 2.5 years since we've been here, and it is the first time we've brought the kids. But as Andy puts it, "I get this fluttery feeling in my heart being here. It's like  the first time I saw you naked."

We bought gondola tickets and took the kids up to the top of Whistler mountain. They got 5 cm of snow last night, so the kids were eating it. We ate lunch and then took the peak-to-peak gondola that was built for the Vancouver Olympics. That thing was so cool. You went through the clouds and all you could see was the three cables holding you up. We also took the glass-bottom gondola which was neat. Soren, of course, climbed over the railing and stood on the glass, which you aren't supposed to do.  So now we just have to figure out how to move here.

The kind of hot tub that makes you worry about getting folliculitis...

We have been driving like mad the last couple days, back down the Alaskan Highway. We are seeing the seasons go in reverse...because as we move south, the trees get greener and the weather gets warmer. We stopped at some of the same stops as before, like Toad Creek, the town of 60 people with the 4000 hats. We met and played with the entire school (10 kids) and the kids were 'insta-friends.' I was talking with the oldest kid in town (grade 6) and he told me "we're pretty much all related in this town. If they aren't your brother or sister, they're your cousin." Hilarious. I also had a chance to talk with one of the moms about life in a small, isolated town. I asked her what you do for groceries (the closest grocery store is 2.5 hrs away) and she said they go once a month, but fresh food is hard to come by in the winter. Seems so foreign to me.

We also explored some new places, like Whirlpool Canyon and Bijoux Falls. These were great spots to hike and rock climb and explore and beautiful places to take pictures. And we stopped at Powder King ski resort to see what it was like. It is the most ghetto ski resort I've ever seen. I took some pictures of the 'base of the mountain, prime location' cottages looked like. If you can even call them cottages. Most were just shacks built around an old school bus or trailer. It was hilarious. It seemed so counter-culture to the 'richy-rich' attitude that tends to prevail among skiers.

Finally, we arrived in Prince George. After so many long days on the road, we decided to take a day to just hang out and play. We spent our morning at the Exploration Centre-a really cool science centre that was geared towards kids. I love the museums that are hands-on and interactive. This one had a beaver dam that the kids could crawl into (like a little fort) and inside was where the turtle tank was. So inside their fort, they could watch the turtle swim around. Very neat. It also had a sandbox filled with dinosaur toys complete with tunnel right underneath where the dinosaur skeletons were.

After that adventure, we had a healthy lunch at Costco (hot dogs and poutine) and then we went to a pet store. The pet store would have been another great success, except we popped a tire on the way there. So we had to take a detour on our 'play-day' and head to the shop. This coincided with nap time just perfectly, so while the little ones slept, we got a new tire on. Worked out just fine, and we were thankful that we had that incident here in Prince George rather than in Toad River.

We then went to a ghetto hotel to use their water slides. Other than the couple (with a combined weight of over 550 lbs.) that was getting it on in the hot tub, it was pretty awesome. Even Soren went down the water slide. Once. After that, he was not interested. Annika went down about 40 times.
All in all, a great time was had by all in Prince George.
Today marks the three week point in our trip. Kind of crazy how fast time is going.

We picked up a hitchhiker with a gun.

We're back in Whitehorse, YT. On our way down into BC. So if you happen to live in BC and have a long driveway and would like to be pounced upon by the 6 Wilson's...just let us know. I almost burned down the RV the other day, but luckily averted it. We were cooking a pizza (a 3$ one, not a 16$ one) in the oven, but wanted to get to a dogsled demonstration that was a couple miles down the road. We were in a rush, so we decided it wouldn't be a big deal to drive while the pizza was cooking. Well, we got there, and Andy and the 3 older ones rushed off to the dogsled show, and I stayed with the pizza. I went to pull it out and the pan came out with nothing on it. The pizza had shifted and stuck to the back of the oven while we were driving and now it was dripping all over and starting on fire. Needless to say, our nice new oven is no longer new or nice anymore, but I managed to stop our 'home' from burning to the ground. Also, we were watching this mommy moose and her calf yesterday (from the road) when we saw a hunter further up the road. We stopped to apologize to him since we thought we might have messed up his shot, but he said he just was waiting for a ride back to town. Andy has been dying to pick up a hitchhiker and he has been inwardly mourning the loss of his hunting seasons (since he is away from home), so he told him to hop in. So, he put his gun in our front seat and we drove him to town. He was very kind (thankfully) and Annika played the perfect hostess, offering him a Coke.
We almost froze to death last night. Our furnace stopped working. We dug out the extra duvet and all the blankets, covered the kids in layers of blankets, brought Sawyer into bed with us, and hoped for the best. We survived and when we woke up this morning the kids were none-the-wiser. Hopefully we will find somewhere to get it fixed soon, because it tends to be a little chilly up here at night.

Alaska was definitely a MAN's land. There were multiple times we saw cars driving along slowly, hunting from the road or men wandering around with rifles on their backs. The ATV trails are more worn than the roads and there are no Homesense's or Pottery Barn's anywhere to be found. Gun stores and meat factories are much more popular. We were feeling quite proud of ourselves for driving the entire Alaskan highway with 4 little kids. I'm sure there are not many Burlington families who have done that. (Or would want to, for that fact).

Denali means "the High One."

We are in Denali National Park today. And I just ate my first Alaskan fish dinner...and there is something to be said for eating Alaskan Halibut in Alaska. The kids ate Alaskan hot dogs.

Denali is a highly regulated National park. They restrict the number of vehicles that are allowed into the park each day and most of it doesn't have roads through it anyway. So we didn't know if we would be able to get passes (since people generally make reservations MONTHS in advance). However, it is off-season, so we were optimistic. Luckily we were good, but unlucky in that it was super cloudy and chilly today. So there was no good view of Denali (or Mt. McKinley), which we wanted to see. Mt. McKinley is North America's highest peak and the object of Andy's climbing desires. We didn't see any wildlife either, other than an Arctic ground squirrel. The squirrel was cool, but I was hoping for some mammals of substantial size. We had much better luck with wildlife viewing in Northern B.C. 

The highlights of Denali were watching Annika and Kai receive their Denali Junior Ranger badges (a mini-ceremony was held and they were quite proud), the visitor centre, and playing with the sled dogs.
Soren walked around the visitor centre telling all the other visitors (he calls them 'the MANs') about the animals. "Mom, I just showed those mans all about the squirrel and the frog."--Soren.

Annika and her favourite sled dog- Sylvie.

Our Junior Rangers--Kai and Annika.

Panning for GOLD with plastic Dollarama plates.

Today marks two weeks that we have been on this Wilson Family Road Trip. In 2 weeks, we've visited 6 provinces (actually the Yukon is a Territory, but we'll count it as a province, in this case), crossed 4 time zones, and visited 19 different playgrounds. It has been an action packed 2 weeks, and we're excited to see what the next couple months will entail.

Yesterday we left Watson Lake, YT and headed to Whitehorse. Whitehorse surprised me. I expected it to be mostly Inuit people, some native craft/souvenir shops, and maybe a totem pole or two set up around town. However, it was quite modern. it had multiple Starbucks, and the 'downtown' core had lots of people in business suits and clothes that weren't from Giant Tiger wandering around. We went to an awesome playground on the shores of the Yukon River, and all the moms and dads there seemed like Burlington moms and dads. Yeah, I had it pictured all wrong. Anyway, Whitehorse was great for running errands and stocking up on things we needed before we entered the 'wilderness' again. Andy had to do some banking at TD, I needed some Timbits from Tim Hortons, Andy wanted his philly cheese steaks from M&M Meat Shops, and I wanted to re-stock on kids movies and President's Choice products from the Real Canadian Superstore. In other words, we knew we were entering the U.S. the next day and we needed to do some 'Canadian' things while we could.

We camped last night in Kluane National Park and Reserve, and we were the only ones there. Sawyer woke up early and Andy bundled her up in her snowsuit (it's very cold in the mornings) and took her outside. He came back in a moment later because there was a grizzly bear right outside the R.V. I have never seen a grizzly in the wild. It was awesome. We followed him around (in the RV) so I could get a close-up picture. So in homeschooling today, we learned about bears. Seemed appropriate.

We crossed into Alaska this morning (no problems at the border, but I had to give up my oranges in case they had something 'suspicious' in them) and stopped for gas. At the rest stop I took my kids into the gift shop…which is a bad idea with Annika. She always wants to buy the worst stuff. I am definitely not a souvenir person, so this desire of hers to buy cheap trinkets is hard for me to grasp. Anyway, I lured her away from the vial with fake gold nuggets in it by promising them an ice cream sandwich. Kai chose a neopolitan ice cream sandwich and later declared that the best part of his day. Seemed ironic that the first thing we did in Alaska was eat ice cream sandwiches. Andy explained that when you are in Alaska you are to call them 'Eskimo Pies'.

I got to go for another awesome bike ride; this time along the Alaskan Highway. We made an evening stop at a creek and Andy and Kai tried their luck at panning gold. They were using plastic dollarama dishes and searching for flecks of gold in the sand. Didn't pan out too well for them. Tonight we are in the North Pole. For real. North Pole, Alaska. We are headed to the Santa Claus house in the morning with the kids.

A 16$ Delissio Pizza and a herd of Bison

We are officially in the Yukon! I have been curious about this place ever since I started colouring it in on my grade school geography maps. And now I'm finally here. It is seriously remote. Tonight we are staying in Watson Lake, which is apparently home to 1547 people and the third largest city in the entire Yukon. The drive here today (from mile 300 on the Alaskan Highway to mile 635) was incredible. We saw giant bison, wild mountain goats, bears, bighorn sheep, caribou, and even some horses walking along the highway, alone. The horses were strange, but everything else was mind-blowing. It was like being on a Northern Safari. (Found out later that it is actually called the 'Serengeti of North America'). Andy dropped the lens cap to the camera while he was leaning out the window taking a picture of the bighorn sheep, so he had to get out and face them down in order to get it. Luckily he didn't get rammed. We stopped at another small town on the way through northern B.C. that was called Toad River. Toad River has a population of 60 and we spent some time playing at their school playground (a school that was encased in a double-wide). The neat thing that Toad River is known for is their HAT collection. They have 4580 hats nailed to the roof of their restaurant/bakery/gas station/only store in town. The hats represent each mile from the Yukon to the continental U.S. Very cool.

We also stopped at Liard Provincial Park to go in their natural hot springs. Some were too hot for our wussy skin, but some were quite nice.

When we finally arrived in Watson Lake we headed to the grocery store, only to discover that it closed. We had to grocery shop at the local gas station, and I paid 16.44$ for a Delissio Pizza. I just about keeled over. For those who don't know me well, I am a big coupon/price-matching kind of person, and I don't ever pay more than 3 or 4$ for a frozen pizza.

We are officially in the North. I was thinking today, "you know you are far from home when you only see ONE Ontario license plate the entire day."

Ridiculous Scenery

We've spent the last two days exploring Banff and Jasper National Parks. I think Jasper is my favourite. We took the kids onto the Athabasca Glacier this morning, and they stood on their first glacier. Andy and Kai ate some glacier, too. I went on an amazing 30 km. bike ride from Banff to Lake Louise. Probably the prettiest bike ride I will ever go on. Lake Louise was a bit of a bust because it was very

 crowded when we went and the time of day made it really difficult to get a good photo. However, then we stopped at Peyto Lake and Glacier, and got some amazing photos of an equally beautiful, and much less crowded, lake. Soren was thrilled that we finally got to see some wildlife (elk and mountain goats), because before that all he had seen was 'oak poo' (elk poo). Andy went for the 'biggest downhill of his life' mountain bike ride today, so he was pretty stoked about that. He is like a kid in a candy store in the mountains. He just has this lit-up, 'now I'm really living' look on his face. Right now we are in Hinton, AB, headed to Grande Prairie for the night. I had my first mini-meltdown this afternoon ...because I am having a hard time coping with all the mess in the R.V. I don't cope well with messy places, and it is just impossible to keep clean with 6 people in such a tight space. But, I reminded myself that it is a small sacrifice to make, when you consider the awesome stuff we've seen and done in the last week and a half. Hopefully we will get somewhere where I will have a good wireless connection so I can upload the photos we've taken. It has been insanely beautiful, so it is hard to stop yourself from taking more and more pictures. How many pictures of beautiful scenery are too many?
Happy Labour Day everyone!

No Chinooks here.

Apparently it snowed in Banff today. That's where we are headed tomorrow night. Today we did not drive the RV at all. We left it parked at my sister's house and just enjoyed a relaxing, day-long playdate. My niece, Sadie, was in for a shock when our 4 little ones took over her house. She wouldn't even eat her breakfast. She just stared at them. We used Amy and Shawn's laundry and bathtub because we were

dirty. My sister took Annika and I to a Calgary mall, and on the way you get to see mountains. This was Annika's first time seeing mountains (that she can remember), so she was floored. She said, "Look at all that delicious snow. I want to climb it." I can't wait for her to see them up close and personal this next month. September 1st. Wow, this fall is definitely unlike any other fall for me. Normally fall means settling into routines, and there is nothing routine for us right now. A weird feeling, for sure.

Tonight we took the kids to the park and they had a blast chasing a giant Calgary-sized rabbit. He was dog-sized and Annika (our fastest kid) actually gave him a run for his money. Andy says it was a snowshoe hare. But you can rarely trust his animal facts.

After the kids were asleep we played Ticket to Ride with my sister and her husband. It was a wonderful, relaxing, slow-paced day.

We finally got the video tour of the R.V. uploaded. So if you want to see inside....