Across 5 Provinces

I'm alive!

Following a 3 day bus ride, I died somewhat for days afterwards, however I am alive and hopefully going to be posting on a more regular basis.

So lets go back in time to just a little over a week ago.....

I stumbled to an early morning (like 11am) breakfast with what turned out to be way more than just Sara, Lori & Nessa followed by Justin, Diana and Elliot, and hilarity ensued. Our breakfast turned into lunch as well once we found out we'd already paid for it, Golden Griddle knows how to treat you, lol. I was left with just enough time to get back uptown, finish packing and
make it to the downtown Bus depot with our entourage of luggage in tow.

We officially left Toronto at 5pm on weds (July 2). Our first stop was Parry Sound. By the end of day 1 we were only in Sudbury - from there it would seem like almost a lifetime before we actually made it out of Ontario... that is if we didn't die first, lucky for our our first bus was full of grannies who insisted that regardless of the fact that it was JULY outside, the heat on the bus had to be on full blast. Thursday morning was a lovely surprise however, as we woke up for breakfast in White River, Ont. The home of Winnie the Pooh! There was a huge Pooh bear in a tree and flowers that spelled out "Winnie The Pooh" (see photos below). It was a lovely morning :)

We were only supposed to make one transfer the entire trip in Calgary, however in the middle of the night we were rudely awoken in Winnipeg to be told the bus was going out of service and we had to transfer. Collecting our nest of blankets, pillows, snacks and bags we ended up being the last off the bus and were separated for the next few hours. With my luck, I got seated next to Mr. Wannabe body builder who insisting on taking up as much room as he could.

By the morning we were in Regina, Sask., where I got to see a few landmarks and the hotel I stayed in with my dad when I visited him there 5 years ago. Next up was Moosejaw, Swift Current, and then Medicine Hat, Alberta.

-Medicine hat may very well be one of the worst places on Earth. Don't be fooled by their World's largest teepee, it's just a cover for the horrible city :P As we sat in a restaurant waiting for our lunch, I looked across the street to the local pool hall to see 3 men, two with pool cues and one with a hammer, beating something or someone. The window started just short of a view of what it was, however the experience was enough to make me want to leave this horrible town as fast as I could. As we were walking we saw so many cracked out people wandering about. The icing on the Alberta cake was when two women walking by us looked at us and said something on the lines of "She is much too young for him, something something something, she's not his mother." Medicine Hat for the win!

Our stop in Calgary was supposed to be a stopover of 6 hours, however the plans changed and we were told to board the next bus right away (good thing though as it started to pour as we were leaving). We did still get to see a lot of people in cowboy hats in bars drinking as the Calgary stampede was just kicking off. Thankfully the fast exit from Calgary meant we were able to reach the Rockies in daylight. The Rockies are so much magic and wonder and beauty <3 It was definitely the best part of the trip. We got to see a GIANT MOOSE just sitting hanging out on the side of the road where some people in a car had gotten out and were what seemed extremely close to him. A little later on we also briefly saw a female.

We had a very fast stop in Banff, sadly I wish we had more time there but Banff was by far one of the nicest places ever. As we were leaving a beautiful double rainbow was shining over the town, couldn't ask for more perfectness.

By nightfall we had gotten to Golden, B.C.! Finally we had made it to B.C., it was real! By Saturday morning we were in Vancouver. FINALLY! We climbed off the bus tired, sore, smelly and confused. We then shoved as much of our luggage into the over sized lockers as would fit and headed out for a day in Van city. Immediately on leaving Pacific Central station we saw a crackhead getting arrested for apparently trying to rob somebody in the washroom, then not even 20 feet later some sketchy couple tried to get us to give them cash with some bullshit story. We walked all over the city seeing everything both good and bad. We made our way to Chinatown and found a beautiful traditional garden where even the lily pads looked imported.

Before heading back to the train station we hoped on the SkyTrain (the Vancouver light rail train) and rode around the route for the fun of it. I was so confused and scared by the fact that there is no conductor driving the fully automated trains. We headed back to get the bus that was going to take us to the ferry and then on to Victoria. Well, just our luck, 5 minutes before our bus was about to leave we found our locker jammed and we couldn't get our luggage out. We finally got it open after we found somebody to help us. We hopped on the bus and off to the Ferry we went. The Ferry over to the island took about a hour and a half.

From the harbour we headed to Victoria. The bus dropped us off between a mall and a Denny's (I was rudely lied to about there only being one Denny's in Canada - Niagara Falls- there re Denny's all over this country, I even saw an Ihop!). By this point, both our cells were dead and we didn't have Chris' dad's phone number so we had to plug in our computer to the outside wall of the mall to be able to charge it. When confronted about what we were doing by security, I explained what was up and he took one look at all our luggage and let us contuniue doing whatever we were doing lol. Finally we made it to Chris' dad's place where we proceeded to die in bed for the next two days or so after one hell of a mission.

You can see all the bus photos here!