Ollie and I made the move to Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada late October 2014 to experience mountain life, living in the Rocky Mountains and spend the winter being a ski bum and occasionally doing what some people might call work. Work involved for me working 5 hours a day, mostly nights, at the front desk in a motel that was barely visited in the winter and god knows what Ollie did, odd jobs around the hotel I suppose and maybe 2-5 hours a day. This meant plenty of snowboarding hours and not much working which suited us quite well. Snowboarding for me was a challenge at first, and most of the year was spent on my ass or on my face in the snow but by the end Ollie and I could board together and had some amazing runs in powder, backcountry and through the trees. Temperatures got to -35 degrees which was a crazy cold for us to both get used to. Your nostril hairs would freeze together as soon as you stepped outside so most of our time after the hill was closed for the day was spent inside, drinking red wine and keeping warm. We had awesome living accommodation through our work, a 3 bedroom house with our backyard overlooking the bow river. We had 3 other awesome housemates and all our other work mates lived on the same street so we were never short of people to hang out with.
There were so many highlights to living in Lake Louise, apart from snowboarding at least 3 times per week, we learned to skate on the frozen lake, tried snowmobiling in powder and once the snow melted there was some amazing hiking, white water rafting and other adventurous stuff. Living in the national park meant hanging out with grizzly bears, black bears, eagles, elk, moose, porcupines, wolves, coyotes and annoyingly cute Columbian ground squirrels that would enter your house if you didn’t shut the door and rustle through the garbage.
After we exhausted ourselves in Lake Louise we decided to take a 3 month vacation from our vacation, bought a love bus named Lesley and rode her to Mexico. Here’s our story...
What better way to start our road trip by sky diving over the Rocky Mountains! So that’s what we did! A 30 minute nervous plane ride up for a 2 front flip, 45 second freefall and 5 minute glide down. It was awesome and would definitely recommend it to anyone, even more so if you have a fear of heights. As the plane got higher and higher, the view of the Rockies got better and better. Then the stranger you are attached to opens the door, you can’t breathe because of the sudden gush of wind, your legs are suddenly dangling over nothing, he tilts your head back then 3, 2, 1 go. What an amazing rush especially when the parachute opens and you suddenly break in mid air to enjoy the view.
After the high of the sky diving we went to another high of a music festival nearby called Motion Notion, which is now a bit of a blur but a fun time seeing some good DJ’s. From Golden we drove through more national parks down to Revelstoke and Nelson. One of our best stops was near Nakusp, we found an awesome little spot along a dirt road by the Columbian river where we spent 3 nights living like naked hippies in the woods. By day it was paradise but unfortunately the nights were less than perfect. Now we have done our fair share of camping, but never have we been invaded by mice, until now. All we could hear through the night was a rustling noise as the mouse went through our plastic bags underneath our bed. Our mouse liked our rice, walnuts and shredded coconut in particular. The next morning we gutted out the van in search of the mouse, but no mouse was to be found. So into Nakusp we headed in search of a mouse trap. As night time came, we were ready, peanut butter and cheese as the lure and all we had to do was wait. SNAP our problem was gone and finally we could get a proper night’s sleep, well so we thought, until a few minutes later and there was another rustling sound. SNAP. Three mouse traps and three dead mice later, we decided to make a move from this camp spot. The mice were eating too much of our peanut butter and cheese, a vital resource for the road. One morning there was even mice droppings on the driver seat right by where my head was for sleeping. It was time to leave.
Our next camp wasn’t a bad spot to move to by any means. We got told by a local about natural hot springs in the bush nearby, along a hard to find, long dirt road where we found a walking trail down a steep hill. There at the bottom of the hill was a waterfall that someone had pooled using surrounded rocks. As we walked down the hill closer to the hot springs, we noticed the lack of clothing in the pool, so back to being naked hippies it was. We had a long soak in the hot water and an eventfull, colourful, starry night in the pools. 5 hours later, we looked up from our conversation and realised the pools had been overtaken by the French, not only were they French but also clothed, and we were now the only ones not. This meant an embarrassing naked search for our clothes and a lost hunt for the trail back to our van.
We carried on the road down to Nelson and to another music festival called Shambala, which again is another blur but a lot of fun was had and we saw some awesome DJ’s and a lot of weird looking people. I partied a little too hard and found the heat a struggle so unfortunately ended up in hospital after the festival on a drip. That took a good week to get over and although rough I definitely enjoyed being a lady of leisure with Ollie slaving away for my every need, which I am sure he enjoyed too.
Once recovered we drove through the wine regions in Okanagan valley, tasting good wines and collecting some delicious fresh fruit. To get there we had two road diversions because of huge forest fires in the area. Temperatures were high and the ground was dry. People were stranded from their houses and there were lots of helicopters in the air trying to put out the many fires.
We arrived in Whistler just in time to watch a mountain bike competition that had been set up on the ski hill. There we sat by the dirt track with a few beers and watched crazy guys doing jumps and tricks and falling off their bikes.
The drive from Whistler to Vancouver is absolutely stunning especially from Squamish and I would definitely recommend that one. Vancouver itself we weren’t that impressed with, a lot of homeless and litter but we had a blast at wreck beach, one of the city beaches. Wreck beach is a huge nude beach, the most naked people I had ever seen in one place that you just didn’t know where to look. There was no point bringing a book to read on the beach, there were too many naked people to look at. Everyone hooping, dancing, frisbee, playing football with all their jibbilies jibbling about.
We took the ferry to Vancouver Island and spent a week driving around trying to find Ollie some surf. There was no surf. So Ollie makes the wise decision of going skating while I make him dinner. All I hear is a loud FFFFAAAAARRRRR and there he is, lying on the ground, with a tennis ball for an ankle. Obviously he refuses to go to a doctor so was unable to walk never mind surf for the next week and I am left as his personal chauffer.
Before we got the ferry from Victoria to the big US of A, I got to tick off one of my top to do’s on my bucket list and go on an orca whale watching tour. As you probably know, killer whales are my favourite animal and I used to be obsessed with the awesome movie free willy as a kid so this was a big deal for me. We got to watch orcas jumping and splashing out of the water and making a huge show just for me.
Next....America
