Summer Roadtrip 2024! Through BC to Drumheller, AB.

Aaron & Caroline in front of the Johnston Canyon Upper Falls, Banff, AB
Aaron & Caroline in front of the Johnston Canyon Upper Falls, Banff, AB

Hello Again!

Its been a while since we’ve been able to share some adventures on our blog and this summer, we had an truly excellent one. Here is our report on our 3000km drive along southern BC into Alberta and over to Drumheller, before returning through Banff and the Shuswap. We had great weather, good driving, minimal bugs (*except Radium Hot Springs and Golden), delicious meals, grand hikes, hot soaks, and beautiful views. Here are some highlights:

Lookout from Manning Park, looking south.

Our first stop was Manning Park, where we had a nice site next to the creek in Coldspring Canyon. We did a challenging hike into the Alpine where we got to enjoy the near-peak flower bloom on a gorgeous day. There was a small forest fire off in the distance that grew slowly over the summer, near Calcite Creek. We had a great time back again in Manning Park and enjoyed the kickstart to our month long road trip. Our next stop was Osoyoos for some wine tasting, biking and swimming. We booked at the NK’mip RV resort and really enjoyed it. It is very busy, cramped RV sites, but we were right on the Lake, and they had a delicious cantina with drinks, nachos and tacos!

Enjoying some tasty beverages on a hot day in Osoyoos, BC.

We got to enjoy a wine tour one day with stops in 5 different vinyards. We had a great group on our tour, and enjoyed getting to know the 4 other couples on our tour bus. We travelled up the valley to Oliver, and enjoyed the views and products of these great vinyards over a pleasant afternoon. We also spent a day riding our bikes around town and exploring this nice, warm community in a verdant valley.

Our next few days were even more low key as we settled into Christina Lake. We’ve had this on our list for a long time due to its reputation for great swimming and beautiful weather. We had to settle for 3 different sites on 3 different nights, but Gladstone Provincial Park was a gem and we were able to score our own little private beach to swim and paddleboard. We hiked up to a couple viewpoints and enjoyed a few days to read, nap, and swim.

Personal beach at Gladstone Provincial Park, Christina Lake, BC

After Christina Lake, we packed up and did a short drive up the mountains into Rossland BC for a night. It was a great little mountain town with lots to explore. We stayed in the Municipal Rossland Lions RV site and it had everything we needed. We walked all around town, enjoyed a nice lunch at the downtown diner and then caught a riviting performance of “Casino Rossland” by the Gold Fever Follies. Quite a story of how Rossland was saved from bankruptcy by some shading dealings!

Next on our trip was Fernie, as we re-joined the Crowsnest highway and we had a fantastic time in a really happening place! Fernie was super fun, with lots of great sites, festivals, attractions and facilities. We really liked the newer RV site and were able to get some laundry done, as well Fernie has a super useful, free shuttlebus that took us all the way up to the Fernie Mountain resort where we secured lift passes up into the alpine and hiked our way slowly back down to the alpine village. We loved the views, flowers and many options for trails to explore. We earned our delicious Donair and Beer at the Fernie music festival that evening back in town.

Fernie Courthouse, Fernie BC

After Fernie, it was time to head to Alberta! Our main destination for this trip was Drumheller to check out the Badlands and the Royal Tyrell Museum, so we needed to get going. We had a break planned for Calgary, with a two night stop in a hotel to get some sleep and showers and spread out a bit from the cramped camper.

We really enjoyed Calgary and had a lot of fun meeting some locals and exploring the culture, downtown, parks and nearby communities. One of Caroline’s wishes for our visit was to go to a cultural institution, Ranchman’s, the line dancing country bar that has been in Calgary for a very long time! They offered free line dancing lessons on friday evenings and they were very popular! The bar also had multiple stages, a riding bull, silent DJ and lots of bouncers!

Line dancing, Ranchman’s Bar, Calgary AB

Calgary also has a nice walking route along the river downtown, and we explored the art, music and sites along the route. Our best find was the Taste Calgary event with a huge collection of food and drink vendors, with live music. We tried some interesting dishes like the peanut butter fried squid and Jollof rice, from west africa. It was a fun event that we just stumbled upon and really appreciated.

Another big food event for us in Calgary was our chance to hit up a Swiss Chalet, our favourite restaurant. During a big thunderstorm, we made our way across the city to this delicious treat. It had everything we were hoping for and was a very friendly location. We miss our frequent chalet visits, as all the locations in BC have closed.

Quarter Chicken, fries and extra chalet sauce please!

After Calgary, we had a reunion visit for Caroline with an old friend of hers and reminsced over coffees and treats. Then, back on the road to our main destination, Drumheller! We enjoyed the drive along some of the back highways to get to the Badlands and descend into the valley of the dinosaurs and coal mines. It was so different from the vast farms and rolling hills. We were impressed by Drumheller right away with its committment to dinosaurs and teaching everyone new names and species through road names and cement models around town.

Shy Dinosaur waiting on the street of Drumheller

We stayed across the river in the RV resort and were easily able to ride our bikes all around town and on their great tail system out to the Royal Tyrell Museum. We booked a guided hike in the badlands and our timed ticket for the museum and made a day out of it. We learned how to search for fossils and how the geology and history of the area compiled to create this great opportunity to have so many fossils of Albertosaurus and Edmontonsaurus’ skeletons all around the area. The museum was so full of many interesting exhibits, demonstrations, habitats and giant skeletons. Its definitely worth a visit one day. Another cool exhibit was a presentation of some highly detailed and innovative photographs of some important fossils by my colleage at Parkland! Small world indeed.

Tyrannosaurus. Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller AB.

Our last night in Drumheller had a very incredible storm pass over us with tons of thunder, lightening and heavy rain. South of us, near Calgary, it had turned into a giant hail storm that caused a tremendous amount of damage. Both of us felt it was one of the most intense storms we’ve seen in a while, and we just got the edge of it.

Next was Banff, where we had two nights booked and some plans for a hot springs and our delayed anniversary dinner. After an afternoon soak in the Banff Hot Springs, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Waldhouse, a german restaurant attached to the hotel. We took public transit to get around Banff as it was so busy and incredibly hard to find any parking. Banff has been shutting down its main street over the summer, making it a pedestrian only zone. It was quite nice, but it created a traffic nightmare around the city. They recently voted to get rid of the pedestrian zone and to return to cars and busses on the main road.

We also hiked to the Johnston Canyon waterfalls and enjoyed the views and mists on a hot, busy day. Banff and the surrounding area is really struggling with over-tourism. There were always lots of people, traffic jams of cars looking for parking and people waiting for a bus that was not super full. Not sure what they can do to try to address these problems, but its going to be difficult. It did help us deal with the crowds by looking up at all the beautiful mountains that surround the town.

Caroline on the pedestrian bridge, Banff, AB.
Lots of trains go through Banff all day and all night

After we had our fill of Banff and its sites, we kept on heading west in search of more hot springs. The closest was a gorgeous short drive away, in Radium Hot Springs. We spent two nights at the Red Streak Camground, up on the hill above town. We soaked 3 seperate times and enjoyed the hikes around the canyon going in and out of town. Its a nice spot with an amazing view of the Columbia river valley. Lots of bugs though!

We had one night to stay in Golden as we continued back west, and stayed right beside the river, across from the High School. It was easy to walk around town and we did some back to school shopping for some shoes and clothes. We also got showers, laundry done and had a chance to enjoy the new Deadpool movie at the theater down the street. Golden had recently had a close brush with a forest fire that came very close to town. It was sobering to see the hillside east of the city and how close the fire came.

Radium Hot Springs, BC. 37 degrees C.

Coming down the mountains, we stopped for lunch in Revelstoke and walked around town a bit. We really enjoyed the CPR Museum and all its displays, models and demonstrations. They have a great exhibit to retell the story of how the railroad was built and how it changed the town and Canada. We carried on down into the Shuswap and stayed two nights at the Herald Provincial Park, near Salmon Arm. Two glorious days of hot summer weather and we swam, read and relaxed in a really cozy provincial campground with a large beach area.

Margaret Falls trail, Herald Provincial Park, Salmon Arm BC


We had one last night of camping booked before we returned to Vancouver and were scheduled to visit with family and friends. It was in a tiny, old community called Harrison Mills, and it is where the Harrison river/lake meets the Fraser river. It used to be very important with the CPR rail line coming through there and no bridges across the Fraser yet, but now its a little place left in history. We enjoyed the beach, a last chance to paddleboard and some reminscing about our trip as a whole.

Harrison Mills, BC

Overall, we were gone for 4 weeks, just about 3000kms of driving, dozens of hikes, many bike rides, tons of swimming and lots of good memories. Here is a picture of our route that we took through our trip:

Our route through BC and AB

Link to some more photos from our trip -> https://photos.app.goo.gl/66dS9Zy4jS1LXrLPA

Here is a short video of some of our highlights and fun times!

Thanks for coming along on our most recent adventure!

#26 – Barcelona! Tapas, Parks, Churches and Beaches

Sagrada Familia in all its glory

We were both looking forward to Barcelona for our trip, as it was our entry into Spain, and good weather, great food, and amazing culture. I was very excited to return to Barcelona, after coming here 25 years ago, as it was one of the highlights of my backpacking trip a long time ago. We had booked a nice hotel with a small kitchenette in a central neighbourhood, near transit and had lined up a few key sights and activities. The weather looked good, and our Flixbus arrived on time, landing us in the center of this bustling city,

Steps up the Barcelona Botanical Garden

After settling in, doing a small grocery shop, having a few tapas for dinner and getting our bearings, we made our plans for the next few days of what we wanted to see. We also booked some train reservations for later in our trip at the Central Train station, and headed to the “Magic Fountain”, a beautiful water feature near the Barcelona Botantical Gardens and National Art Gallery, that we both enjoyed a lot. We saw lots of beautiful sculptures, masterpieces of art, contemporary exhibits and famous paintings. It is a great gallery, and definitely worth checking out. The park is on a hillside, and had a lot of stairs, and even outdoor escalators to help take us up the mountain.

What you looking at? Manuel Bayeu Painting in the National Gallery of Catalonian Art

When we are in art galleries, we tend to stroll and walk through slowly, admiring the works and sharing our thoughts and observations with each other. We also like to photograph interesting and different examples of Art that we especially appreciate or connect with, and sometimes we even think of potential lesson plans or ideas for back in our classrooms and libraries. This Catalonian National Art Gallery had so many good pieces and examples and we found ourselves appreciating so many that we have lessons and ideas for years to come.

Tapas, Tapas, Tapas.

After all that browsing, we were very hungry and so we found a place for refreshments and tapas! We really enjoyed all the different options and flavours and sharing, as we got to try so many different dishes, styles, flavours and tastes. Almost every place had a Potato Bravas, with slightly different implementations, and they also had so many different meats and cheeses, fried croquettes, tortilla pies, hummus and salads, and delicious treats. We definitely enjoyed the cervasas too!

Still Life Picasso painting “The Dessert” at the Picasso Museum

Another very popular spot in Barcelona was the Picasso Museum, as it is a large collection of his work, spanning many periods of his career and styles. It included many displays of his history, and also scientific studies of his work, with x-rays of special paintings to show the earlier work underneath. We both learned a lot about his life, his history, his influences and enjoyed seeing many of his most famous works. It was a delightful and amusing day.

Park Guell, Gaudi designed plaza

The artistic influnce in Barcelona is not just for the Painters, it is also with the Architects, as the famous Gaudi had a tremendous impact on the city as a whole. He famously designed a impressive outdoor park, as well as the largest and most impressive Church, capturing the love and admiration of the Barcelonians and tourists from around the world. We booked tickets for both the Park Guell, and the Sagrada Familia and spent our time exploring in awe of his vision and work in both environments. It was truly impressive to be in these spaces and to see his vision in person, and to feel the immense spaces.

Sagrada Familia
Sagrada Familia

When I was a 19 year old, I backpacked around Europe for 5 months with Sam, and when we visited Barcelona, we checked out the Sagrada Familia, then. This Church as been under construction for about 100 years now, and in the 1990s, it was hardly begun still. When we were there, there was no ‘inside’, it was just two entranceways, and 8 towers, and an open space in the middle, and we explored what we could. There was no entrance fee then, and we could just walk up the spiral towers on our own and walk around wherever we wanted. It felt special even back then, but this time, with the Church 90% done, and the inside completed, it was a transformative experience.

Sagrada Familia

The most impressive part of the Church inside is all the colourful light spilling in through the incredible stained glass windows. It was so impressive to be bathed in blues, greens, oranges and reds, all throughout the expansive space. The architecture of the inside highlights these windows allowing the light all throughout the space, and immediately draws your attention up and around. There are symbols and references everywhere and the acoustics were amazing, even with hundreds of other people milling about and chatting. It was very busy while we where there, and probably is busy all the time as it is such a treasure and experience to see. A must if you are ever in Barcelona. I hope to come back again and see it in its completed state, with the final, tallest towers in the middle reaching up into the sky, and dominating the city skyline.

Below is our video of these adventures, with lots more pics and clips of these amazing places and activities. Please, check it out and hear all about what we enjoyed and appreciated and explored. Follow along with our other videos on our youtube channel, subscribe if you like. As well, below the video, is a link to a folder of more pictures of this segment of our trip.

Photos from this City: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YVHobz37RM3kuA3y5