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As most of you already know, Mavrik and I are driving across Canada back to Anchorage with his vibe. Been a long trip so far, but we're at the half way mark and in Calgary visiting w/ Vibechick and a few others later on this eve. Summary: 6853.3 km/4258.4 milesthought i'd give you all an update on our progress.... I flew into London Friday morning. spent the day loading the vibe. Had a nice visit with the family and their newly aquired lama on their farm.we left Ingersoll, Ontario first thing in the morning Saturday and made our way to Tobermory to catch the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry over Owen Sound. very nice day for it since it was quite sunny and Phil got a little burnt on the ferry.once we got off the ferry, we drove through some beautiful ontario country including a very creepy bridge until we hit hwy 17. winding and turning, had we not been completely loaded, we'd have had some fun! no cars on the road really which made it interesting since we saw 6-7 bears, 2 moose, a silver fox, and some roadkill racoons. made it to Wawa, Ontario in good time, averaging about 100 kmh (roads were quite twisty and turny so we had to slow down).

the bugs were extremely thick through the area (of course since it's woods). had a nice juicy one hit the windshield and even pooled there on the bottom... eww! glad we decided to get that front end cover!the next day, we headed out of Ontario to Manitoba, planning to stay over in Winnipeg. driving through some interesting scenery again, places that looked like fires had completely destroyed the country side. got into some very heavy rain that helped clean off the bugs and wash the front end. we fueled up just outside Winnipeg Sunday eve at the largest Petro-Canada station (so the sign said). figured may as well get a pic, right? entering into Winnipeg, there was the odd sculpture that reminds me of the olympics. anyone know what it is or for??in the morning we got up and had our breakfast. finished mine early, so i decided to help Phil out with his.Manitoba was still quite flat in many areas, especially as we approached Saskatchewan. reminds me of iowa, nebraska, eastern colorado, and the other wheat states. just flat for miles and miles, farm land, tumble weed, etc. Drove past Wolseley about noon, so sorry pmh13 we could've had that lunch! lol. oh well.... you were probably coming back from Calgary by then. more flat farm land until we hit Alberta. then of course there was the world's tallest tee pee in Medicine Hat. um sure. ??

Wow! Now that's one hellofahaul! You two be very careful out there and have alot of fun while traveling! Remember, don't feed the bears!

and what would alberta be without COWS?? we made it to Calgary about 7:30 pm and finally got to rest at carrie's. look at that! the vibe is LOWER than her SRT-4! lolso that's how the trip has gone so far. today we got to sleep in. we've been getting up about 6:30 am every day so we're on the road before 8 am. did a little shopping and goofed off. Phil's playing Forza on the xbox with Vince and i'm updating all the trip info for the laptop and GPS. if you ever do a roadtrip like this, i highly recommend Streets & Trips with the GPS! it's been dead on accurate except for wanting to make you go onto the toll hwy (407 in Ontario).

Those pics are absolutely gorgous. Thanks for sharing, and keep 'em coming.

What great pictures! Looks like you 2 are happy and having fun! I hope next time though a small detour to Montreal

Quote, originally posted by trdvibe »Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham.

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham.Gah...idiot...!

Nice pics! I bet Phil is glad to have the Vibe back.

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham.he he he. unfortunately his family named the lama shadow (and it's a "he"). watched that on the plane on the way over. when they told me they had one at dinner i almost fell out of my chair laughing. "GOSH!"

(removed) GOD THATS ALOT OF BUG!I don't like snow, I was doing good until you had to post those pics lol j/k. Those are great pics. I like the llama. I want my springs now even more lookin at Mavrik's!

yesterday we spent the day doing just about nothing. went for brunch at perkins and then walked through the model home for vibechick's new house that's being built. phil and i are jealous. lol. oh well, in a year or two.... came home, rested up and then headed to the store for food for the small meet. was fun to finally meet djdoublelp, celtic_curse and celicagirl. of course they are mainly on the alberta forums and matrixowners. had a little cook out and then stopped at walmart to pick up a few items for the eve. carrie's still working on her parking skills with the new srt-4. lol. carrie's (vibechick's) parking expertise: note the placement of the lines.....

Quote, originally posted by Merzbow »(removed) GOD THATS ALOT OF BUG!I don't like snow, I was doing good until you had to post those pics lol j/k. Those are great pics. I like the llama. I want my springs now even more lookin at Mavrik's!that wasn't snow. i think it was salt or lime. we weren't sure. it was mounds and mounds of it though out in the middle of nowhere. anyone know what that is??

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham.did i miss something here?

Quote, originally posted by drunkenvibe »did i miss something here?Napoleon Dynamite

Quote, originally posted by Mr. Poopypants »Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham.(removed)!!!!!!!!!!

Quote, originally posted by trdvibe » I flew into London Friday morning. I guess this just shows where my mind is (or maybe where I would rather be today than work), I thought you flew into London, England.How close is London to Guelph? The company I work for has a plant in Guelph.

not too far at all. in fact we took a little shortcut to Tobermory (ferry) by going to Guelph and heading up the 6 opposed to the toll hwy 407. the blue is where we actually went and the green is what streets & trips mapped out. other than that spot, it's been dead on accurate. i highly recommend this program (gps version) for anyone!

Well we made it back, arrived in anchorage yesterday afternoon. Got more pics of course but I'll leave that to Hope to put up. Lots of more bugs, one suicidal rabbit which tore a hole in the screen of my car bra... More winding roads which were way to much fun.But now that the trip is over I can say NO stone cracks on the window, NO tire probs and NO car probs heh. Had I said this before during the trip I would have jinxed it. But anyway yeah, I checked the tire pressure every day and they never went down a pound of air. I credit myself for that since I had installed and balanced those tires myself on the rims heh.

yes, we got back safely yesterday afternoon. uploaded the pics and will try and post up some later.

Wow,nice pictures,i see that 2 of you have having fun.And,yes it will be fun if you and Mavrik make a detour to Montreal.But,maybe in the middle of summer i will go to Toronto,maybe then we can meet.

yes, if anyone wants to see all the pics, you can click on this link:Road trip 2005There are 2 sub albums you can also click on for the Calgary Meet and Edmonton Mall.

Quote, originally posted by POLO »Wow,nice pictures,i see that 2 of you have having fun.And,yes it will be fun if you and Mavrik make a detour to Montreal.But,maybe in the middle of summer i will go to Toronto,maybe then we can meet.Wanted to but MTL was way out of the way lol.

Quote, originally posted by POLO »Wow,nice pictures,i see that 2 of you have having fun.And,yes it will be fun if you and Mavrik make a detour to Montreal.But,maybe in the middle of summer i will go to Toronto,maybe then we can meet.well, we won't be there. lol. kind of the point of this last trip. not sure when we'll be back to that neck of the woods as phil is tired of traveling. and to think he said a year ago he wanted to meet a girl who likes to travel. even got to go on his very first plane ride a year ago this weekend! memorial weekend last year was the first time we actually met.... a lot can happen in a year, eh? anyways, i have to review what i posted so i know where to start back up again! and i'll only post the best pics so it won't be so long....

alright, i'll finish off the trip from the calgary meet. on weds we really didn't do too much. ended up sitting around and enjoying the day. i downloaded some music from vince to make up a few cd's for the road. i think we went through most of our cd collection atleast twice! after they all got home from work, we went to dinner at joey tomato's and then walked around the park and downtown calgary. it's a very beautiful city i must say! it was busy still from the queen visiting. they renamed the hwy from calgary to edmonton the queen elizabeth II hwy. some of you TO guys will already know your QEW there in Ontario...the next day we drove up to edmonton mall and spent the day on the rides, shopping (only a store or two really), underwater sub ride, marine life exhibit and just walking around. went to the movies at the giant imax theater there, famous players, and saw "kingdom of heaven." very good movie!apparently the hotel we stayed at was having a mini van convention! lol

on friday, we got up early and headed back on the road. traveled through alberta and made our way to british columbia. and what would canada be without a giant beaver??from there we had to make our way to dawson creek (not the tv show) where mile "0" of the alaska hwy begins. driving through the national and provincial parks, it was beautiful. and of course, the construction was always fun! lol. saw so much wildlife around dusk. from buffalo to bear, even wild horses! of course there was that suicidal rabbit....... good thing we had the front end cover on the car!we ended up getting low on fuel and by the time we realized we were in BFE, all the small gas pumps and lodges were closed. so we found one, settled down and slept in the car til someone woke us up an hour later. told us we couldn't stay there and phil politely advised him we would be happy to take our business elsewhere only we need some gas. so he turned on the pumps, filled us up and away we went. the only place that looked like civilization on the map was watson lake. we PRAYED there was someplace open for gas and lodging! it was about 12:30 am but 1:30 am from our beginning day because of the time zone. found the first place with an open sign, some cabins with cots... but those cots were heaven!watson lake is in yukon, but it's along the alaska hwy that jumps back and forth iover british columbia and yukon. so at the last junction of the border hopping, all you get is a sign that says you're now leaving bc. lol. yukon was equally as beautiful as BC, the construction towards the end was terrible! we decided to stop in at Beaver Creek, Yukon about 26 km from the border. this way we could make sure we had all our pwk in order before we crossed the border to Alaska. construction!!!made it in one piece to beaver creek! thank god!!

finally our last day (sunday) came and we got up, packed the vibe back up and headed to the border. phil was too nervous to get through customs to stop at the sign, so sorry. we crossed at Alcan, Alaska where we stood in the immigration/customs office for about 45 minutes trying to figure out all the pwk to bring the car over and make sure Phil could cross back. once we got that all squared away, it was on to anchorage! we finally made it home and took some pics of the dirty vibe. i think this has to be the dirtiest this car has ever been! lol. phil is (removed) about the car (as i am of my own) so yesterday we took it to the wash and i let him do the cleaning..... it's better that way. he can do whatever he wants to his as long as he doesn't touch mine! this is what happens when you have two (removed) retentive car people in the family! ha ha ha!

Looks like a fun trip! I would love to take a trip like that. Glad to hear all went well. Best of luck in the future!

Very nice pictures and look like you have a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing....

Looks like you two had a wonderful trip ... great photos, too.Thanks.

Thanks again Hope and Phil for sharing those wonderful pictures with us.

Wow! Awesome pics and a WONDERFUL narrative...thanks for sharing your experience with us Hope & Phil. BTW, what program/equipment are you using to generate those maps/plots...that's awesome! I'd love to get my hands on that for upcoming road trips...please do let me know!PS I'll be posting a slideshow & narrative of our Memorial weekend camping trip to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Pheonix (Dodger game), and back again, but my presentation will pale in comparison haha

we used MS trips and streets 2005 with GPS. i highly recommend the GPS version! convenient w/ the vibe since it has the plug in for the laptop.

Quote, originally posted by trdvibe »we used MS trips and streets 2005 with GPS. i highly recommend the GPS version! convenient w/ the vibe since it has the plug in for the laptop. Sweet, but I guess you also need a GPS Unit?EDIT: Duh, it comes with a locator >Thanks Hope & DD