Select Page
Day 8 – Mountain Biking at Moose Mountain in Alberta

Day 8 – Mountain Biking at Moose Mountain in Alberta

by | Jul 26, 2017 | Adventure, Mountain Biking, Wedding Adventure

After our long wedding day adventure, we decided we’d sleep in the next day ( of course ).
I made pancakes and we sipped on some coffee. Lounged around in the hammock and got ready for our first day of riding in Canada. As you can see we brought a little bit of the east coast with us on this trip (ie. vermont maple syrup and our Gimme coffee mugs).
We knew we wanted to get a ride in – but not quite sure where. We read about Moose Mt. on the Trail Forks app. It’s about an hour from the campground back towards Calgary near the town of Bragg Creek. After reading some trail reviews we decided to check it out.
Pneuma was the trail we decided to climb in order to get to some of the fun stuff up top. Not a bad climb. Steep and rooty in sections and gets rockier as you get closer to the top. We saw some smoke in the distance. After running into another rider who had mentioned there were forest fires in the next mountain range over. Scary stuff.
Once we finished the climb we noticed a sign that listed a few trail closures due to maintenance. Of , ourse all of the trails we wanted to ride (ie. Shaft) was on the “no go” list. BUTTTT….we decided to ride it anyway, figuring we may be able to go around the maintenance area. When in Rome right?
Man, was it fun. Bermy, fast FUN.  Cooper seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.
THEN we heard voices further down the trail. UH OH. Caught red-handed going down a trail we shouldn’t be.
So we turned back and hiked our bikes straight back up the trail. Probably the WORST hike-a-bike I’ve ever experienced. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the top. The best part was as we approached the top, some other dude came ripping down the trail. We should have just asked for forgiveness rather than climbing all the way back up. But that’s the price you pay for breaking the rules! Lesson-learned.
We headed back down Pneuma and turned onto a super fun, flowy, jumpy, machine-built trail called 7-47. Definitely worth it though we noticed Cooper was getting pretty tired so decided to call it a day. When we had arrived, the parking lot had  1-2 other vehicles but upon returning it was now filled with at least 20!  We spoke to a few locals who mentioned you’ll find a lot of people from Calgary ride here after work and on weekends since it’s only 30 minutes away.
Overall Moose Mt. is a neat little trail system that we’d love to explore some more one day. The nearest town, Bragg Creek, looked really cute as well. Though not many things are open during the week. We did, however, find a nice little family restaurant called, Bragg’s Corner Kitchen, for food/drinks before heading back towards Canmore.
Day 6 – Location Scouting near Moraine Lake

Day 6 – Location Scouting near Moraine Lake

by | Jul 24, 2017 | Adventure, Wedding Adventure

Meet Danielle and Bill.
They’re not only amazing photographers… they’re our good friends and they’ve traveled all the way here to capture our special emotional wedding and to do some sight-seeing.
Danielle and I have been friends for close to 10 years. We met way back when we both worked at the same advertising agency in Scranton. The rest is history.
It’s hard to explain Danielle in words… but if I had to try my best it’d go something like this…
She’s the most captivating, lovely person you’ll ever meet. She can light up a room. Really… she can.  She’s energetic, funny and just beautiful inside and out. She’s also really freakin’ good at what she does and incredibly passionate about each and every wedding she shoots. She’s got a heart and a soul that’s genuine.
That’s why Jay and I feel so honored to have her and her husband Bill here with us. Not only be photographers and witnesses but to be there for us as support as we enter into this next chapter in life.
SO – that brings us to today! Location scouting day. We knew with Canada’s 150th, the parks would be busy, but we didn’t expect it to be THIS busy.
Luckily, Danielle came prepared! She was in contact with a couple (also wedding photographers) who had just eloped in the area. They were able to give us enough intel on the locations we were interested in and shared which spots would be less busy and what was really worth the wait.
I’d say the wait was totally worth it.
Here’s Moraine Lake. AM I RIGHT?  If you scramble on the rock outcropping, you can crop out the many of the other tourists vying for a similar shot.
In order to get this shot of Jay, I had to crouch down and angle my camera just right. You’d almost think we had the whole place to ourselves!
After a long day of location scouting, we grabbed dinner at Park Distillery in Banff and headed back to the campground to rest up for the next day.
Day 5 – Helllloooooo Canada!

Day 5 – Helllloooooo Canada!

by | Jul 23, 2017 | Adventure, RV-life, Wedding Adventure

We made it folks!

We drove a total of 37 hours and made it to the campground in Bow Valley Provincial Park. We’ll be using this campground as a base camp for the next week as we travel around to Banff National Park.

After a celebratory beer, we tried deploying the Zip Dee awning with a little too much force and ended up bending one of the awning arms… Oopsie. The things we do for shade!

Luckily our friends, Danielle and Bill, had just arrived witness the mayhem.

We knew we either had to bend it back (unlikely) OR saw a piece of the arm off so that we could at the very least put it away.

After about 30 minutes of problem-solving and frustration, we ventured into Canmore to grab dinner at the Grizzly Paw Brewery. We were put on the waitlist and decided to kill time at this fun little bar next door called Where the Buffalo Roam – a Hunter S. Thompson themed bar. Great drinks and hilarious server – I guess it’s what you’d expect from a Hunter S. Thompson themed bar. As if things couldn’t get any better, Jay spotted a double rainbow from where we were seated. After which the entire street turned into “Double Rainbow mania” (as Jay put it). People running out into the street snapping photos on their iPhones. People yelling out of car windows, “It’s a DOUBLE RAINBOW”.

I was able to snap a shot myself before one of the rainbows completely faded away.

We like to think it was a good sign – seeing as tomorrow we’ll be scoping out locations for our emotional vow exhange.

Until tomorrow!

Day 4 – Off to Montana

Day 4 – Off to Montana

by | Jul 22, 2017 | Adventure, Wedding Adventure

Janette was an amazing host. She had coffee ready and made us a delicious breakfast before we hit the road. She even gave us a handful of dried lavender. This will come in handy when our trailer starts to accumulate a few sweaty sets of bike clothes.
Her dog, Girdy, and Cooper got a long nicely and was good for Cooper to get out some energy before our big push to Northern Montana.
Roughly 10 hours.
It’s quite amazing to see how vast the west really is. I’ve only really flown to where I needed to go out west – this being my first big road trip. I find it amazing that you can see for miles and miles. I feel sorta naked. No trees to hide behind!
As Dorothy once said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore”… or are we?
Our route took us straight through Billings, Montana. We decided we could use a quick break and found a great little coffee place called MoAV. Super hip interior, friendly service, and GOOD COFFEE. They even allowed us to bring Cooper inside.
 
We got some coffee for the road and are now planning to push to Great Falls, MT, and hopefully, find a Walmart parking lot to crash in before our push to Alberta!
Day 3 – Helllllllo South Dakota!

Day 3 – Helllllllo South Dakota!

by | Jul 21, 2017 | Adventure, Wedding Adventure

Last night while at a rest stop we decided to book at a campground in Chamberlain, SD, along the Missouri River. Turned out to be a great experience. Plus, being plugged into a 30 amp service meant we could sleep in the comfort of AC the night before and use the microwave to heat up our quiche for breakfast.

After packing up, we hit the road and traveled through the Badlands with the goal of a quick stop at Wall Drug. We weren’t sure what to expect – sure maybe a few Jackalopes and lots of cowboy boots…
And yeah sure… maybe a giant brontosaurus.
Yes, it’s touristy and crowded. But Jay and I took a particular liking of the old historic photos and people watching.
Like this guy.
We quickly got back on the road and high tailed up to Rapid City. We stopped at the Target and Scheels.  Turns out Scheels like a better, more friendlier Dick’s Sporting Goods. We picked up a double hammock and I forced Jay to buy us normal camp chairs. Our current camp chairs are meant for backpacking and they are a pain to assemble and sit about 2 inches off the ground. It’s great for backpacking and for mosquitos biting you straight in the face.
We hit up Black Hills Bikes (name?) to inquire about the trails. And turned out the little park across the street had biking trails! So we rode a quick loop and called it a day considering it was nearing 100 degrees. Nothing a little dip in the river can’t cure.
Cooper sure did enjoy it.
We then left Rapid City and made our way to Mount Rushmore.  It was certainly a sight to see, and worth the $10 entrance but there’s not much else to do aside from looking at the monument and reading placards. We walked the little Presidential trail that loops around and give you different views. We were warned many times to not climb on the surrounding rocks – which of course looked like a lot of fun to climb on. Had there not been cameras and tiny children, I’m sure we might have indulged at little.
After Rushmore, we drove through the Black Hills Forest and stopped in Deadwood for drinks at Saloon 10. Complete with taxidermy and saw dust all over the floors. Just how I prefer my saloons.
Exhausted from a big day of events we headed on over to Spearfish, SD.  Janette, our good friend’s mom who lives in Spearfish, graciously offered for us to park in her nice, big, flat driveway that night.
Though the daytime had been in the upper 90s the temp dropped dramatically that evening, which we were grateful for considering our tin can had been roasting in the sun all day long.
Day 2 – The Midwest Push

Day 2 – The Midwest Push

by | Jul 20, 2017 | Adventure, RV-life, Wedding Adventure

After powering through Ohio and most of Indiana yesterday we finally rolled into a Walmart parking lot in Michigan City, Indiana.
We tried two rest stops along the way but they were completely filled with tractor trailers.
We awoke today to some pretty heavy rain –  complete with thunder and lightning. Knowing that we were likely going to hit the outskirts of Chicago during morning rush hour in a rainstorm… why not?
One of the better decisions we “thought” we made was going into the express lane and bypassing some heavy traffic, although because of the heavy rains, as tractor trailers passed in the lanes aside of us – huge walls of water would crash into us – some pretty terrifying moments of not being able to see anything.
Once we got out of the Chicago area the roads cleared up, the sun came out and we exhaled!
With using the All Stays app we found a Camping World near Madison, Wisconsin, and decided to check it out for the first time.  Jay couldn’t contain his excitement.
While parked we also thought (given the sunshine) it would be advantageous to charge up our batteries with our Zamp solar system.  Super cool!
Now it was my turn to take the wheel! I was a little apprehensive at first, but I drove the Airstream through the majority of Minnesota. The truck handled very well and I didn’t have to make any technical turns or back up – PHEW.
THUMBS UP for not hitting anything and parking “OK”.