The Journey to Kamloops

Alright, so I am finally somewhat settled into Kamloops. This is my first blog entry and will subsequently be fairly long. As a warning, do not be surprised to find entries that may be vulgar, crude, poorly written or simply lame.

To begin, I will briefly go over my trip through the United States and then into Canada. Chris Stamm and I took off from Leesport, quite some time ago. (See his blog, cstamm.blogspot.com he did nothing but blog for an entire week in Kamloops the lazy bastage...Chris is also very good at picking terrible restaurants.) We drove almost straight through for about 30 hours, stopping for the random bathroom break and food stop and to walk my mutt of a dog, Anton. The first night we stopped was a stop in North Dakota. I had not packed a sleeping bag and had forgotten to ask my brother, Brooks to use the sleeping bag he gave me when I went hitchhiking. This was a monstrous mistake. The first night in ND was definitely around freezing and all I had was a pink fleece blanket and a tshirt blanket my Grandma made me. Of course I was extremely cold, as was muttley Anton. The following morning we ate and I recovered from a miserable resting period but I still felt much more refreshed than driving straight through.

The next day we would arrive in Glacier National Park in Montana. On the way I bought a beast of a sleeping bag, so those needs were taken care of, as were our food needs at a Albertson's along the way. Arriving at Glacier was quite amazing. We set up our campsite and passed out for the evening. My bag was quite warm and Anton provided me extra warmth as he slept inside my bag. The days at Glacier were so fun. Nothing beats going to sleep to the sound of elk yodeling or simply waking up to the sights of the Rockie Mountains. While there, Chris and I ventured around and went on a 12 mile round trip hike up to a glacier in the park. It was quite breathtaking. (I will post pictures later.) I was scared that we may get mauled by some grizzlies and Chris was afraid we may run into some snakes but the only thing we did come across were two male rams. This was quite amusing because Chris decided to stop and he sat down to open up some food as I stared at the enormous animals. My first statement was, "Chris are you fucking blind?" His response was an amusing, "Ahhh, I guess so man." The rams were unreal and had huge sacks for balls. They were very impressive and the one was getting someone perturbed that we were staring them down, so before we would be headbutted, we decided to head out and continue our climb to the glaciers above. The hike was so fun and at the top it was very rewarding. We took plenty of pictures of the glacier at this high altitude (including a nude photo shoot, you will see later) and then headed back to the car where Anton was left sleeping. It was so awesome and I would highly suggest doing this hike to anyone traveling through Glacier, as long as you are in decent shape.

We spent that night in Glacier and then the next morning we were off for Canada. The area around the east park entrance for Glacier was not the nicest place in the world. It was basically a ghost town area with a ritzy lodge that was closing. The morning we left it was snowing.

Off we went to the Canadian border, only to be held up and denied because I did not have the proper paperwork. We headed back to the ritzy lodge, phoned my parents and I contacted my training partner in Kamloops to help me out. Within 30 minutes, all was taken care of and we were heading through Canada. Also, the guy at the border was a giant stiff and was as interesting as a stale popcorn fart in the wind.

We drove through southern Alberta to head for my version of Mecca. Vulcan, Alberta. Vulcan is a town devoted to Star Trek. Yes, it is somewhat loserish, but the town was awesome and had Star Trek stuff everywhere. We drove around, took photos where I impersonated Captain Kirk and again Chris did a great job of finding us shitty food. From Vulcan we decided to head for Banff, which is on the opposite side of Calgary. We entered back into the Rockie Mountain system and the sites were again breathtaking (not that a huge scale model of the USS Enterprise is not breathtaking.) Snow was covering the mountains and they looked amazing. We landed in the resort town of Banff and walked around for a bit. Elk were grazing in the town and we looked for a place to camp. As we spent more and more time there, I started to realize why I had initially only spend 6 hours there the previous time I was in Banff. The place is full of posers. I do not want to sound mean, but it was filled with well off people, shopping at italian named dress stores, and wealthy kids pretending to be bums. Chris and I both felt that everyone was there to impress, not to view the scenery. Everything was ridiculously expensive (as is most of Canada.) So, we instead of sleeping in Banff, we headed for Lake Louise and parked the car.

At Lake Louise, Chris decided to sleep in front of the car, outside. This enabled me to lay the passenger seat down and really get a good nights rest in the comfort of my bag...meanwhile Chris had to worry about being mauled by Grizzlies and wolverines. Lake Louise is a very nice place. Aside from the extraordinary amount of traveling Asians, the sites were awesome. Also, after viewing a hiking map, Lake Louise seems to be the place to hike. There are hundreds, probably thousands of kilometers of hiking through the mountains and there are no towns around it, I believe Banff is the closest which is about 30 miles away. The Lake is awesome, as is Moraine Lake on the other side of the pass. On the way to Moraine, I was able to show off my street racing abilities in my neon, (I am known as Street Racing Dane in Canada, or SRD for short,) Chris and I were able to film my moves and labeled the documentary "Lake Louise Drift."

From Lake Louise, we headed for Kamloops. We arrived on a Sunday and found a motel to stay in for the evening, boxed in by Sikhs on either side of our room.

I apologize for the crappy writing. Chris also has a blog and his is a bit more detailed in regards to our trip to Kamloops.