The Goal – Alberta Road Trip Part 1

The brazen bunny hopped out from behind the trunk of the cedar tree at the edge of our campsite, while I sat 10 feet away with the dogs. It eyed up the three dogs, all staring it down, then calmly started eating whatever it could find on the ground.

“Guess it’s not afraid of you guys,” I murmured to the dogs.

It was just after sunrise and we were packing up camp as quietly as possible. On one side of the site was a shrubby border that provided some privacy from the campers in the other site. The back of the site extended to the edge of the lake. The other side bordered a hiking trail that the dogs dragged us down the night before. We’d rolled into Penn Lake Park and Campground in Marathon around 7:30pm on Friday, almost 14 hours after leaving home. We all needed the hike.

This trip had been in the books for over eight months, yet it was only the week before when the dates were finally nailed down and I was able to book campsites. Strange doesn’t begin to describe the feelings I had while trying to plan a 12-day road trip that would span 4 provinces, having to coordinate with other people’s schedules, while not knowing the exact dates it would all happen.

But here we were. Morning Two! It was actually happening. I still didn’t believe it.

“I think that’s it,” Darrell said while closing the tailgate of the truck.

Erza, Molly, and Panda jumped into the back seat, Darrell and I climbed in, and off we went, just as the other campers were starting to wake up.

Day Two would see us drive from Marathon, Ontario to my best friend’s place near Winnipeg, Manitoba. Just under 11 hours of driving, without stops factored in. The funny thing about our province is that it takes a good two days to get out of it if you’re heading west from Southern Ontario. It’s a big province in a huge country.

We had a goal of being in Edmonton, Alberta around noon on Monday. That left zero time for stopping at tourist attractions or exploring the towns we passed through. But try as we might, it was impossible to ignore Lake Superior. Can I even properly describe it? No.The vast expanse of water, the cliff faces towering over the shoreline. It was so completely different from what I’m used to in the Georgian Bay area and I was in love. We stopped at multiple lookouts just to take it all in.

An hour into Day Two we had already changed our return travel plans so we could come back along Superior instead.

How anyone drives these distances in one day on their own is beyond me. I could do it when I was younger, but not now. Darrell and I swapped driving duties every few hours. Plenty of pop, sparkling water, snacks, music, and talking were what we relied on to stay awake and focused.

The tree composition had largely changed to spruces and aspens as we continued along the Trans-Canada Highway. At one point we passed several cars pulled off on the side of the highway. I was stumped as to why, until Darrell pointed out a couple of people picking blueberries. We saw this sight over and over as we continued through northwestern Ontario.

Crossing into Manitoba was pretty anti-climatic. I was tired and quickly got grumpy with drivers who couldn’t merge onto the highway without fully stopping first. And why was everyone going so slow? The speed limit was 110km/h. If a highway is 110km/h in Ontario, the flow of traffic is going almost 130km/h. Manitoba drivers were barely going the speed limit. I later received a lesson in speed limits when outside of Ontario.

Despite knowing the stereotypes about the prairies, I was a little surprised at how fast the landscape changed. Before we knew it the two of us were telling the dogs that we could let them out to run and still be able to see them three days later. It. Was. Flat.

By the time we arrived at Gen’s that night, all five of us were desperate to get out of the truck. Erza raced around like someone hit the crazy button. Panda ran back and forth between Darrell and I, and Molly wandered around checking everything out.

Packing 12 days worth of gear into a 5-foot truck box was a feat worthy of a Tetris champ. Darrell had managed to get it all in, but it was tricky getting it out when we could finally shower and change our clothes that night.

After an amazing evening and a delicious breakfast, we were up with the sun and on our way once again.

Side note – if you’re going to drive halfway across the country and get a chance to visit with your best friend, make sure you do it!

Three days into the trip and we had a routine established. Darrell would drive to start the day and I would have a nap. We’d switch by mid-day and I’d drive while he napped. There’d be one or two more switches along the way. And then we’d roll into our campsite, completely exhausted.

Somewhere along the way in all our adventures, the dogs have become good travelers. But even the best traveling dogs need the chance to stretch their legs whenever possible. Being farm dogs they’ve never needed to visit a dog park, but it was the only way we could let them run when we weren’t at Gen’s. We stopped in Whitewood, Saskatchewan at the Whitewood Livestock Dog Park and they LOVED it!

For some reason, the sight of our dogs racing around this awesome dog park has become a core memory.They were sniffing everything, rolling in the grass, running over the bridge, and disappearing through the thicket of trees. While Darrell made lunch on the tailgate of the truck, I offered the dogs water whenever they would stop for two seconds, before they carried on with their explorations.

Our destination for night three was Borden Bridge Campground in Langham, Saskatchewan. As with all the campgrounds, I had no idea what to expect and had to book based on a few photos and Google reviews. We drove in and found our site in the end of a group of trees. There was no room to pull the truck off the laneway and into the site. Unfortunately, there wasn’t even a great area to set up the tent that didn’t have us crawling around trees constantly.

At that moment I nearly started crying. I was exhausted. My anxiety was already high. And now the site really didn’t work for us. We only had one night left before reaching the main goal of our trip and I wasn’t handling things well at that moment.

Fortunately, I was able to make a call to the campground office and they quickly gave me a list of other sites we could use. We ended up finding one that was exactly what we needed.

Mental crisis averted.

Not only was the staff awesome and the campground very well-maintained, but they had some of the cleanest toilets we came across on this trip, which is always a bonus!

On Monday morning we had a quick breakfast of cereal and Darrell pointed out just how many bugs were now splattered all over the front bumper of our Ford Ranger. It wasn’t much of a surprise given that we had to clean the windshield at every gas station we stopped at. RIP to the insect population in Western Canada.

By the time we made our first driver switch of the day, I was starting to feel the adrenaline pick up. We had been waiting for this day since December of last year. Our original arrival date was first scheduled for two months prior to this date. Both of us had been planning and prepping for what felt like ages, and now we were almost there.

“Where?” you might ask.

Sherwood Park, a hamlet to the east of Edmonton, Alberta.

“And why were you going there?”

Well, at some point last fall, maybe it was already winter by that point, Darrell and I got the crazy idea that we needed a teardrop trailer. Not necessarily immediately, but we had decided that making our adventures more comfortable would be a good thing. We had researched, and discussed, and researched, and discussed until both of us were getting sick of the subject.

Then in December we filled in the order form for a Backcountry GOB teardrop trailer from Gnome Homes, located in Sherwood Park. It was finally the day for us to meet Fish Finder (our trailer’s name).

I’ll eventually write about why we chose a teardrop trailer and why we chose to buy a Gnome Home in particular, but that’s for another day.

When I saw the Gnome Homes sign and turned into the driveway, I was grinning from ear to ear. We made it!

Cees Stolk, the owner of Gnome Homes, was just as nice and friendly in person as he had been on the phone and in emails. When he suggested we let the dogs out of the truck to run around, I knew we’d bought a trailer from the right person. Not many people are willing to let our little pack charge around their property.

Then the moment I had been waiting for, for eight months, finally happened. We walked around the back of the shop and there she was. Fish Finder. It was, and still is as I’m typing this, an emotional moment.

Cees gave us the walkthrough so we knew how everything worked. He even took the time to show us how to set-up the awning since neither of us had done it before. If you’re going to spend a good deal of money, and you’re buying something that will be a key part of your life for the foreseeable future, buy from someone like Cees. He gave us so much of his time and made us feel great about our purchase.

And then the moment was over. We’d achieved our goal. Fish Finder was hooked up to the truck, the dogs were loaded up, and we were heading down the driveway for the next part of the adventure.

We were off to the mountains!

This is Part 1 of 3 in our Alberta Road Trip series. Keep an eye out for the remaining parts, as well as posts about why we chose a teardrop trailer, and why we bought from Gnome Homes. We’ll also be posting videos from the trip on our YouTube channel when we have a bit more time to edit them.