5-30-2007 - The Road Less Traveled, and the Road Not Traveled

Had a pretty long driving day today, with a bit of adventure. We didn't want to take the freeway through Calgary then over to Canmore (outside of Banff National Park in Canada), so we did a bunch of random two-lane highways, some of which became gravel logging roads for about 60 miles. Had no trouble at the Canadian border, and waved goodbye to the Lower 48 for now:


The customs agent did ask me twice if I had a firearm after I said I was going to Alaska, then said "Why not". I guess no one really does go up there without a gun! I explained it was being shipped later, and no foreign national can bring a handgun into Canada.

I did have one bit of trouble on the logging road:

But luckily have a full-sized spare so it was all-good - I was laughing about it. Made somewhat quick work of it, and we were back on our way:

Then about 20 minutes later ran into this!!!

So, we went from being 67 miles away from Canmore, to 127!!! Again, I was laughing hard about this in the car - it's not a roadtrip without some hitches. Let's see: flat tire (which I got fixed in Canmore), closed highway (which did not show as seasonaly closed on either of our maps), I broke a lamp with my head in a Salmon, Idaho Subway, and Jeff left ALL of his jackets in the hotel in Ketchum, Idaho, leading to a 135 mile round-trip double-back. Good times!