By Tara,on July 6th,2011% We got home at 3:00am this morning,so I am just posting this now. We got up at 7:00 am yesterday (impressive considering we went to bed after 2:00am),and started out on the last leg of our journey. We didn’t get as far as we had planned the day before,so we had about a 15 hour drive planned for yesterday. Our first stop was at a huge waterfall (I can’t remember the name of it). We made smoothies at the lookout point and then continued on our way. We had lunch in White River,which is where the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh is from. The original was a female bear cub named Winnipeg (Winnie for short),and was bought and smuggled to the London Zoo (London,England),where the author A. A. Milne was inspired to write the story of Christopher Robin (his son) and Winnie the Pooh. We sat on a patio and enjoyed sandwiches in the beautiful,hot sun. I had to show Sarah and Dustin Katherine’s Cove (where I stopped with Court on the way out). Sarah and I took a little dip in Lake Superior,but Dustin opted to stay on the beach where it was warm. We had bought a big pickle to snack on in Wawa,but it was not very tasty so we played catch with it instead. We weren’t planning to make any more stops,but when we passed a sign for ancient pictographs,we couldn’t resist. I’m so glad we checked it out! There was a beautiful but short trail down through a rocky gorge towards Lake Superior. Along the water is a giant wall of rock where the ancient Ojibway people had painted mythical creatures using ink made from crushed hematite mixed with either fish oil or animal fat. The paintings are thought to be between 150 -400 years old,and their meaning is not known for sure. The view of the lake and shoreline was pretty spectacular. The trail was more challenging than it looks in photos,and we were lucky that the water was so calm-there were signs all along the water warning of the risk of serious injury/death in rougher weather. We pretty much drove straight on through the night after that,enjoying our last 6 hours or so of car sing-alongs. Distance today:1437 km Total distance:12441 km - Waterfall!
- White River,where it all began
- Dustin being crushed by the pickle
- Taking a dip in Lake Superior
- Trail to the pictographs
- Trail to the pictographs
- paintings of mythical creatures
- Sunset on the way home
- Getting close to home!
By Tara,on July 5th,2011% We had a bit of a late start this morning. We slept in,then cooked all the food left in the car (pasta),and headed towards Thunder Bay. Our most important stop was when our car reached 100 000 km. We took a video and had a celebratory picnic in a planted clearcut just off the Trans-Canada Highway. Knowing that tonight was our last night of the trip,we wanted to make the most of it. We decided to stop early to experience Canadiana in Thunder Bay. We watched the sun set over Lake Superior from a local bar “On Deck”,while drinking Molson Canadian. We also got to pick 21 songs on the jukebox. As we listened to the heavenly sounds of Meatloaf and Billy Joel,we were all grateful for what we’ve learned about about our beautiful country and the people and places in it. We look forward to our comfortable beds and clean laundry,but wouldn’t trade a second of this adventure. Distance today:523 km Total distance:11004 km - Our little cabin in Kenora
- Strawberries and champagne to celebrate 100 000 km!
- Picnic
- It kind of felt like a cache break from treeplanting…kind of
- Final time zone crossing-it turns out we only crossed one time zone yesterday
- Patio beers with a view of Lake Superior
By Tara,on July 4th,2011% It is currently 3:00am in Kenora,Ontario,where we’re staying in a cabin just outside the city. We had a great breakfast with Lisa’s family in Regina and then headed to the RCMP Heritage museum,where we got a free tour of the training grounds. It wasn’t a very exciting tour,but it was kind of cool to see the training centre for all the mounties in Canada. We got some groceries and started driving towards Winnipeg. It was so beautiful and hot out today,and we had a very smooth drive. We stopped in at the Forks in Winnipeg for dinner and ended up hanging around for over an hour because there was live salsa music,drummers,and people doing tricks with fire. About an hour out of the city,we started seeing some crazy lightning (so naturally,we put on some classical music that matched the timing of the flashing clouds),and the it started to get pretty foggy and rainy so we started to look for accommodations. It took a while,but we made it to Kenora by about 2:00 am (or 12:00 prairie time,so not as late as it sounds). We have a kitchenette,so we will take advantage of that for breakfast. Distance today:831 km Total distance:10471 km - Mountie Church
- Putting our manual smoothie maker to use at the Manitoba border
- It was really refreshing
- Driving
- Fire spinners in Winnipeg
- Sarah likes to jump off things
By Tara,on July 2nd,2011% Yesterday morning we had breakfast at the lodge,and then went into a store in jasper that we visited on our previous visit. They now carry our lost and found stacking rings! There were lots of festivities in town for canada day so that was exciting. We were going to take the tram up to Whistler’s to see the beautiful view,but when we found out that it was $30 per person,we decided instead to take our time Driving through park on our way to Calgary. We stopped at lots of scenic spots along the way (it was hard to find a spot that wasn’t scenic) and we climbed a small trail next to a big waterfall. It was pretty cold out,but we had a great time. We got to Calgary around 7:00,just in time for a barbeque at the house we were staying at. We stayed with Steve (a friend from Toronto) and his cousin’s family. We went downtown for a drink to celebrate Canada Day,but we probably left a little too late,and didn’t have much time before the last lrt train left to take us back home. We ended up missing the last train and taking a cab. Today we had breakfast in Calgary,then headed out on the road through the prairies! We stopped for a snack/drink on a patio in Medicine Hat,Alberta,and then drove straight to The Keg in regina,where my friend,Lisa was serving. After dinner,we walked around downtown and then headed back to Lisa’s to go to bed at a decent hour. Distance July 1:537 km Distance July 2:839 km Total Distance:9640 km - Canada Day festivities in Jasper
- Goats!
- pretty waterfall
- It’s so pretty there!
- blue lake
- Calgary LRT with Steve
- Canola is such a pretty colour!
- At the Local in Medicine Hat
- Saskatchewan Naturally
By Tara,on June 29th,2011% We slept in a bit this morning until about 9:30,which was nice. Then we had an short drive through the mountains to Nelson. The weather was beautiful,sunny and hot! We couldn’t get ahold of Sarah’s brother,who we were going to visit there,so went downtown and got some lunch at the co-op grocery store and ate outside. Sarah had some work to do,so she and Dustin went to a cafe,and I went into all the jewellery stores. Most of the shop owners were in,and were happy to look at my samples right away. A lot of the shops were full for stock,but seemed to really like our work. I got on the waiting list at an awesome shop full of handmade jewellery and accessories called Tara Davis Studio Boutique. In the evening,we still hadn’t heard from the people in Nelson,so we headed up to Rossland,where I have a good friend from first year treeplanting (well,two friends if you include his dog,who is sitting with me while I write this post). We went for dinner at the local bar,called the Flying Steam Shovel,and then had a campfire in the backyard. So nice and relaxing! Distance driven today:262 km Total distance:7304 km - The Kootenays
- By the lake in Nelson
- Mike tending to the fire
By Tara,on June 29th,2011% We had another great day in the Kootenays today. I got our water molecule jewellery into a store in Rossland this morning! It’s a nice gallery/boutique in town called Main Stage Gallery. In the afternoon Mike and his friend Ryan took us to see an abandoned mine near Salmo and we went exploring. From the outside it just looked like a little hole in a rock,but inside it’s huge! It looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings and it was freezing in there! It was also about 5 minutes from the U.S border. I was especially excited,because when I was little I used to play a computer game called Spelunx. I don’t think I ever really understood the game,but I’ve always wanted to go spelunking for real! Then we drove to Nelson to visit Aaron and Monica,and their toddler,Aidan. We had a lovely dinner with them and then headed on the road (pretty late to start driving…I think we left around 7:30pm). We drove over the Kootenay pass and saw a family of mountain goats. It was really cold at the top,and there was lots of snow on the ground-crazy! At around 10:00 it got dark,and at 10:30 it started to rain really hard. We saw lots of deer on the road and driving was a little scary,so we pulled over at a motel in Cranbrook for the night. Can’t wait to go back through Jasper tomorrow! Distance today:405 km Total distance:7709 km - We bought a manual blender at a thrift store for making smoothies on the road
- Main Stage Gallery
- in the mine!
- Mine tunnel
- are we too late on this trend? (Planking at the US border)
- Sarah and Aaron
- Pretty!
- All my photos of the whole family came out blurry!
- Pretending to be Caribou on the Kootenay Pass
By Tara,on June 28th,2011% This has to kind of quick,because we just got in to a motel and want to see if there is a local saloon we can check out. We didn’t make it to our destination (Nelson) because we had the first car troubles of the whole trip. Nothing major went wrong. We got an oil change before leaving Vancouver,and then the car had trouble starting. When we stopped for gas in Chilliwack,it was even worse,so we went to the Canadian Tire across the street and it turns out that we needed a new battery. Distance today (+ driving in Vancouver all weekend):655 km Total distance driven:7042 km - Berries in Stanley Park that we tasted
- Climbing on the laughing man statue outside our hotel
- On the road again!
- Fresh Okanagen Fruit!
- We passed by the store that we are selling at in Osoyoos (We’d only been to the Calgary location)
- View of Osoyoos
- Group shot!
- We made some friends at the bar in Grand Forks
- Mounties
By Tara,on June 27th,2011% I just got back to the hotel after dropping Courtney off at the airport so she can fly back to Terrace,BC (where she has been living over the winter). Dustin met up with a friend who hitchhiked to Vancouver and they are getting groceries so we can make some food in our kitchenette. In about two hours,I’ll have to head out again to pick up our cousin,Sarah,who will also be driving back with us! It’s funny,we have had to switch hotel rooms ever night because of a lack of availablity,so we’re getting to try out all different places. Tonight’s hotel is not as nice as last night,but by splitting it between 3 people,we are getting the same rate as any of the hostels downtown (which had no vacancy). We are in a beautiful area,right by the beach and Stanley park,so I can’t complain. The weather is beautiful today. We went in to lots of stores this morning on Main St (a cool shopping area) and in Gastown (a nice historic district),and I have a tentative meeting set up for tomorrow. We also found a shop that definitely wants to carry our rings,and another that had already seen our work in our Etsy shop and was interested in retailing our work! - Researching stores in our nice hotel living room from last night
- Court looking professional for visiting stores
- Half an hour of relaxing across the street from our new hotel
- Historic Gastown
- Dropping Courtney off at the airport
- We picked this girl up on East Hastings…Just kidding! Sarah is here!
By Courtney,on June 26th,2011% After we picked Dustin up from the airport,we walked around the entertainment district which was very lively. There were lots of people singing,playing music on the street…we even saw a very interestingly dressed woman on rollerblades trying to direct traffic… Today was jam-packed! We knew we had a lot of doors to knock on (Vancouver is a big city with a lot of cool areas and lots of shopping),but we also wanted to make sure we did some stuff for fun. We spent the morning going in to stores to see if we could show buyers some samples of our work. We found a couple of places on West 4th st,but it was hard to get meetings because we are only here for the weekend. Store owners and employees in Granville Island shops (our next stop) were extremely helpful and open to looking at our work,even though it was super busy there. We definitely got some good leads,made some good contacts and found out about other stores to try. By that time it was already after noon,so we decided to do some exploring just for fun. We find that store owners are much more receptive in the mornings… We walked around on Robson St for a bit,then we decided to check out chinatown. I had promised my friend,Mui,from Terrace I would pick up some things while in Vancouver-some vietnamese fish sauce and some rice flour. We completed that mission by showing photos of the products on Dustin’s iPhone to the store owners who didn’t speak english. They were laughing and quickly found the items we were looking for. We had lunch at a place that Mui recommended-Kent’s Kitchen-where you can get a ton of amazing authentic chinese food for $5. So good! We ate back at our new hotel by Stanley Park. After eating,we went for a very long and amazing walk along the ocean,then went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. We ate Kraft Dinner for dinner,now we are catching up on e-mails and I’m packing for my flight to Terrace tomorrow. - Walking on Granville St. last night.
- Patio drinks!
- Chicken vs. Seagull
- Granville Island
- Granville Island Brewing Company
- Mission accomplished in Chinatown!
- Quick stop on our oceanside walk
- Tara was very excited at the sight of palm trees!
- On the beach (all three of us are in this photo!)
By Tara,on June 25th,2011% We spent the morning in Kelowna going into lots of shops. It turns out there isn’t much of a market for handmade silver jewellery there-people just aren’t willing to pay for handmade,so the shops we checked out didn’t take our work. We did get a response from someone in Edmonton,and will soon be selling at a cool clothing/accessory store there. We left Kelowna around noon,and spent the rest of the day driving to Vancouver. We got a hotel downtown,and are just about to head to the airport to pick up our little brother,Dustin,who will be driving back to Toronto with me. Enjoy these photos of the drive today! Distance driven today:438 km Total distance:6387 km - Tara on Bernard St in Kelowna
- More beautiful views from the highway!
- Slashpiles!
- I think this was taken just before we passed Merritt
- Beauty.
- At the top of a very very long incline between Kelowna and Merritt
- snow!
- Many quick and drastic weather changes today!
- Approaching Vancouver!
| About Slashpile DesignsTwin designers Tara and Courtney Neray have been creating jewellery since the age of two and a half. (Seriously!) Now with Slashpile Designs,they combine the product-oriented discipline of industrial design with the artistic quality of fine craft. Tara and Courtney are driven to create work of personal significance to the wearer. Drawing from an eclectic mix of experiences and interests,fused with a sense of humour and perceptive insight into human behaviour,they create pieces that are both meaningful to the wearer and pleasing to the eye. www.SlashpileDesigns.com |