The road is calling so I've got to go...

Lake Louise in Banff national park.  The lake was still half frozen, but apparently the water is a sort of green color in the summer.



The tour didn't stop at many places so I was pretty disappointed in it. 

 

  Old growth Cedar... over 200 years old.

  Crazy Creek Suspension Bridge and waterfalls = lame.

Not much to report as this turned out to be a pretty boring day.

I said goodbye to Roomie K and walked around Canmore until the bus came in to go to Banff.  When I got into Banff I had to walk 1 km  with my giant pack to the hostel.. I was kinda winging it from the map I'd looked up earlier and figured it wouldn't be too far.  Luckily I remembered because I had a happy little trail of followers heading to the same hostel from the same bus... all who were just following me assuming I knew where I was going.

The Samesun in Banff was pretty cool.  A pretty big party place as far as I can tell.  I wish I coulda stayed a few days longer.  Downtown was pretty commercialized but everywhere was within walking distance.   I went out to a pub with some of the guys from the hostel and we say deer in the street!

Other than that-boring time in Banff-the people in the hostels have basically moved right in and seem like 'lifers'.  People wanting to find bar or retail work in Banff and just move in.  They aren't real interested in going out and doing active stuff like I was.  So in that sense I was glad to be headed toward Kelowna the next day.

I made it into Canmore yesterday.  Roomie K's house is like something straight out of The Real World.  I love that show.  She is the lead in the local dinner theatre and she and her castmates all live together in this 1.3 million dollar house.  Canmore is this tiny little town so quaint and everything is perfectly groomed and all the buildings look like log cabins.  Its small enough that you can walk everywhere.

  Lady Mac

  Three Sisters

I saw Roomie K's dinner show: it was... um very Canadian.  They are all very talented but it was pretty cheesy.  Its geared toward tourists who just want stereotypical Candian things.



We went cave exploring at Rat's Nest Cave in Grotto Mountain.  I was a little scared at the thought of being in a cave filled with a nest of rats, but I was assured that there weren't actually any rats down there.  There are just rat-like rodents.

Matt told me that when it came to this trip, if it was scary, I had to do it. 

  Me calling in sick for work.  I couldn't get my shifts covered so I decided to just get call in for those two days.





Clayton, Me, and Roomie K





  Yes we went down there





Rock formations

  made it out alive and muddy



Us with our guide, Steph

I go back and forth between thinking this is the best idea of my life and the worst.

I watched Into the Wild with Roomie M last night.  I just can't help but think that the story was tragic, not at all inspiring.

But I haven't booked my return flight yet so if I end up spending most of my time lost, bored or unable to hook up with friends, then I'll just hop the next flight home.

I've narrowed down what I need to fit into my pack, but I've still got a ton of clothes that need to be shipped home or boxed up.  I've run out of boxes/luggage to store them in.

I've booked my flight and I'm leaving on Friday!  I'm heading to Calgary first to visit Roomie K.
Only 6 days.

When I first moved to Toronto five years ago, and was working in the film industry, I attended an event (as a VIP, which is the only way you should do Toronto events).  It was a pitch event where wannabes up and comers got a chance to pitch their film ideas to industry execs, producers and established directors in hopes of getting a big break. 

 

There was a girl who had gotten up on stage who had written a book called My Kimono and handed copies to the panel.  She had travelled through Europe and discovered a custom called a Kimono in one country, Switzerland I believe, where a young person walks from one side of the country to the other for self reflection and growth.

 

So perhaps this summer will be my kimono.  “Take a year off and travel-it will change your life”, “the best thing you could ever do!” are bits of advice you’ll hear from people who took the road less travelled.  People who in their 20s or 30s are not executives, don’t own homes, and drive junky cars.  They may not have much, but they have their experiences.  From the first moment you meet them, whether it be as they sit down at your table at the pub, or as they hop into a friend’s car to bum a ride, you see that twinkle in their eye and you know you can’t wait to hear whatever story they’re about to tell.

 

Some may wonder why a girl who grew up her entire life on the east coast would go by the psuedonym West.  Perhaps it’s for everything left in life left to explore.  There is a saying that God’s love is as large as the distance between east and west.  When we think about the world, you can travel north for miles and miles, but at some point, you start travelling south again.  East and West know no bounds.  You can travel west for the rest of your life and still there would be further to go.

 

East is where I started.  West is where I’ll go.  For the rest of my life I will only ever be able to go west.  Thomas Wolfe wrote  that “You can never go home again.”  It’s a phrase some people don’t understand.  For most people, home will still be there.  But the key to this phrase is ‘you’.  Its you who changes, not home.

 

I grew up on a tiny island on the east coast of Canada.  The kind of island where the street you live on was named for you grandfather and its physically impossible to be more than 20 minutes from the ocean. 

 

At 19 my boyfriend of a year asked me to move to Toronto so we could take the ‘next step’ in our relationship while he finished law school.  I eventually did, figuring there was not much left for me on the island.  I was underpaid at my full time job and there were no opportunities to advance or move to other companies.  There was a mass exodus of young people from the maritimes to the Alberta oil sands.  Go west young man, haven’t you been told, Alberta’s full of whiskey, women and gold. 

 

My sister was one of these migrants.  I accidentally got her fired from her job.  She had a habit of sleeping through her constantly ringing alarm clock.  I have a habit of walking in my sleep.  After half an hour of listening to her alarm clock buzzing,  I sleepwalked into her room and shut it off.  She never got up for work and got dismissed because of it.  Needless to say we don’t have a very close relationship.

 

Now, approaching 24, single for over a year, mid-degree, mid-career, I’m determined to avoid my mid-mid life crisis.

 

So from Toronto, to Alberta, I will backpack through BC until I reach the coast.  I will swim in the Pacific ocean and hop a flight cross country where I’ll swim in the Atlantic in the very same day.   I’ll then spend the next two months living on the island, trying to get to know the family I’ve spent the last 5 years living away from, and exploring the rest of the atlantic provinces and east coast life.

 

Summer:  A commence.