Long Overdue Roadtrip Post: Western Canada!

This summer is the first in years that I haven’t made any big travel plans. This is partly because of the amount of money I don’t have and just the timing of everything this summer makes it a little hard to get away. So instead of leaving the country, I thought it would be nice to explore around home and see the amazing views Western Canada has to offer. I decided to stick with a roadtrip, it seemed like the cheaper choice and a better way to see the sights while heading to our destinations. I also invited a couple of my American friends from San Francisco, California to come and join me. Especially since they’ve given me the opportunity to explore some of the United States, I figured I should return the favour.

Basically for the trip, it mostly featured exploring Vancouver, the rocky mountains and Edmonton. As well as get in some good camping days.

But here’s the day by day breakdown of my roadtrip:

Jericho Beach In Vancouver, BC, Canada

Day 1:  This day I left in the afternoon heading towards Vancouver. Overall it wasn’t a bad drive, a nice 5 hours from the interior of British Columbia to the beautiful coastal city. I’ve been to Vancouver many times, mainly for things like concerts and the PNE, so I thought it would be nice to explore a little more as well. My american friends weren’t due to arrive until the next morning, so I actually left a day earlier to visit a couple of my friends in North Vancouver and spent the night at their place. It was a great visit and I think I ate so much sushi my stomach was about to explode!

Day 2: I guess this is the day the trip really started in regards to looking at the sights of Vancouver. After having breakfast (more sushi) I headed to the Vancouver airport to pick up my friends. Once we were all loaded up though, they were pretty tired from getting up so early and the plane ride. So we just headed to downtown Vancouver and checked out the shopping, Chinatown, the ocean and had some lunch. We were staying in a hotel in North Vancouver, so on the way, we also stopped at the Capilano Suspension bridges. They were actually pretty unique and quite awesome like the entire city of Vancouver.

My Kayak at Adams Lake, BC, Canada

Day 3: Now that my friends were all rested up and ready to go, we checked out of North Vancouver and headed on the road to our next destination. For our next stop, we decided to go camping for a few days. My friends have never really been camping out in the wild being that they were from San Francisco, so it was to be a new adventure for them. For the biggest

chunk of the day, we spent driving to Adams Lake, where we were to camp. Once we got there, my poor car looked like it went 4x4ing, covered in mud from top to bottom. So we just unpacked, pitched the tent, lit a fire and got dinner going.

Days 4 and 5: These two days were all camping and rough necking it out in the bush. They featured the typical sort of fun like fishing, hiking, roasting marshmallows, kayaking,  and enjoying the beach. We were pretty lucky too that the weather kept up the whole time and brought some of the hottest days in the year so far.

Day 6: This was the end of the camping portion of the trip. We had breakfast, packed everything up and left Adams lake in the afternoon. It was a bit of a good thing too because the long weekend was starting, so many people were showing at the lake for their parties and whatnot. We decided to head out on the back road to Enderby. It was a nice drive through the forest and saw a lot of wildlife, including a couple bears and many many deer. Later in the afternoon we got into Enderby and stopped by a local pizza shop for dinner. After that, we went to the Starlight Drive In Theater. I’ve been there once before and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to take my friends to experience it as well. I think that if anyone gets a chance, they should definitely check out a Drive In Theater. Especially Enderby’s considering it has the largest screen in North America. So we had a good night watching Fast Five and Hop. Then it was back on the road, with one stop in Revelstoke to sleep on the side of the road for the night.

Day 7: After waking up all cramped inside the back of my car, it was on the road once more to head into the rocky

Driving Through The Rockies, Canada

mountains to our next destination near Radium Hot Springs. It was a nice drive and took up most of the day, but eventually we found our way to our next accommodation, Addison’s Bungalows. I was pretty proud of myself for finding this place, its about 20 minutes from Radium Hot Springs and has a bunch of little bungalows all over this chunk of property in the woods. They were actually a fairly good size even with a full kitchen and many different but great features. For the rest of the night we really just relaxed, explored the town of Radium Hot Springs and drove through Kootenay National Park a little as well.

Day 8: After a refreshing sleep in an actual bed, we got up late and jumped into our swimsuits. We headed for the actual hot spring pools in Radium Hot Springs. We had a great time there and really enjoyed relaxing in the hot water. Later that night, we settled down and watched 8 Mile on the TV in the bungalows.

Day 9: After yet another night in the quaint little bungalows, we decided to head off to Banff. I thought it would be a nice stop since I haven’t been there before and neither have my friends. Once we arrived, we immediately started taking in the abundance of shopping and even purchased a few souvenirs at a couple of the shops. But then the rain really came, and it came hard. It started pouring like crazy, so we had a nice dinner at Tony Romas and hoped the rain would let off by the time we were done eating… It didn’t, so we decided to head back to the bungalows and call it a night.

Day 10: Even though there was that huge rainfall the day before, day 10 started out as a beautiful and sunny day. With that in mind we took it to our advantage and hit up our surroundings on some hiking trails. They have quite a few all over the National Parks in the rocky mountains and from what I saw, they are all really nice and beautiful hikes, different in their own way from one another. After a full day of hiking, it felt great to hit the shower and get a good nights sleep.

Lake Louise, AB, Canada

Day 11: Since this day was time to check out of our bungalow, it was also then time for us to leave the area of Radium Hot Springs. So once again, we packed up and headed off on the road, straight up towards Jasper. It was a very beautiful drive through the icefields and through 4 different national parks. I’m not sure how I missed such a beautiful drive so close to home. On the way to Jasper, we stopped at Lake Louise, still covered with a lot of ice and snow, but still very pretty. We also stopped at a few rest points to take in the view and get a couple pictures, along with some stops at the Athebasca icefields and falls. Then eventually that night we ended up late in Jasper. So we pulled into a campground nearby, pitched the tent and called it a night.

Day 12: After awakening, we realized how beautiful Jasper national park was, coming in the night before, it was getting dark and we didn’t take in the sights of our surroundings before going to bed. So we headed right int0 Jasper on that good start and just had to check out their famous tramway. It was a beautiful ride up the trams and really showed the vastness of the rocky mountains. After taking all that in, we went back into Jasper and checked out some of the many lakes in the area, all of which were beautiful in their own way. Next we started to head towards Edmonton but pulled off the main road to check out another hot spring, Miette Hot Springs. I thought this one was great and even better than the one in Radium with a magnificent view right in front of us as we soaked in the hot pools. Then it was eventually time to leave and really head to Edmonton. We ended up arriving quite late that night, sometime after midnight, so as a result we just pulled into a truck stop and called it a night, again in the back of my car.

Days 13, 14 and 15: For these days we checked into a hotel in Stony Plain (its much cheaper than getting one in Edmonton), then went into the city of Edmonton to take in some shopping at their famous West Edmonton Mall. It’s such a vast mall that it really did take us the whole day to check out all the little shops throughout the mall. The next day we devoted to their huge water park in the mall. It was a blast in the huge wave pool and checking out the many different water slides available. For the last day, we spent that checking out the amusement park, again in the mall, called Galaxyland. It was pretty awesome, and I loved the Red Rollercoaster with the triple loops! I gotta say though, if you plan on exploring the mall, make sure to have a few days to do it! There are really a lot of things to check out there.

Day 16: As our last day on a roadtrip, we just chilled in downtown Edmonton and walked around like a bunch of tourists. It was a beautiful day but sadly I had to take my friends to the airport and say goodbye. After that, it was to head back home for myself on the beautiful drive, back through the rocky mountains.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page” – Saint Augustine

Tyson Trepidations.

Online Dating and Long Distance Relationships

Online dating and long distance relationships are two things I have had the ability to explore within my dating life already. I think online dating can be a fairly useful tool to use for a few different reasons, if done right of course. But on the other hand, I believe that long distance relationships have a limit, and its a gamble as to where the limit ends.

When it comes to online dating, I think its a great way to get to know people and potential girlfriends/boyfriends initially. In my experience, the barrier of the whole thing really allows you to explore different people and almost effortlessly gain access to each others basic information, interests, and lifestyles. It’s a very efficient way to get your questions answered in a much faster and less awkward manner (for many cases), rather than having to go through it all on the first date. It also lets you assess whether the other patron is someone you think you would be compatible with and build that first connection before exploring each other in real life.

In my opinion, I think its a very effective tool since people are generally more brave to speak their mind and openly ask questions online rather than in real life. They tend to feel more free in letting others get to know them and asking questions themselves, probably since those people they are talking to are only entities at that point.

So in the whole, when its taken seriously, in a mature and professional manner, online dating can actually have many positive qualities. Even with that said, it is still a good idea to be a little careful of the people you meet online. Since there’s no emotions or faces associated with the people you interact with, it’s a lot easier for them to lie, over exaggerate and give the wrong impression, since everything is done over cyberspace. But in my experience, it seems pretty legitimate and I think its a very useful tool.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was long distance relationships. The reason I’m putting these together on the same post is because a lot of times online dating can result in or go hand-in-hand with a long distance relationship (or even the other way around).

I have been in a couple long distance relationships, some longer than others (in more ways than one too). But what I found was that they only work for so long and eventually somebody does get hurt because their partner grew tired of waiting. I don’t think a long distance relationship is something I could do anymore due to that. In the end I was the one that ended up getting hurt. I was dating a girl for two years when somewhere along the lines it turned into a long distance relationship. After a little bit, I guess she got bored or tired of missing me and decided to find herself a new boyfriend. She was the last person I loved too…

Anyhow, there’s really a limit as to how far a relationship can go over long distance. Once you hit that limit, things tend to slow down and a lot of times relationships burn out because of that.

So if your looking to ignite a flame, then I say give online dating a true effort and see what happens. As for me, I may be single at the moment, but I met a very promising girl. I’m really excited to see where this goes.

 

“One good thing about Internet dating: you’re guaranteed to click with whomever you meet” – Unknown

 

Tyson Trepidations.

The World And Exploring It

Even though this is only my second blog post, I’ve already mentioned this twice, but it’s worth mentioning for a third time. I find that building connections all over the world is very important with experiencing the different views of the world and understanding culture.

I know most people that travel (and travel smartly), will tell you that travelling is quite addicting. Once you start seeing and experiencing things you never laid your eyes on or felt before, its something you want to continue to do. Even though my travels have barely taken me out of North America, I can understand this concept and I feel that having the ability to travel is an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted. In fact, a significant number of people from Canada and the United States have never left their province or state, let alone their country.

That all seems extremely robotic and systematic to me.

When I look to travel, I don’t actually look into the travel packages too much. A lot of them cover a lot of ground and show a person many many things in their destination. The problem I have with those is that they really rush you through places a lot of the time and its just non-stop. Especially the ones that cover many destinations or countries in something as short as a two week period. It basically goes that you get there, look around, take pictures and move on to the next attraction like a herd of cattle. For that, is why I think making worldwide connections is very important.

As a university student studying in Canada, I’m very lucky to have a vast diversity of cultures to interact with while going to school. It means I can make many friends and connections from all over the world. It’s these relationships that really help me to understand different cultures and create a foundation to travel to and with.

There’s also the internet for those that aren’t shy and confident with their ability to judge character and trust others. It’s such an easy way to connect with the earth, using the resources on the world wide web. It can be as simple as places like these (blogs), to start making the worldly connections and there are also places specialized for that, such as couch surfing. With that said though, you still have to be careful on the internet, even with fairly trustworthy methods like the official couch surfing site.

I guess the best way to end is to share the places I wish most to explore and start building connections into. So here they are:

Malaysia

Singapore

Peru

Santorini (Thira)

Czech Republic

 

“Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options” – Thomas Sowell