Take Off to the Great White North (July 31-August 1)

Only one of us was sad to finish up our tent time at Yellowstone. Most of us were very much looking forward to sleeping under a roof again. However, Brian, who had conceded to the cold by wearing a t-shirt, nylon zip-off pants, and a hat to bed, was really the only one who slept very well. Most of us had a much better night that last night, but that did not make the rest of us feel premature nostalgia.

Packing up the tent and gear is always a fun way to start your day, especially since it generally begins around 6 am when the rest of the campground is peacefully sleeping. That way the hissing and angry whispers among family members can really resonate best, making the most of the situation.

When that fun was over, we packed into the van again and set off for Calgary, where we would spend the night before moving on to Banff National Park in Alberta.

The nice part of this was that we took a different route out of the park, and we got to see some new views. All jokes about camping and cold aside, Yellowstone really is a wonder. It’s a massive piece of real estate that encompasses so many different experiences.

Back to the road.

From Canyon Campground in Yellowstone to Calgary is about an 11-hour drive, with a few shorter stops included. Going north through Montana, we drove through Lewis & Clark National Forest. Yet another lesser-known, less visited site of amazing beauty. But not much in the way of restaurants. We thought maybe we would stop somewhere for lunch, maybe halfway through the forest. A certain portion of our group becomes less tolerant of the sandwich picnics out of the car as time wears on, so we were looking for a café or restaurant. The closest we could come was a casino the size of a 7-11 store with a lunch buffet of sandwiches, chips and condiments spread out on a pool table. We kept driving.

Also included in the 11-hour drive is a border crossing, which is just a big question mark. You never know what kind of traffic, or what kind of border agent you will encounter, or even how trustworthy you yourself seem on any given day. I was driving, and I’m the first to admit that I get ridiculously nervous about anything official. For some reason I always feel like a guilty party, even though I’ve done nothing against the state, the U.S. or Canada. I am always extra polite and very serious. I handed our passports to the man with barely shaking hands and answered his questions efficiently and sincerely. His last question was “are you carrying anything you expect to sell or give away in Canada?” I shook my head earnestly and said no, just as Brian piped up from the seat next to me: “Maybe a kid or two.” The agent handed me our passports and, to my relief, cracked the slightest hint of a smile.

Inside Alberta, we all looked for the dramatic change that we knew Canada would bring. Strangely, it looked just like Montana, except the signs were in kilometers, and the roads were wider. We stopped in at the Alberta welcome center, where we found out that among the fossils found in Alberta is the T. Rex. I don’t know exactly what that surprised me so, but it did. I think because the movie Jurassic Park took place on a tropical island, I assumed that they would be found in tropical places. Perhaps it’s best I don’t broadcast my paleontological ignorance on the internet, but there it is.

As we drove I couldn’t help but think that Alberta (at least the stretch we were on) was kind of the Texas of Canada. Oil, ranches, and even a big banner supporting Ron Paul, with the very Texan sentiment “More Alberta, Less Ottawa” emblazoned on a sign.

Finally we reached Calgary, where we checked into our hotel. When I was young and my brother and I stayed in hotels with my parents, the first thing we would do was go find the vending machines. The second thing we'd do is see if there was a game room nearby. Third, we'd go beg quarters from my parents for either or both of those things.

My children and their peers do things a bit differently. I noticed this first on the trip I took earlier this summer with four 16-year-old girls. The minute you walk into a new accommodation, the first and foremost thing on each of their minds is to find out what the wifi key is. Then there is furious code entry, and you can tell when the phones or other devices have connected successfully, because every ounce of tension seems to leave the teens' bodies and they can breathe normally again. They may even smile.

After the internet infusion, we walked to a nearby restaurant for a very late and expensive dinner. The hotel happened to have a pool with a waterslide, and that pool happened to close at the very time we returned from our late dinner. Happily we really had no big plans the next day, because we couldn’t get into our condo until 4:00, so we all slept in a little, ate at the hotel breakfast buffet, and took an hour to let the swimmers swim. Meanwhile, a few of us were researching what we could do in Calgary. We could pay a nice sum of money to go up the observatory tower, but we’ve done that in Toronto and Chicago, and nothing personal Calgary, but you don’t seem like you will win on that measure.

Instead, we booked ourselves an escape room. What is an escape room, you might rightly ask? Well, it is a room that you also pay a nice sum for, and you and your loved ones get locked inside of it. You have one hour to escape. This seemed a little creepy to me, especially as our room’s theme was “Escape from Death Row.” My suspicions were only intensified by the fact that Level 1 Escape Rooms occupied a space in the basement of a bridal store, sharing a bathroom with the dance studio next door. And no one was there when we got there, or for the next 20 minutes. We sat on the steps to the basement, wondering out loud if perhaps this was a serial killer's ruse to lure people into his lair.  Then we felt a bit foolish when young female dancers came in by themselves with no care for their safety, while the party of 10 lounging on the steps chattered hysterically about their impending doom.

Turns out the scheduled employee didn't show, but another one came in his place soon after. The escape room was a blast. The 10 of us were locked into two small, adjacent prison cells. Our instructions were to use everything we could find in the room to move ourselves forward through the next three areas to escape.

We had to use pipe with a hook on it to drag keys across the room to unlock the cell doors. We had to figure out codes and logic puzzles and math problems to unlock combination locks, open a locked briefcase, break into lockers to find more clues, etc. It was really fun to work together to do it, and I cannot wait to set up escape rooms for the church youth group this year! Eventually we got out with only one clue, putting us into the 15 percent who actually finish.

With victory in our hearts and slightly emptier wallets, we stopped at a grocery store and then drove the next hour plus to Canmore, a town on the outskirts of Banff National Park. Already in Canmore we could see that Banff was a long series of enormous, plentiful, rock faces and glaciers. Here we had rented a condo that, though not huge, could sleep all 10 of us in a somewhat comfortable fashion. Camping is really good for lowering the bar for what feels luxurious. We went to sleep on real mattresses, and it was good.