Arrival in Canada

Days 21 - 23 (August 14 - 16)

Well, we have an update, but it’s a bit of a sad one.

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One quick note: for the next 10 days, Monisha won’t have cell service or data, Nolan will have somewhat spotty cell service and access to data, and we’ll only occasionally be on wifi. Texting Nolan is the quickest way to reach either of us. We can also sometimes access email using data on his phone. Monisha will get iMessages and emails when we have access to wifi.

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Firstly, the good news is we did it! We made it to Canada!

Our original plan to get to Canada involved leaving Seattle midday Saturday, driving halfway to Banff, camping in Kamloops, then driving the other half on Sunday.

After learning about a huge wildfire outbreak right where we had planned on camping Saturday night, we adjusted our plans a bit. We decided to drive two hours north to stop short of the worst of the smoke, camp at a rest stop in Bellingham, and have a long driving day the rest of the way to Banff on Sunday. 

Saturday was both of our first times ever sleeping at a rest stop! Not that sleeping at a rest stop is all that amazing, but there was something exciting about traveling in a new style, seeing all the other cars and RVs around, and having a bit of broadened exposure. The theme continues of gaining appreciation for Blue, who enabled our easy overnight rest stop night.

The Canada border was totally empty. We didn’t see a single other car. The border official asked us a whole lot of questions for quarantine and entering a new country purposes that felt funny to be asked by a stranger. “What work do you do?” Which felt funny to answer because neither of us have jobs now and Monisha has been floating between types of professions. We answered with babysitter and software engineer. “Are you two on a break now, or working remotely?” We told him we quit our jobs, so we’re currently not working. Clearly he wanted to understand about our stability, which our current situation didn’t quite provide confidence in. Monisha also noticed how gender normative her being a babysitter and Nolan being a software engineer is. And felt funny about it because although her most recent job was babysitting, it’s not really how she identifies or what she thinks her next job will be. “How much money do you have access to?” Never been asked that before! Through we do both feel that it’s unfortunate how taboo of a subject money is..

Anyway, we finally passed our interrogation and made it into Canada! Which adds a new country to the list of countries Monisha has been to.

Now onto the sad parts.

We proceeded for hours through what we’ve heard and what we could tell is usually one of the most beautiful and scenic drives out there. Unfortunately, for us, it was mostly white, with faded outlines of trees and mountains… 

When we drove through the area we were originally going to camp in on the way to Banff, we were grateful for having looked up the fire situation ahead of time. From literally 20 feet off the highway to miles away on both sides, there were splatterings of blazing fires (at several points we could actually see the flames), huge stretches of thick smoke, and firefighting helicopters flying overhead. Yikes.

Unfortunately, Banff itself is also quite smoky. Last night (Sunday), when we drove into our campsite, it was still clear enough to be able to see some of the incredible mountains and stretches of trees. But today the smoke worsened significantly, and it looks just about how Palo Alto looked in the worst of the wildfire smoke last year. AQI is 175. We’re grateful (yet again!) for Maya’s emergency kit, which includes N95s we’re using constantly.

We’re still embracing being here. Yesterday evening we had a lovely dinner (the classic Shin ramen with broccoli and eggs, though we also added cilantro and jalapenos), enjoyed glasses of wine, played ukelele and sand, and ate tea with cookies.

And we went on a nice walk around a lake this morning! But it’s a strange vibe. The lake felt eerie. At one point a loon started calling, furthering the eerie feeling. The orange sun disappeared for a bit behind clouds or smoke, which led to a discussion about what would happen if the sun somehow just went out. It doesn’t quite feel like real life.

After Monisha said, "My head looks too big and yours looks too small, we have to take another!" 

Got it right this time ;)

Also, heat wave! Usually the car has been comfortable at night with the windows cracked. Last night it was HOT! So we rolled the windows down all the way (with the bug net on). The heat made it quite hard to fall asleep. Then Monisha noted that bears could probably reach their arms and even head in through the window, and all the food was in the car (as required due to bears). That definitely did not make it easier for either of us to go to sleep. The idea of a bear reaching into your car while you’re sleeping is pretty terrifying. Turns out we were both separately visualizing what we would do if a bear reached in the window. Eventually, Monisha decided to roll the windows up enough that a head couldn’t fit in, and we cracked the front (netless) windows too.

There is good news though: it’s supposed to rain between this afternoon and tomorrow. So ideally, the rain comes down and washes away all the smoke, and we have beautiful clear views afterwards! Or at least something in that direction. Fingers crossed.

Oh and also, we saw an elk! That was cool!

Right now we’re at a cafe drinking a chai latte and escaping the smoke. In a few minutes, we’ll have lunch, head to our next campsite at Johnston Canyon, and go on another hike — hopefully in the rain!