Road
trips, especially big cross-continent ones, have a very different
flavour than trips where modern jet transports are used. A road
trip is much closer to what travel must
have been like in the old
days, where days are planned in getting to and from your destination.
I also enjoy the aspect of continuity, where you really feel just
how your little piece of the earth, your home, is connected to the
wild and exotic
terrain
of where your vacation takes you. In the case of this trip to various
points in the rocky mountains, I get to experience just how the flat,
moist, treed, and farmed Ottawa valley connects to the rugged, snowy,
glaciated and wild rocky mountains. In my mind I paint a little hop-to-hop
map: Ottawa to northern Ontario (flat-farmland to Canadian-shield-rocky),
northern Ontario to American midwest (to patriotic-flags-and-smooth-wide-interstates-and-small-town-america),
American midwest to "the old west" (endless-grassy-prairie-and
badlands-and-cowboy-trappings),
and finally to the rocky mountains. I find it interesting relating
my home town to distant lands in this way... and of course this isn't
really possible when you teleport from place to place on a jet.
The cast of characters for this particular trip numbered six: myself, Markus, Ewart, Peter (the G variety, not the K variety), Caroline, and Luc. quite a spread of ages this time, too, from 22 to 40. This was sure to provide lots of cross-generational banter....
The itinerary and general plan of this trip was this: leave Ottawa on July 17 and make our way west, through the U.S., to the Yellowstone/Grand Teton national parks region. From there, we'd make our way up through Montana to Waterton-Glacier park, and on up into the Canadian rockies (specifically Banff). The drive back would be on the trans-canada all the way back to Ottawa. The general focus of the trip was to do some backpacking and climb some cool mountains (aren't most of the trips that way, though?).
Markus
had decided on this trip to be more earnest and real-time about
recording the trip, and so he spent a lot of effort and time writing
a trip report as we went. As a result,
Markus'
report is huge and forms the centrepiece of his web presentation
regarding this trip. I'm not sure how this trip report will turn
out, but as I sit here now after the trip and write it, I am sure
that it will have a sufficiently different perspective to his. So,
even if you've just finished reading
Markus'
report, please read on.....
Others from the trip have also added their thoughts here and there, and, just as Markus has, I've incorporated them into this presentation. It is always interesting to compare peoples' views on situations and events.
