The Falls

It was a challenge trying to get a shot and view of the Falls unless you were staying at the Hilton where you have a very nice view from the upper floors. You can also take the Maid of the Mist boat that will take you under the falls.
We had the wedding dinner at the exquisite Skylon Tower restaurant. We were able to see the Falls in full from the restaurant- finally! Derek took these stunning pictures before the sun went down. We had a wonderful time at the restaurant and also enjoyed the top view deck where you could see all the way to Toronto.
The service, food and atmosphere were top notch!

We did make it past Northern Ontario

It has been a busy month or so since we landed! We had a few bumps in the road on our way to Niagara Falls. We just made it to Niagara Falls the night before the wedding. It was so nice for us to re-connect with our family and also we had a great time meeting all of our new family and friends! Derek and I have never explored the Niagara region. It's a spectacular place with fun for the whole family. We stayed at the Jellystone National Park which was pleasant and about 10 minutes from downtown.
The wedding was perfect! Thanks Mark and Robin!

Amythest and Moose

I asked the KOA lady which mine would be the best for us to get to. I know the Panorama Mine is quite difficult to get to unless you have a 4X4. We didn't want to unhook our tow vehicle if we didn't have to so she suggested Blue Point. The woman said how it was only a few miles off of the HWY and we could take our bus and park right at the mine. Those are words you would hope to trust coming from a camp host that saw our unit. This has happened to us many times now..."of course your bus will fit in our driveway" "Of course it will make it up a 4X4 dirt/mountain road". Sure enough the bus has made it up most roads, with some exceptions!
We found our destination road outside of Thunder Bay by about an hour. We made it onto the road and then it turned into a 1 lane dirt road that wasn't very well kept. We met a double loaded logging truck on the road, and lucky for us it was at a corner where it was just wide enough to pass! Whew! It was a very long 5 miles down the road. Once we got to the mine there was a huge turnaround that the fellow built. He directed us into the mine and we met some very nice miners. We worked for a short period of time collected our rocks and scrubbed the dirt off and we were on our way!
As we were heading down the HWY. Derek shouted "Moose". I didn't see it until we were right in front of them! It was a family Mama and 2 babies! They were just walking to cross the HWY and we were doing about 90!! With a trucker behind us following really close! Derek honked our horn as much as he could and started the braking process! Its a good thing the Mama Moose saw us at the last minute and decided to run the other way! You can tell in the picture how close we were to an unfortunate encounter.
On the same strech of HWY Derek saw a Wolf and we saw another male Moose but this time he was standing in some lake off of the road!

Ontario!

It always seems like a milestone when you reach the Ontario border. It will still take us 2 days to get to southern Ontario though! The roads until this point were a pleasure to drive. The roads get so bad from the weather up north and are very hard to maintain. We lost a lot of time during the construction stops.It was very scenic on the way to Thunder Bay! We stayed at the local KOA for the night and we headed off in the morning to the Amethyst Mines.

Oak Lake to Falcon Lake

Falcon Lake was a spot that we found by accident when we drove across 3 years ago. We were driving late at night and found this park to pull over at. When we woke up we couldn't believe our eyes! It's a Provincial Park with everything you could possibly need to stay content. The bakery has the most delicious cheese bread I have ever tasted. As you can see by the pictures, it's a beautiful lake! If you don't feel like camping out in the very well priced park, you can stay at one of the many resorts or try out your golfing at the local course!

Oak Lake Manitoba

It's a good thing we were able to avoid the storm that came and went in Manitoba. When we found the small town of Oak Lake it was actually past the official Oak Lake campground. Our maps sent us into this small town where the main roads were closed off due to flooding. The signage for the Oak Lake campground wasn't very clear off of the HWY. We turned around in the small town and headed back where the GPS said we should have gone. (thank-you Iphone!)
Oak Lake was a treasure to be found! The campground was also partially under water so the attendant put us in the most private site.
As you can see Oak Lake is a big, beautiful lake. There is a fairly new golf course down the road. The restaurant at the golf course was one of the worst dining experiences ever! We made up for it with a sunset stroll later in the evening.

Saskatoon

Sorry about the delay in posting..We are actually in Montreal this weekend(pictures to come)
Back to where I left off from Edmonton to Saskatoon!
This is when the scenery became a little less interesting than the first part of the trip.
We pulled into Saskatoon 16 West RV Park on Friday night. We made it in time to check out a friend Micheal Lander play at Mcnally Robinson Bookstore.(the picture shown) Luckily they knew we were coming and reserved us a seat for us as the place was packed. We enjoyed some of the delicious menu items and a frosty beverage. I would give this quaint restaurant/bookstore 5 out of 5 stars overall.

After the show we stopped in to see Micheal's music teaching school called 12 String Studio(www.12stringstudios.com). Then we went on to check out the dueling piano's downtown Saskatoon. Derek and I saw Nickleback's 15 Prevost busses while parking and wiped the drool off our lips and made our way to the Staqato bar. The piano players accept tips, but if you want to hear some of the most requested songs like Mustang Sally and those types of songs you will be dropping $50 bill in the tip jar! ( I think that's great!)
We heard that a really bad storm was coming our way so we decided to stay an extra day in Saskatoon. We had a mellow 2nd night and watched movies as the rain came down sideways for hours on end. Half of the RV park was under water when we left.

Here is a picture of me in the drivers seat-driving the bus-. It was only for a few minutes but yes I did it. Do you like my white knuckles?

Edmonton.....

We arrived in Edmonton and booked into a campground. It's called Shakers Acres. We decided to call it Shady Acres! Many little rodents were burrowing in the ground everywhere and the view was of an oil rig pump. I guess it could be worse though!
Rather than hang out at the campground we wanted to check out the West Edmonton Mall. We took many pictures but I liked this one the best!

That day Derek noticed a fuel leak. We drove over to Fraserway RV in the tow vehicle to see if we could source a mechanic. They mentioned a place called Buses 'R' Us. We made an appointment with them by saying we were passing through town. Otherwise, we might have had to wait a while...Buses 'R' us replaced a fuel line for us early morning and we were on our way to Saskatoon by the afternoon.

Jasper-Magnificant!

The first picture is of a beautiful rest stop area where Terry Fox has a monument. It was a quick Bus maneuver to pull over that last minute off of the HWY! We all needed a stretch and to get a pic of this spot! This was another area we thought we could easily spend more time.

It was a relief to see the booth for Jasper Provincial Park. We were greeted by a very friendly park attendant woman that said "This is the coolest rig I have seen all day, you get to park here for free"! It's only usually around $20 to park but that made us feel great with such a warm welcome to this spectacular park!
We pulled over right on the main drag in Jasper. Surrounded by mountains we left all of our curtains open and soaked in the scenery. We didn't want to stay in a campground that night as most of them were off of the main route. So, we lit some candles and ordered some Italian Food to go. We went to Cassios(www.cassios.ca). It is a very nice restaurant and our server was excellent.
While we were enjoying our dinner and some drinks back at the bus, an enormous moose came galloping down the sidewalk right beside the bus. It looked a little bewildered and was going too fast to get a picture.It was funny!

Runaway Lane on HWY 24

Our first day of heading east down HWY 24 from 100 Mile House to HWY 5. The first picture I took as we were going down was of the runaway lane. It was such a dramatic angle that I thought it was worth capturing. I know how fortunate I was feeling to not know what going up one of those was like!


The next picture was of the bus on the runaway lane! This is something you wouldn't experience(most unlikely to experience)if you have a "Jake Brake". Which we don't. We have "smoked" the brakes before on Duffy Lake Road (11% grade down)between Lillooet BC and Pemberton. I would say the view was worth it though!

Just before the Yellowhead, HWY 24 has an 8% grade down for 10 kilometers. We started off slow at the top of the hill. By the time we were halfway Derek was practically standing on the brake pedal and looked to me and said " the brakes are not responding!" I was trying to rationalize why the tires sounded like they were going over bumps and weren't actually going over bumps! Those noises were the brakes. The smell of smoking brakes was filling the bus and we were headed for the runaway lane.

The biggest fear for me was the unknown..I had never been or wanted to be on one of these lanes I read about in Air Brakes class. We went over the large bump between the HWY and the dirt lane and headed up almost halfway to the top and rolled backwards until we stopped naturally where you see us in the picture.
I went out and blocked the wheels of the bus. We then took the tow vehicle off the bus and waited for about 2 hours until the brakes cooled down.
The maintenance guy we saw taking care of the many lanes on the HWY said that it happens quite often on the HWY 24 and he will see about 1 Tractor Trailer per week flipped over in the ditch.
Once we made it down the rest of the HWY it was smooth sailing from there! Here we come Jasper!

Truck painting weekend

The guys took the opportunity to paint my old truck(the two tone truck you see here) to flat black. The weather wasn't very co-operative. It actually was snowing for a bit in 100 mile.

After a shuffle around from the local 100 Mile mechanics, Cariboo Truck and Equipment squeezed us into a later afternoon appointment. They were finished by the end of the day. I believe it was Dale that repaired the air throttle and the air cylinder. We thanked him and took Gladys out for a test drive. It went so well except we took off her oil skirt going around a turnaround. We picked up the pieces and went back to the property to get ready for departure in the morning.

Campfire 100 Mile House

Here's a few artistic fire pictures taken by Derek. It's the family around the fire-pit.....

We were unable to book into a mechanic's on the Friday before the long weekend. We made an appointment for Tuesday morning....

100 Mile onwards!

While we were driving Derek and I noticed a strange noise coming from the throttle. Sounding like an air leak.
Our bus has air brakes so we know that this could be a problem. It actually sounded really annoying and we had to turn the music up really loud to drown it out. It was a whistling noise but not in a good way. It's a warning so it's good we noticed it.
This means we have to hit a repair shop and it's the Thursday evening before the long weekend! Good Luck to us!

Fraser Canyon - May 20

Were on the road! Yeah! Here's some pictures of beautiful BC's Fraser Canyon.

HWY 97 offers some breath taking scenery and a vast, ever changing landscape. From the rain-forest of the west coast to the desert of the interior.

We are on our way to the family property for a last weekend with the folks!

Fort Langley to 100 Mile House

This is a freshly washed Gladys and 4 runner before our departure at Fort Camping! (in Fort Langley)

The night before we left there was many things to take care of. One thing that was extremely fun
was my going away party from The Railway Club staff! I must admit that I have never felt so appreciated and loved from a workplace. Thanks to all of you! The flowers BTW have been riding in the bath tub safe and sound!

Departure From Lower Mainland...

Welcome to the first Blog about our adventures in Gladys the bus! This is Gladys she is a 1971 Flyer coach that was originally a transit bus from Calgary (#541)then she moved to Vancouver for Expo 86'.
Since then she was converted to a motorhome and has been on many adventures ever since.
Derek and I purchased Gladys in 2007 and have been full time RV'ers for 3 years now.

We hope you enjoy our adventures with us! Stay tuned!