August 21st

10am: We overnighted in Spokane, Washington. In the morning we headed down to Atticus Coffee in the downtown & had a splendid breakfast &then set out to find the famous Mary Lou's Milk Bottle cafe - it was closed, but looked very neat. I think it was nominated in the 50 or so most kitschy American roadside attractions.Didn't have a great deal of time to form an impression of Spokane, but as we drove out we both said almost simultaneously - lets come back here again & explore. Have already been to Couer D'Alene just a few miles up the i90 in Idaho & liked it, Sandpoint which is on the road back up to Canada looks charming as well. I can see a week being spent down here next year. It's about 5 hours drive from Canmore, not excessive by Canadian/US standards. Again the drive back up through the Idaho panhandle was eye opening in places - a stronghold of the Aryan Nation - we kept spotting potential members, including a family that had stopped just by the roadside in Hayden that ticked all the boxes when it came to stereotypical, backwoods White trash!! We were glad to get over the border in super quick time, sad to leave this beautiful part of the US behind us & flabbergasted to see the mercury steadily plummeting as we headed back home.

May 9th

3pm: So here we are at a surprisingly quiet Rogers Pass, high up in the mountains on our way back from Kelowna - its been a nice drive, kids well behaved & conditions good. Rogers Pass is a treacherous thoroughfare during the snowy months as avalanches tear down the steep slopes either side of the road - in the summer it is home to hordes of ground squirrels like the chap above, posing for photos, basking in the sun & eating food offered by the coachloads of tourists who pass this way.

May 7th

9am: On my way from Kelowna up to meet some customers in Armstrong, the weather forecast was calling for thunderstorms & this impressive stack was brewing in the north west beyond the little town of Oyama in the foreground. the storms didn't transpire though & by the time I got back to Kelowna in the evening we had time for a nice dinner at the sushi place on the main drag through town. The kids ended up playing in the little park on the lakefront downtown, but they were exhausted - a result of sharing the sofa bed & the chaos that this entailed.

May 6th

2pm: I stopped in Revelstoke on the way down to Armstrong where i was meeting a customer, Revelstoke in bout 3 hours west of Canmore. It seems like a nice place, certainly in the sun & greenery it was more inviting than back home - which was cold & even a bit snowy when we left. Another 2 hours to Armstrong from here. It was election day back home I kept fully upto date with the dramatic events via twitter!!

May 5th

11pm: Off to BC tomorrow for work, it's a 5 hour drive over the Rockies & away from snow & frost - the weather forecast isn't great but compared to here it's positively tropical!!

March 19th

4pm: Smokey the Bear, just on the outskirts of Revelstoke, BC. A beautiful but tiring drive back over Rogers Pass & home to Canmore. Smokey can be found guarding a campground near Revelstoke, he's a pretty impressive beast, even if he has been used for target practise by local egg chuckers by the looks of it.