West Coast - Day 1

Our first day of vacation was nothing more than a simple travel day, as we drove from Regina to Lethbridge. Sandra thinks that our trip sounds boring because all we did was drive to Lethbridge, but it is fairly difficult to drive 600 km from Regina and end up somewhere that isn't boring.

We started the day by packing up the Mazda, and I was quite pleasantly surprised by how much I could fit in the cargo carrier. We did not pack very light, but there isn't much stuff that is actually in the van. Almost all of it fits in the cargo carrier. After a few quick errands in Regina, we drove to Swift Current, where we stopped for lunch. I was a little bit depressed to see that there is still snow in some of the ditches along the Trans Canada. After lunch, Xander had a great time playing on the play structure in Burger King, but the room it was in was sauna like, and he was beet red when we finally got him out to the car.

After that, we drove to Lethbridge. This part of the trip was just a little bit too long, as the kids were ready to get out of the car around Medicine Hat, but we pushed on to Lethbridge. Xander had a lot of fun taking pictures with his camera as we travelled. He snapped a number of pictures of trains and kept trying to take pictures of various excavators we passed, but he was always too slow to get his camera out. At one point he told me that I had to slow down so that he could take a picture.


In Lethbridge, we had a bit of a scare, as the first hotel we tried was full, but the second one we asked had two available rooms. We moved into our room, checked the phone book and found the location of the Taco Bell in Lethbridge. We drove over to it, only to discover that it is now an Asian cuisine fast food restaurant, so we ended up eating supper at KFC. Oh well - there should be plenty of Taco Bells in the US.

After supper, we went back to the hotel and then went swimming. Xander and I went down the water slide, but only once, as the entire thing was covered, so it was pitch black inside, and it was extremely fast - too fast to control yourself at the end, so both Xander and I went underwater, which didn't impress him very much. After a little time in the water, Evan was ready for bed, so I took him back to our room while Xander and Sandra finished swimming. When they got back to the room, we finished watching the NASCAR All Star race and then went to bed.

Tomorrow we are heading down into Montana. I want to get close to Yellowstone, but that will depend on how willing the kids are to travel.