The Roe River

We had a short drive from Milk River, AB to Belt, MT and made a pit-stop in Great Falls, a half an hour away from our destination. Our plan had been to get some lunch and let our homestay know that we would be there soon, BUT, we couldn't reach our homestay so we had to kill some time and I knew just the thing.

Getting Mandy to do this thing took some convincing, but hey, I'm persistent and it's better than doing nothing. We drove to the world's shortest river. That's right! According to the Guinness World Records, the shortest river in the world is in Great Falls, MT. Now, this has been debated, is held in contention and the Guinness World Records hasn't listed a shortest river since 2006, but semantics!

The Roe River in Giant Springs State Park is just 201 feet long. You'd have to walk it 26.268 times to walk just one mile!

Me and the ENTIRE Roe River

The Roe River flows into the Missouri River which is the largest river in North America, so it's pretty cool to see. We walked along the Missouri River for a bit until our homestay called us and it was time to get to Belt, which is where we are now!

Hoodoo You Think You Are?

We decided that we should spend our final day in Milk River adventuring so this afternoon, we drove back out to Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park for a hike.

Who wouldn't want to go here?

Even though we had climbed all over the hoodoos on Tuesday, we hadn't gotten to hike any of the trails or see any of the petroglyphs, so this was perfect. When we drove back in, I was overwhelmed again by just how incredible this place is. This isn't the type of place people dream about visiting, but it should be.

It's just glorious.

The hike on the Hoodoo Trail to "The Battle Scene" was 2.7 km according the sign and for once, we actually started walking in the correct direction! I don't think that has ever happened to us. Along our walk, we heard someone singing Christina Perri's Jar of Hearts, which inspired the name of this post "Hoodoo you think you are." Clever word play! 10 points to the random stranger walking the opposite direction of us!

Hoodoos are also known as fairy chimneys and I am moving into one. A) Because I love them and B) because that is the coolest name ever and it's an awesome mental picture. 

Circle of life

This hike was not a straight forward one -- walking across windswept rocks rarely is (or is it? I don't know, but this serious climb). Along the hike, we saw lots of cool things (including deer that jumped out and surprised us on our walk back), but we also saw this something that appears to be a jaw, which I thought was neat and Mandy thought was gross. 

We took a small detour on our way to "The Battle Scene" to go to a viewpoint. The viewpoint was beautiful but after the long, windy trek to the top, we realized that we could have driven up there. Not the point, because I like walking, but that's just the way these things always work out.

After that, we walked out to the Battle Scene, which is where the petroglyphs are. Now, my photo of the petroglyphs didn't really work out because they're pretty faint, but I did take a picture of the sign!

After we were done with our hike, it was back to Milk River for some homemade noodles for dinner! Noodles! That were made at home! So good. Excited to be back in the States tomorrow

With great power comes great responsibility. I won't say that a selfie stick is great power, but I will say that we definitely aren't responsible enough to have one.

Canadian Vanilla, Eh

We found Canadian ice cream!!! It was literally called Canadian vanilla, eh and you cut open the box to reveal the maple leaf. It was good.

Writing-on-Stone

Milk River is 42 kilometers away from Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park (it's a Provincial Park because up here in Canada, they have provinces instead of states!) so last night, our homestay drove us out there to do some exploring.

I do mean, last night, by the way. We didn't leave until like 5:30, because it feels like the sun never sets here (ok, it does -- somewhere between 8:30 and 9).

It's called Writing-On-Stone because it contains the largest concentration of First Nation (Native Canadian) petroglyphs and pictographs on the great plains of North America, but we didn't get to see those. They're on the other side of the park. For us, Writing-on-Stone was more like Walking-on-Stone, because we climbed all over these monster rocks.

But first, let me take a selfie (stick).

The stones here are hoodoos like what we saw in Banff and Medicine Rock but there are a lot of them, very close together. They make the hoodoos in Banff look like absolutely nothing (not that that's very hard since the hoodoos in Banff weren't very impressive anyways, it was the hiking that was great). As part of our adventure, our homestay not only gave us a lift to the park, she also let us borrow her selfie stick, which we had a lot of fun with (it would actually be great for us since we go so many places but never have anyone to take pictures of us, even though it seems a bit pretentious).

We climbed from the parking lot at the bottom up to the (closed) visitor center at the top so get a view of the whole place. After that, our homestay left us to explore and went back down to the car. Explore we did. We climbed all over these things. The only writing we actually saw was some unfortunate graffiti (which, if reported, can cost a vandal $50,000 and a year in jail!) but we did get to learn about the First Nation culture when we were at the visitor center. Like I said before, Writing-on-Stone has the largest collection of First Nation petroglyphs and pictographs and is actually also called Áísínai'pi National Historic Site so getting to know the culture was cool as well.

We spent a long time climbing and getting lost (something we are very good at) until we made out way back down to the parking lot. Where we discovered that our homestay was not waiting for us like she said she would be; her car was there, but she was not. As Mandy freaked out (for the sake of the camera) about our dilemma, I read more about the First Nation and about how their creation story involves a muskrat creating the world.

I wouldn't mind going back for another hike if time allows it but if not, this was definitely another successful adventure!

Dinosaur Update

The T-Rex statue in Milk River is named Tyrone and is a 3/4 scale replica of a T-Rex.

The more you know!

Milk River, AB

Back in Canada, eh? Yes, indeed, we are. We've only got to cross the borders a few more times now (back to the States, back to Canada and then one more time).

I don't even like coffee.

Yesterday was drive day, which wasn't very exciting except that we drove through Circle, MT. Ok, Circle, MT wasn't particularly exciting either but it is notable because the closest Starbucks is 192 miles away and that makes it the furthest you can be from a Starbucks in the continental United States and that's pretty cool in it's own strange way.

This week, we are in Milk River, AB, a place we have driven past many times by now and have been waiting for for a very long time. We have been waiting for Milk River because *drum roll* they have a dinosaur statue. A giant dinosaur statue that you can see from the highway. And you know how we feel about giant roadside attractions. Avid blog readers might remember that Mandy wanted to stop here the first time we drove past it and that I nixed that idea since we would be here for a whole week. 

We walked through town today to see the sites and finally meet the dinosaur statue up close and personal. While walking through town, we stopped at town hall to look for postcards (which we found -- they have the dinosaur statue on them) and they gave us town pins! We got pins in Kyle, SK and Milk River's pins are adorable as well. It didn't come with any explanation, which would have been nice. I want to know what "Under 8 Flags" means. I also want to know why they wouldn't check the grammar before making these pins, but oh well.

Fingers crossed that the awesome weather keeps up -- it's supposed to be 20 degrees tomorrow (degrees Celsius that is, I need to turn my Canada brain back on!).

Today, we took our homestay's dog, Tank, for a walk, except they didn't have a leash, they had a piece of rope and since I didn't want to get rope burn, this happened.

Very soon, I will no longer be a mermaid, but a genie. I just got some fantastic information about my upcoming tour and I'll be doing Aladdin! Still lacking a lot of the details, but I know that I will be starting a very long drive on June 4th from Missoula to Talladega, Alabama for my first summer residency.

Yup, Canada in the winter and Alabama in the summer. Go figure.

Another Pin for the Map

So, my Where I've Been pin map is one of my greatest loves in this life and I'll be getting to add plenty of pins from the past few months and normally I wouldn't add a pin for somewhere I just drove through, but this pin will be a little different. Because this pin is going in North Dakota. For those of you just joining us, my entire tour is scheduled to be in Montana and Canada, which are not North Dakota.

We are in Lambert, MT this week and after our week in Ekalaka, we had some serious stocking up that we needed to do. Except that the closest Walmart or Target or anything was in Williston, ND. So, we went with the logical answer: we would drive out of Montana on our way back to Montana, because why not?

In planning our trip, we really wanted to make the most of it since it would be the only time we would go out of Montana into another US state during this tour and since I returned from LA, I have compiled a pretty epic list that lists all of Buzzfeed's suggested US destinations from coffee shops to ice cream parlors to burger joints and when I went to see if there were any ND hot spots, North Dakota wasn't even on it! Let me reiterate, this list is 17 pages long and there is not a single entry for North Dakota. When I told Mandy this, she said, "Is North Dakota even a state?!" And no, apparently, it is not! Although this article is from 2011 and ND is without a doubt a state now, they technically didn't meet the requirements for statehood in the 122 years since they "became a state" in 1889.

This was actually our shortest drive in a while -- even with our detour! It was actually quite nice. Of course we had to stop for a photo op when we crossed the border!

Our destination was the Super Walmart in Williston, ND. I can now officially say that I drove to North Dakota to go to Walmart (although why I would have to officially say it, I do not know). Found pretty much everything I was looking for at Walmart, except a post card. Williston failed me there! No North Dakota post cards for me (maybe my next tour will take me back to Williston, who knows?!). I might not have gotten a postcard, but like I said, I will put a pin on the map (because this story is just too good).

Mandy found even more than she had planned on when she found Rice Krispies Treats Treats Cereal. She has been talking about this stuff since we started the tour and all it took was a drive to North Dakota. It was apparently her entire childhood and I was clearly deprived since I've never had it. She says I HAVE to try it and I am seriously worried about what happens if I don't like it (she said she's going to request another tour partner). I'm not seriously worried because I do like Rice Krispies and Rice Krispies treats and writing about them is making me hungry, but this is a very serious issue.

We got lunch in North Dakota as well and then it was time to head back to our temporarily adopted home state. Now we're in Lambert and I don't have any cell reception, which is AWFUL (I spent weeks in Canada and was totally fine and now that I can use my phone without a care in the States, it goes out on me). The moral of the story is that you know you're in the middle of nowhere when the closest thing resembling civilization is in North Dakota.

It isn't real without a selfie.

Every week, we call the home office to give them an update of how we're doing and what's going on in general and the very last thing they do is ask us a question of the week. Sometimes these questions are pretty straight forward, like What is your favorite movie? and then sometimes, they get sort of weird. This week's question was, "If your tour partner was a baby animal, what would animal would they be and what would be their name?"

Well, Mandy's answer for me was pretty obvious. I would be a kitten and I would have some type of pun-related name (She went with Caterine. Should have been Holden Pawfield or Catticus Finch... just saying). I said that Mandy, with her tremendous love of Lady Gaga, would be a baby monster and that her name would be Boo.

After we hung up the phone, I decided I wanted to draw Mandy as Boo and she decided that she would draw me as a cat and here are the results. *Please note, we are holding the other person's drawing of us and not our personal drawing.

A Quick PSA

I feel like I should mention that Mandy went for a run on Sunday and saw so many wild rabbits that she thought Ekalaka had released bunnies for Easter.

PSA Rabbits are not just pets, people!

Medicine Rocks

Or Rock with a hole in it as the Sioux call them. Well, they have another word "Inyan-oka-la-ka" but it translates to rock with a hole in it.

Before we get to the rocks, can I say how happy I am that it is spring? We've driven past thousands of cow(s) since we left Missoula, but now it's calf season and there are baby cows EVERYWHERE! They're so cute! It just makes me happy.

Now, back to the rocks.

Actually, I'm going to take another second to bemoan the loss of my camera. Whyyyyyy?! A picture can't quite capture just how beautiful these places are, but it is way better than my phone. My phone is trying its hardest, but still.

 The Medicine Rocks were created by a river that built up thick sandbars. This was 61.5 million years ago, of course. After the river was gone, the sandbars remained and now the wind has eroded them into these incredible, textured formations that do, indeed, have holes in them.

These pillars are similar to the hoodoos we saw in Banff except there were more, they were bigger and we were closer. Like, standing on top of them close. Theodore Roosevelt said that Medicine Rocks was "as fantastically beautiful a place as I have ever seen" and if it works for him, it works for me. (Also, I'm really glad that he used the word "fantastically" as well because it is one of my favorites).

According to the signs we passed, you can see fossilized remains from when there was a river and Native American rock art but we didn't see any of those things. We did see bunnies and graffiti. Bunnies I like; graffiti not so much. Who does that? I mean, technically you could argue that the Native Americans did, but not when it was their home and not a landmark! Ugh, I hate it.

It was a blustery morning, but we had a really nice hike. Our shoes were way better equipped for the sandy paths here than the snowy ones at Lake Louise, although I was confused by these sandy paths in Montana. I normally don't associate the two. Mandy says that this is what the beaches are like in Texas -- minus the giant rock structures of course.

On our way back into town, we stopped for a photo-op, because, like I said, this town has a sign with a dinosaur and a palm tree on it and seeing is believing.

Thanks, Ekalaka. Happy to be here.

Back in the States

Hello from America!

We crossed the border yesterday afternoon and spent the night in Great Falls, MT, but now we've made it to our real destination: Ekalaka, MT.

First impression of Ekalaka, there is a sign with a dinosaur and a palm tree on it. This week will be awesome!

A Rocky Mountain Moment

I climbed a mountain today. My feet took me to the legitimate summit of a mountain.

We've been walking different trails every day this week, but today we went for the most popular in Banff: Tunnel Mountain. We are staying in the Tunnel Mountain District, because apparently a mountain can also be a district. We got a map from the hostel but it wasn't a great map and we ended up going on a pre-hike on a very different, curvy, confusing trail. The only reason we turned back on this trail was because we reached a point where it was entirely blocked off by trees. I think the hostel needs some new maps. At this point, however, we didn't even realize that we'd been on a different trail, so we decided to keep walking to where we knew the road would meet up with another trail that would take us downtown and this was how we found the real trail!

The sign did not lie. Breathtaking.

This real trail definitely got more love, it actually had signs that said "Take it easy on the mountain" (which we misread as "Take it easy, mountain," seriously take a chill pill, ya giant hunk of rock!). It was a long walk to the top, but definitely worth it. As we rounded the corner to get to the summit, there was a sign to give you facts about the mountain (it's 1,692 meters tall), but it said "If you think you are short of break now [I was], just wait until you get around the corner -- the view is breathtaking! ... Life goes by at a frantic pace. Embrace this moment for yourself and share it with those around you. Savour this rocky mountain moment." I thought that was a really perfect way of describing not only my hike but also my trip.

It's all pretty incredible, right?

What isn't incredible is that my camera is officially broken again. I am in the market for a new lens, but at least it waited until after I'd gotten a few photos from the top of the mountain I climbed before it quit again. Very considerate of it. I'm obviously super disappointed by this because I still have lots of cool things to see, but at least I know what's wrong because then I can fix it... even if it takes a while.

And now, I'll leave you on a more positive note:

This is definitely a rocky mountain moment.

Water Everywhere

My life is officially cooler than yours. Sorry, I said it, but it's true.

We went for a hike to Bow Falls, although I'm not sure it is really hiking when you're on a paved walkway. Water is the coolest, ya know? Water doesn't care if there are rocks in the way -- water doesn't just go around those rocks, it makes the rocks move for them. Water destroys rock! Water is so hard core that it can't even be a part of rocks-paper-scissors because it would annihilate everything! These were the thoughts I was having while I stood next to Bow Falls. It isn't necessarily the biggest waterfall -- not even the biggest waterfall we've seen this week -- but seriously, water is cool. 

It's also call that as we carry our bottles of water with us on these walks, we're like ten feet away from where they get it. Ok, so I'm currently drinking tap water but I am drinking that tap water out of a plastic bottle that once held natural spring water. Well, these are natural springs! This is exactly what they mean when they say natural spring water. Mandy and I actually had this conversation on Monday at Lake Louise when she asked me if I thought you could drink the water here but I forgot to blog about it. The answer is yes, you can drink the water here and you probably already are (after it has been filtered, but I'm being poetic so go with it).

After that, we got my camera fixed... temporarily. Apparently there is something wrong with the lens, but it is good for now -- thank you, kind gentleman at the Banff Photography store.

Now we get to what might be the most epic part of my day; the part that makes my life so much better than yours. We went to the Banff Upper Hot Springs.  A hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater from the Earth's crust (thanks again, Wikipedia) and the Banff Hot Springs is heated to 40 degrees Celsius and at an elevation of 5,200 ft (making it the highest in Canada). It is full of all sorts of minerals (sulfate, calcium, bicarbonate, magnesium and sodium), so, not only can water entirely destroy rock, it can be made stronger by them! Now, do you want to know what happened while we sat in naturally, super heated water while looking out at some freaking mountains? It started snowing! Snow is also water! Ahhh, my life is so cool!!!


After the hot springs, we got gussied up because we are kid-free and free to go out. We had a coupon for $2 off a pint at the Banff Ave. Brewing Co. and even though I don't love beer, I do love trying local stuff and coupons so I was game. I got the Pond Hockey Pale Ale (of course the Canadians would make a beer named after hockey). I can't tell you much about it since I don't know much about beer but I actually really did enjoy it. I know that honey and citrus was involved. I'm still not a converted beer drinker (and doubt I ever will be) but I do enjoy trying these things!

The Little Moomaid

We went back to Cow's today to see how it handled the milkshake test. Now, we saw even more cow puns, including a nod to Lady Gaga (or should I say Moo Moo) but this was the greatest by far.

I wish the shake had been as good as The Little Moomaid (or the Jonas Brudders or so many, many more). It was ok... But lacked a little something. Mandy said that it was a vanilla milkshake and it lacked a lot of everything but I think that it tasted more like milk than ice cream and that was disappointing. I still like their ice cream, a lot, but thankfully, there are more places I can get milkshakes before I leave Banff because I am not satisfied. 

For the record, Mandy did not get a milkshake at Cow's, so her commentary is pure speculation based mostly of her distain for my love of plain vanilla shakes without whipped cream and not on any hard (serve) ice cream based research.