My blogs are like buses (you don't need me to finish that cliche do you?)

So I came to Canada and looked in a hole... but more about that later. Last Tuesday I packed my backpack and took a bus from Seattle to Vancouver. I had a bit of a nightmare crossing the USA/ Canada border, not only did the border guard mutter so badly I almost had to call in a translator, he also couldn't grasp that I was British but travelling from and back to America so he sent me off to a little room accompanied by another border officer. I sat on the little seats contemplating how it would feel to be deported when a woman called me over and asked every question she could think of. Twice. Satisfying her that I wasn't a threat to her country, I passed on (out the line I mean, not died) and continued on up to Vancouver. On arrival I was met by my aunties cousin and was shown around Vancouver. I was quite taken with the place, how it has a city, ocean, beaches and mountains with snow all rolled up together. After my tour we went to a Greek restuarant where I was served enough food to make the entire population of Ethiopa obese, then home. Now home to this couple is an isolated log cabin up Mount Seymour on a ski resort. The cabin has been used in movies due to its incredible location and being completely made of of wood. After getting settled in we went on a bear hunt (not to hunt just to view) in the forest surrounding their house. We looked for about half an hour but to no avail, yogi wasn't interested in being stared at. I did however, have the surreal experience of walking on snow wearing shorts and t shirt and naturally being me, put my foot through the snow and had to walk back with one wet foot.

My second day in vancouver was spent exploring the sights, I was struck by how many homeless people there were every where sleeping on the beaches. I wandered around did the tourist thing, sitting on the beach and looking in shops, again being jumped by over enthusiastic sales people. I couldn't believe how friendly the people were. I was twice stopped by people whilst crossing the road who chatted and wish me a pleasant day, one guy getting excited that I was British and asking what living in London was like. I always thought it was a stereotype that Americans and Canadians thought all English people lived in London, then I came here and I have been asked no less than 7 times how I enjoy living there.

In the evening we took kayaks out on the lake at Deep Cove and saw some fantastic views whilst ensuring my arms and legs would ache for the next 3 days.

Next stop Edmonton to visit an awesome old friend.

I saw Thursday in at 4:15am, a somewhat unearthly hour but I had to catch a bus from Vancouver to Edmonton. The thing I have discovered about being a lone traveller is that everyone wants to talk to you including an older lady, maybe in her 70's, in the queue for the bus at 5:30 am. Now i'm not much of a morning person and she wasn't much of a loud speaker, although a very persistent one so I nodded and smiled and willed the bus to come so I could escape. Bus arrived slightly late and I jumped on with my new best friend sitting across the aisle from me. Some while later after the bus broke down and we had to change to another one my old lady friend reappeared and enthusasitcally took the seat next to me. I tried everything to block her out including wearing headphones but no success. Using my only remaining defense mechanism I went to sleep so a response wasn't expected of me. About 12 hours into my 17 hour bus ride we made a stop and my lady got off and bought Chinese food which she kindly shared with me along with her life history. I actually warmed to her and realised she was just very lonely.

I eventually got into Edmonton at 1:00am on Friday morning. That evening me, Brett and a friend of hers took our hired car to head to Jasper National Park in the Rocky Mountains. As we had left late we didn't make it all the way that night so we stopped in Hinton to find somewhere to camp. The first site was full so we carried on down this long long dirt track in the dark following a sign for a group camp area. On arrival we found it to be a group site with 3 caravans parked up together. We spoke to a somewhat inebriated couple of guys who said they had hired the ground for a bunch of their family and friends but there was a little area for tents and we could pitch there for the night free of charge, then invited us to the party round the campfire they were having by the lake. The following morning we woke and left early in case in their beer fuelled state they hadn't really mean to let us stay and then we hit the road for Jasper. We found a spot, pitched our tent, using logs to hold the ropes down due to us forgetting a mallet to hammer the tent pegs into the hard ground, cooked porridge on the camp fire and headed out. We visited Pyramid lake, took a nap by the water and had a small hike then saw a bear in the trees by the road whilst driving to the next stop. We made a few more stops at various mountains and lakes, then hiked up Malign Canyon. Whilst looking over the edge of the bridge into the canyon below Catherine asked me to move so that other people could look in the hole. I quote "the HOLE", making that one of the biggest under-estimations anyone has uttered in my company. Following our hike we were somewhat warm and dirty and as we didn't have showers at our camp site we went to a swim in a slightly chilly mountain lake to wash.

In the evening we ate hotdogs and marshmallows made on our excellently built fire, then I had the privelage of watching the Northern Lights over the trees. After they had seemingly appeared on my request, no more than 10 minutes after I had said it would be fun if theywere out. They were sadly not in their vast colourful format but still an exciting end to my day.

My final few days in Edmonton involved chillng out and eating. Naturally. Wednesday evening, unable to face a repeat of the bus journey potentially involving more verbal diarrohea inflicted OAP's, I flew back to Seattle from Edmonton. This was a no less traumatising ordeal however, as I have now developed a complex, convinced i look like a drug dealing terrorist to border guards as once again I was ripped apart in customs, this time with them emptying my bag and even taking swabs of my luggage. I wondered if it was my slightly hippy looking image with bandana, backpack and the look of one who had recently gone 3 days without showering that made them think I had a stash of Pot in my bra. It later emerged that it was because I was travelling on single tickets so I couldn't prove I ever planned to leave the USA (I could have just told them that I wouldn't stay long because I can't live off fast food, watching shows with about 40 ad breaks in for long). Joking aside I didn't realise how serious it is not to carry your return tickets as they can in fact deny entry to the country. It would have been some very bad luck to travel over 1,000 miles with just a bunch of bus tickets and a bag for company with no incident then be denied entry to where I started. It looks like I narrowly escaped having the lead role in the follow up movie to Tom Hanks' The Terminal.