Put the hammer down,

cuz we're on the road to Regina!

We're currently at a Husky gas station in Calgary filling up for another eight hour day of driving. It's 9:30, meaning that we should be getting to our hotel at around 5:30 tonight, but it's not gonna be that bad - we've got a good radio station going, the sun is coming out, and I bought something that promises to provide hours of entertainment:

They really bring out my eyes, don't you think?

See you in Saskatch!

"This is like, never-ending beauty!" -Natalie Marinucci

Amen sister.

Once again, the magnificent mountain scenes between Kelowna and Calgary left us in awe. And despite having 184 pictures of them from round one, I felt the need to take more. Of course!

The eight hour drive today brought us through b-e-a-utiful Banff:


an hour traffic delay due to highway construction:


and thee CRAZIEST three-minute hail storm I have ever witnessed. Coming into Alberta, I honestly thought we were heading straight into a tornado - that, or an open fire of golf balls. Both are plausible.




That white spot in that picture is the trailer, as seen out the Flex windshield during this massive downpour!

But we made it out alive, and I'm looking forward to free waffles in the morning.

End Day 22.

On the road again!

Before I begin, you must know:

I am currently singing the theme song to George Shrinks as it plays on the TV in the background.

If this cartoon came after your time, it's a lovely little kids show that follows the adventures of a boy three inches tall, living with a normal family. Back in the days of elementary school, I watched this show all the time with my sisters before dinner on school nights. I still remember the lyrics 12 years later and I actually got giddy when I heard the music start just now. Not to mention that Babar just ended before it! AH! Lovely nostalgia. And in Kelowna, of all places!

That's where we be right now: Kelowna BC at the Sandman Hotel, our ELEVENTH hotel of the tour.

Now, time lapses don't make any appearances in writing, but in between "our" and "eleventh" in the sentence above, I paused a good three minutes to calculate exactly how many hotels we've lodged at: Sault Ste. Marie, to Thunder Bay, to Winnipeg, to Saskatoon, to Calgary, to Kelowna, to Langley, to Richmond, to Saanichton, to Victoria, and now back to Kelowna.

And in three days, we'll be in Winnipeg...

WHEW. That's a lot of Canada!

We've been really lucky with the weather over the past three weeks, but Kelowna trumps Canadian cities in terms of highest temperature. According to the weather network - and the beads of sweat that form instantaneously when you stop outside - it's 33 degrees. I know that doesn't compare to the heat waves that Toronto has seen lately, but that temperature mixed with the barren mountains surrounding this valley of a city makes it feel like we've landed in the middle of a desert!

It's only 5:30, so, naturally, the team has gone to find a beach oasis. But after the extremely limited amount of sleep we all got last night after galavanting about Victoria, I opted to stay behind and chill out here with some A/C and internet.

In other news, if you're starting to miss the Maple Lodge crew, never fear! We are beginning our trek back from the West coast! Today marks 21 days on the road, meaning that there are nine left!! It's hard to believe we're starting to wrap things up - (and I don't mean the kind with Thai chicken and lettuce.) We have two more events in Winnipeg this week on Thursday and Friday, but other than that it's nothin' but open road and spinnin' wheels. Word up from the floor up!

But for now, I must go devote my full attention to George and bask in my youth.

AND HEY, ART ATTACK JUST STARTED! Am I eight?

Love it.

Be Thrifty

Attention hungry customers.

Maple Lodge Farms is hosting a free lunch outside Thrifty’s today! They are sampling Thai, Cooked and Smoked Chicken wraps and came all the way from Ontario to bring them to you.

They’re here until 5:00, so get ‘em while you can!

You can also play PLINKO right outside the Grocery entrance to win come chicken hats and tattoos.

Their big truck is set up just outside the flower shop on the left hand side of the building.

Dinner, and other tales

Excuse me, but can you just take a little looksy at this picture?

Tell me that doesn't look absolutely EPIC.

This is a picture of dinner enjoyed in room 233. But no no, it was not ordered from an organic restaurant close by, nor was it room-serviced from the Denny's-type restaurant downstairs. Ladies and gentlemen, this salad - this beautiful work of culinary art - was hand-crafted by Kimberly Ivany.

After eating a year's worth of Thai chicken wraps within two weeks, nothing beats a fresh bowl of green bliss. Sure, I still topped it off with Salsalitta thighs, (another Maple Lodge Special Event team tradition) but those spicy chicken pieces mixed with the soft, sultry avocado chunks and crisp lettuce made for a perfect blend of YUM.

We've been on the road just under three weeks now and I, just like my chicken mates, have been missing the goodness of home-cooked meals. But dinner tonight definitely hit the spot.

You may be more interested however, in where I purchased my salad supplies today.

After departing "Quality Inn Waddling Dog" this morning, we had a few hours to kill before check-in time at our next hotel in Victoria. We got some gas for the truck, did a site-check at Thrifty's in preparation for our event there tomorrow, and also made a stop at good ol' Wal-Mart for some groceries...

Turns out, we went shopping inside the LARGEST Wal-Mart in all of Canada. HA!

After entering through the automatic doors, passed the layers of candy-dispenser machines in the lobby, we stood there in awe as a chorus of angels were heard above us singing "AWWWWWWW."

No. That didn't happen. But we DID stand there with our jaws wide open in amazement.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to illustrate this portion of my bloggity-blog post with, but picture it in your mind: there were aisles upon AISLES stocked with everything you have ever seen on this earth. It was deep, wide and multi-storied, complete with escalators with a special lane for shopping carts!! They should honestly rename this place "Wal-Mall" because it was just that grand! Consumerism has come a long way since I was your age, kid.

Shortly after, with bean sprouts and body wash in my plastic bag, we made our way to the Comfort Hotel and Conference Centre, hotel number nine...or is it hotel number ten? 11 maybe? Ah, life on the road.

It was only 3:00 at this point, so we decided to press our luck and see if we could find another beach, just warmer, sandier and sun-tannier this time.

Oak Bay, Victoria was where it was at.

There's really something magical about standing on the edge of an ocean. Except for the odd boat or cloud floating by, the scene one sees while standing there on the sand generally never changes: just a very static blue sky and the constant, gentle, pulsing waves.

But no matter how long you look at this beautiful landscape, I don't think you can truly grasp it to your satisfaction. At least I can't. The colours are too vibrant for me to take in. The spread of the water is to wide for me to comprehend. And the mountains on the horizon??? I wanted to somehow hold up a piece of wax paper right there on the beach and trace them.


I've said it before, but it really is so beautiful here. Not just British Columbia, but all of Canada! We've seen so many amazing things on this road adventure of ours, and taken albums worth of pictures of all of it. But most importantly, I know we've all experienced moments that define summer.

Yes.


And now, to balance out the goodness of lettuce and peppers I just devoured, I've switched to double-stuffed oreos. They were part of Mike's purchases at Wal-Mart, but he's watching The Sixth Sense right now so I'm sure I can get away with eating one....or five.

Hmmmmmmm life. Ain't it tasty?!

West coast represent

What better way to spend an afternoon on an island than on the edge of Canada?

I know, you can't find an answer. Neither could we, so after our lunch event today we took the Flex and ventured to the beach.

There we stood, right there beside the blue-green pacific water.

There was sand laying below us, rocks and logs scattered around us, and a vast blue spread of sky above us. We stood there and breathed in gusts of mountain-fresh air. And not the Febreeze kind. This is the real deal people: boundless blows of wind coming from the depths of the pockets of earth around us, echoing amidst the mountains on the horizon.

Yes indeed, the perfect place to spend an afternoon......had these boundless blows of echoing wind not been FREEZING cold!!

Truthfully, we arrived dressed to the nines in beach attire ready for a day of sandy relaxation, but were forced back into the Flex ten minutes later on account of goosebumps.

BUT! Back at the hotel, we improvised a new plan.

It wasn't any comparison to sand, but the chrome on top of the Showtruck acted as a great sun conductor! I'm back in my Scottish chamber now and I'm already feelin' the burn.

In other news, there's still a week and a half left until we're back at ye olde Lodge, but today (before our sun bath) we hosted our last Head Office event at Thrifty's. It was event number seven and definitely earned the title of BEST EVENT of the summer tour so far!

All our customers were so friendly and excited to see us at their own office. We were complimented so many times on the trailer, our service, the food, and Plinko turned all the middle-aged employees into a group of wide-eyed kids excited to win some STUFF!


We were serving Thai wraps again today, but also Ultimate Chicken Dogs and Salsalitta Chicken Thighs on a bun.


Never tried 'em? Well, our chicken dogs speak for themselves. (Or at least they would if the chickens were still alive, so I'll tell you about them now.) They are our biggest hot dog, delightfully juicy, and contain no MSG. Mmmmmm hm!

As for our Salsalitta thighs, they are boneless, skinless, and pre-marinated so you get that spicy mexican flavour without lifting a finger. It's a fiesta every time!

The cool thing about this particular event was that our Ultimates and Salsalittas are unlisted in Thrifty's stores, meaning that you can't buy them at Thrifty's because they don't carry the product - yet. Our goal today was to encourage our customers to take interest in our product within their own store.

It will take a little while to find out if we succeeded, but from what we heard, everyone really enjoyed the food and thanked us countless times for making the trek out west from Ontario.




It was a great day for promotion and it felt so great to be appreciated for doing so! We definitley agreed with Natalie when she said that people on the West coast are just more laid back.

...much like John the Fifth, the Waddling Dog himself!!!!!!


Yep. 'Twas a lovely day on the island :)

Now put cha hands up!

From chickens, to whales to waddling dogs

I know what you're thinking:

"?"

But let me tell you. We've come to the end of Day 18 of our road trip and despite their distant/non-existent similarities, that trio of animals sums up today's adventure.

First we have the chicken, which of course made an appearance at our sixth event at Thrifty Foods in the Cooked, Smoked, and Thai form. After our day off yesterday, we were back in action this afternoon in the community of Tsawwassen (pronounced "Ta-wa-sen") serving at a grocery store that turned out to be much busier than we expected.

While serving up a storm, we also saw the chicken in the form of folded paper both outside Thrifty's...






and inside!


These guys worked all day with those on!

All the employees we talked to were definitely SO enthusiastic and interested in what we were doing. It was a great ending to our last event on the Mainland before heading to Victoria.

Which brings me to the next animal that illustrates the story of today: whales.

YES, although short, Willy made a sweet appearance while we were on the ferry. It was actually like we were experiencing a bomb scare or something when the announcement came on the intercom system, telling everyone to move to the front of the boat to see them. We all dashed northward on the sun deck like we were running for our lives!

The boatride took about 1.5 hours and the view was absolutely amazing the whole time. So much sky, so much water, truly a sight for the Discovery channel! We were worried about the truck bottoming out while driving on and off the ferry, (an occurence when the bottom of the trailer scrapes the ground), but luckily the terrain was flat enough for a really smooth entrance and exit...like how Frank Sinatra would do it, really.





And to our surprise, the day ended with a waddling dog.

If you can believe it, the hotel we are lodging at tonight and tomorrow is called "Quality Inn Waddling Dog," located in Saanichton (about 15 minutes from the ferry terminal). The rooms are decked out with wooden pannels, fat lamps, and brass bed posts creating a very rustic Scottish feel.


It also features a wireless internet network called "FatPort," as well as many paintings and photographs of a weiner dog. Apparently, this dog LIVES and roams - I mean, waddles - around the main level of the hotel.

There have been no live sightings yet, but I'm not worried. We are guaranteed to see a dog tomorrow.

...if not in the lobby, then on the BBQ. We're at Thrifty's head office in the morning and I hear it's going to be Ultimate.

So with a cluck, a wOoaaaaaaaHhHHhHhwwoaaaaaaaaaa, and a bark - (at least that's how Josh thinks a whale sounds like) - I bid thee goodnight from the west side!

Peace.