A Much Better Day

Today things got much better!

First, we arranged for a tow. Free this time instead of the $1,100 quote from yesterday.

Second, we started walking the 20 miles back to our car to meet the tow truck, and a nice fellow picked us up! We were there in no time!

Here's me walking through the rockies back to our car:

Third, The tow truck arrived and it was a nice mountain man who kept saying 'eh?' a lot. eh?

Fourth, and really the best part of my day, WE SAW A BEAR!!! We drove past a little black bear while we were in the cab of the tow truck. I think my elation was really strange to the driver, but he was nice enough about it.

Upon arriving at Watson lake(4 hour drive in the tow truck) the mechanics quickly told us that he could see a hole in our engine wall and a piston rod sticking out.

We were kind of luck though because this could have caused a fire or explosion!

He said that we would need a new engine and our car wasnt really worth the cost of replacing it. Considering that we bought the car for $850 I was quick to agree that a $4,000 repair was a little much. He said that if we wanted to sell the car, give the car away or even have it crushed we would have to pay the Canadian government import fees ranging from $300-$400.

We we dont really have the time to sit and wait on paperwork, find a buyer, etc. etc. So he said that he would pay the import fees, if we left the car with him for parts. He said he could part out the tires, and other small parts to make up the cost of importing the vehicle for us. Sounds good to me.

We decided to stay at this lovely little hotel/hostel called the Air Force Hotel. Its just one really old but perfectly restored building (and very clean) with maybe 10 rooms and shared showers and restrooms for men and women. In the back they have horses that they use to run a therapy program for children and its all for charity.

The place has a phone AND internet! Pretty rare for a place in the Yukon Territories to have both.

Our plans for tomorrow, add our car license plates to the sign post forest here in Watson Lake:

AND get on an overnight bus to Whitehorse! ya!

The Fifth great thing that happened to me today, I found out that I've lost 22 lbs since Easter!

YAY!

A turn for the worst.

Today we started the most scenic and beautiful part of our drive. A windy road through the remote northern rockies. The land here was once carved by huge glaciers and is now covered with gorgeous bright blue lakes, birch and spruce forests. Our path along the Alaska Highway

follows aqua blue streams with icebergs still floating down stream and in the mountains we can see waterfalls in the distance still frozen and swollen with ice. Already the trees are green with new growth. To add to it all, the sky was clear and as blue as can be!

We started out nice and early so we were privileged to share the road with all sorts of animals. We saw moose, deer, elk, big horn sheep, bison, one stubborn beaver and lots of caribou!

This was my first time ever seeing a Ram or mountain goat so I was very excited and was able to take some great photos.

A little later we saw a beaver in the center of the road. He didnt budge until our car got a foot from him and then he squeeked, jumped and then waddled off. It was as if he didnt see our car until that moment when we were a foot or two away. We both had a good laugh.

Here is one quick snapshot of some caribou. This was the second group that we saw.

The first group of caribou that we saw was just two of them. The first ran off as soon as our car approached but the other stayed dead center in the road, licking it to his hearts content.

He stayed in that spot as our car slowly approached. He stayed there as jake rolled down his window when our car was so close that jake could have reached out and pet him. And he even stayed there as I yelled.

"Jake! Dont! He'll reindeer you in the face!"

At that moment it was the only way i could express what in my imagination. I just saw that little caribou stopping his make out session with the road to put his horns in jake's face and give him a good rendeering. We laughed about that one for a long time.

Pretty soon, the laughter stopped.

(oooh dramatic)

We heard a loud boom from inside the engine, felt some shaking, and then saw smoke coming from under the hood. We managed to pull over before the engine died. Within a few minutes a nice Canadian couple with a motor home pulled over to help us. They said it would be best to take everything valuable from the car and they would give us a ride to the lodge about 20 miles behind us. That nice couple said they would wait for us to get a tow on the way and figure our situation out. They waited nearly 2 hours. God bless them!

The lodge had a pay phone we could use but it was canadian so every calling card we bought for 5 or 10 bucks was only good for one call. Every USA 1-800 number didnt work there either. It was really frustrating and it took us nearly 2 hours and the help of my Dad to figure out that the roadside assistance that is offered through Wells Fargo, is nothing but a scam. They claim to cover you through Canada but when it comes down to it, they are impossible to get a hold of from inside Canada and only cover the first 15 miles!

Anyway, we decided to do something kinda sneaky.

We called progressive and signed up for their roadside assistance, even though it wasnt effective until the next day it was still better than having none. So we signed up for it and tried to find some way around the ridiculous prices at the lodge we were stuck at. Here is an example of their prices:

One night in an Average room with no phone and the cheapest possible linens and mattresses:

$169.00

One liter of gasoline:

$1.79, that's $6.78 per gallon!

Quite nearly this exact plate of food only half the size:

$28.95

One can of soda:

$3.75

crazy, crazy, crazy!

We had no choice but to pay for a night in the hotel and to share some dinner.

At the end of the stressful day we just had to keep reminding ourselves that things could be a lot worse. At least we were in a beautiful place and at least we have each other!

On the road again!

We woke up early and hit the road around 7 a.m. The drive isnt too exciting anymore, its mostly just trees and farms. The day started out beautiful but quickly started to get very cold and rainy! With a broken heater we were quite miserable. We decided to stop at a service station to see about getting it fixed. They told us it would be about $100 to just look at it and find out the problem. We decided to read our manual and see what we could do on our own.

We pulled into a KFC parking lot and looked it over..... Seemed like it just wasn't attaching right somewhere. so a flashlight and a good deal of looking about under the dash aaanndd.... bingo! we found it!! a simple wire had come unhooked and all we had to do was hook it back up and our car was warm again!! I’m so glad we didnt spend the money to have them look at it!

Shortly after we arrived in Dawson Creek and started on the Alaskan Highway!

Soon after fixing our heater and starting on the road again, nice and warm, the clouds broke and it was beautiful and sunny! Just in time for the sunset.

We decided to stop for the night at a small motel in Fort Nelson. 1,722/3,000 miles traveled!

A Day of rest in Edmonton, Alberta

We drove most of the night, taking turns sleeping and driving. We stopped for a few hours and tried to sleep in Calgary, Alberta, but it was too cold and too uncomfortable in the car. (our heater isnt working!) So we kept driving till about 7 AM when we arrived in Edmonton. Once there we decided to find a place to stay that would let us check in early and have ourselves a nap and a shower!

1107/3000 miles covered in the first day!

We found a hostel in a neat area of southern Edmonton.
It seemed pretty nice and really the cheapest place according to the visitors center. PLUS neither of us had ever stayed in a hostel before! So we made our way down there and checked in.

Our room was VERY small and had bunk beds! and nice green walls :D We had to share bathrooms though. Mine was downstairs with all the other girls rooms and jake’s was on our lvl just down the hall. goodness it was so nice to have a hot shower after driving all night without a heater!!

So after a shower and a rest we went down to the shared kitchen and cooked us up some noodles! Energy food... yum.

Enjoying a spicy noodle bowl... do i look tired?

They really want you to get the point that you have to wash your own dishes.

After breakfast we headed out to the Edmonton Mall, which has rivaled the Mall of America for being the largest mall ever. It has a huge indoor water-park, bowling alley, aquarium, huge ship and man made lake, ice skating rink(we saw future olympic figure skaters practicing! It was really cool!), theme park, imax theater, tons of stores, shooting range, pet store, and my favorite part; a huge Chinese grocery store

I was so impressed by the seafood section of the grocery store that i took a photo. It had an equally huge and impressive poultry and red meats counter too! You could pick out a live fish, lobster, oyster, clam, shrimp, crab or langoustine

I was so impressed by their produce that i took another photo. Can I tell you that i felt like a huge nerd taking the pictures? well, yes i sure did. They seriously had EVERY herb, veggie and fruit I have ever seen or heard of and more!

They also had a huge bakery and deli section that was very impressive, but i didn't take pictures :P glad?

We bought a few things at the store and took them back to the hostel for an early dinner! The wasabi sauce in the packet there, well it was the hottest wasabi i have EVER tasted!!! my nose felt like it was snorting fire when i ate it!! The things on the right are a tasty dessert rice ball. peanut, red bean and sesame seed. The peanut one was the BEST!! so good!

When Jake tried the first one it was hilarious! He put about a quarter of one ball in his mouth and said “yum! it has a strange texture though...” and then he shoved the rest of the treat in his mouth. He made the craziest face and was having a really hard time with it because once you put these in and start to chew(and they are chewy!) they seem to expand!!!

After a fun day we were so exhausted that we went to sleep at about 6 p.m.!! We passed out and I woke up around 7:30 p.m. and the dim light coming through the window made me think that it was morning so i started getting ready to leave..... then jake told me and i was really glad to go back to sleep!

Goodbye Utah!

Monday Morning. 9 am. We hit the road! We started off north on I-15 headed to Alaska!! Our goal for the day was to go through Utah, Idaho, and Montana, ending our day at the Great Falls, Montana KOA. We stayed at this KOA the last time we drove to Alaska and it was really great. It was more like a hotel than a campground. It had wireless internet throughout, a HUGE pool and hot tubs, free firewood, live bluegrass music, vegetable gardens you could pick food from and tiny little camp spots with grass, running water, electricity and an awning. Pretty crazy but a good place to rest after a day of traveling.

Well, it would have been anyway. When we got there it was closed!! It said on its hours that it was open year round and on its website it said year round also. So we decided to drive through the night. We did pass some pretty scenery on the first day, mostly plains. We went through one gorgeous canyon in Montana between Helena and Great Falls. The canyon was carved by the Missouri River and lined with beautiful farms.

We really loved this farm in the middle of nowhere and thought it would be awesome to put a little farm house there.

Lovely weather for a picnic!

It is so gorgeous out today! I think we should have a picnic. Provo canyon has some lovely grassy areas. Well i'm off to go pack a basket and a blanket. :D

Lets all have a tea party!

Today was the Unbirthday Tea for Sheri and it was awesome! It was a lot of work but worth it! I just wanted to upload some pictures of the food and decorations that we made.

This is my attempt at recreating the cupcakes from my previous post. I think they turned out pretty cute, I'd like to try them again sometime.

I was planning on cutting down a whole bunch of these beautiful apricot blossoms from our trees to decorate. Yesterday they were gorgeous, but apparently last night it was very windy and they all blew away! So this morning I ran to a flower wholesale store and purchased a few different kinds of flowers to arrange. We made 3 vases to put around and then we filled teacups with flowers to use as centerpieces. They turned out pretty cute! Check them out:

I love this last picture because of how happy sheri is in the background, Happy Unbirthday Sheri!

For our dishes we used an assortment of teacups and saucers. I really wanted all the cups and saucers to be a matching pair but for each table setting to have a different one than the person next to them. It was a really fun way to get the conversation moving, everyone was comparing their cups and picking out their favorites.

These are the delicious orange-cranberry english scones that I made.

Super easy petit fours, I made them by cutting small shapes out of angel food cake and then coating them with a yummy almond glaze.

For something savory we made two kinds of tea sandwiches. This is not the best picture but they turned out really cute and yummy! One is cucumber sandwiches with dill and lemon and the other is a vadailia onion sandwich with parsley, salt and pepper. Yum Yum!

For the tea, I thought it would be best to serve it buffet style and let everyone serve themselves. It seemed like the easiest way to keep water for 30 hot without me running around the whole time. We borrowed this hot drink dispenser and set out a variety of caffeine free teas and some lemon. There was cream and sugar at each table too!

I wanted to provide some cold water as well. I found these cute containers at wal-mart for 5 bucks each. The orange one has lemon and orange slices in the ice water, the pink is plain ice water and the green is cucumber and mint water. The cucumber water was a big hit! Very refreshing.

So after all this I started thinking, why don't we have people over for tea more often! It was so much fun and I really want to start having them more often. I just have to think up more reasons!

Well, all the testing is done and they don't know what was causing the pain. I have no stones and everything is functioning properly according to all the fancy test results! lame.

So, now i'm on a all fat free diet and i've been trying to exorcize the past few days that i've been feeling better. Since Easter i've lost 14 lbs. Not exactly the healthiest way to do it since i didnt eat for a few days but I feel much better now!

Sheri's birthday is on Wed. and i'm throwing her a tea party birthday bash on Saturday! I'm pretty excited about that one and it should be pretty epic! We've got the invitations passed out and now i'm just gathering decorations and planning a menu. I'm thinking, tea(of course), english scones, cucumber sandwiches, vidalia onion sandwiches, petit fours, cupcakes, and maybe one or two other things.

I want to try and re-create these cupcakes:

Pretty freakin cute right!!! I dunno if i can do the bread and butter-flies but I'll try!

Two weeks till we leave for our summer in Alaska! i'm super impatient to leave!

Pain causes more Pain.

Easter!

Woot! That was fun.

We went over to my parents house for a delicious dinner of ham, potatoes and gravy, bread, and asparagus. Yum Yum!

Then we came home and had some easter candy while we watched a few movies and visited with family. Great day overall.

Well I paid for it the next day i'll tell you. At around 2:30 in the morning, yes i was still awake, I started to get some terrible pains in my tummy and back. As the night wore on, they did not get any better they just got worse and worse.

Around 5:30 AM I decided that maybe I just needed to use the restroom and so I drank some coffee to speed up the process.... Yeah that's not the best idea i've ever had. It was painful. Really Painful. I called the hospital, unsure if I should go in or not and a nurse was very short with me and was no help at all. I called my mom, she said go to the emergency room so we drove right over.

Once we got there it took them forever to find a vein to put an iv into. Like 10+ tries! They even tried my neck and armpit. It really hurt and today i'm covered in bruises. My dad gave me a great blessing and they were able to get an IV in on the next try. It was kinda neat.

So I got some tests done and they said its my gallbladder, no stones, and they dont know what it is. I have to go back on Wed. to have them put in an IV for a test on Thursday that requires some special medicine from poland. Strange.

Let me tell you though, morphine drip is a wonderful thing when you're in that kind of pain.

Oh yeah, and my grandma and edward should be here sometime today too! :D