Toronto to Grand Teton

The two weeks have consisted of driving, drinking (although not at the same time) walking, hiking, hot weather, freezing weather, laughing, wildlife, camping, some truly disgusting toilets, some non-existent toilets and meeting some interesting people.The extensive menu has been cereal, gourmet sandwiches a la cheese and ham, and ramen (super noodles) with the choice of Beef or chicken chased down by tasty warm water. (Big change from Albany's menu).

Toronto -

Our first day of our adventure and we got off to a pretty slow start with lots of last minute running around.Packing the car was like a comic sketch, afraid to open any doors with the fear that everything would fall out.We finally got on the road, heading toward Buffalo for some wings and then onward to Toronto.Our hostel in Toronto was in a great location and pretty luxurious, it was a nice way to break us back in to the backpacker world.The next day, after our free pancakes, we walked around the city and then headed over to Toronto islands.It was a relaxing oasis away from the city and being over 90 degrees we were thankful to be able to dip our feet in lake Ontario.The night was spent listening to live music, with a beer or three.There are some characters here!From teenagers begging on the street with a candid sign: Need Money For Pot!, to a 60 year old women in the bar rocking out on her base guitar.The next day we were back on the road heading for Chicago.We ended up at a campground a few hours outside the city, where we saw our first great sunset of the trip.

Chicago

We arrived at our hostel in Chicago, and it was another scorcher of a day, 97, humid and not a breath of wind.We took in a beer at Wrigleyville while the crowds were streaming out of Wrigley field after the baseball game.With the need of some aircon, we headed up the John Hancock centre for a great view (and free with the purchase of a cocktail).Of course we had to try some real Chicago deep-dish pizza, which was delicious! That night we wandered around the parks downtown that are filled with amazing sculptures and fountains.The next day, after a sleepless night, lets just say this hostel was more like a pressure cooker than accommodation, we headed to the beach for a few hours and later that night checked out Chicago's bar scene.On the way home we walked past the filming of a scene from the new batman movie.Admittedly we didn't see a whole lot! Due to Lollapalooza (big music festival) every bed in downtown Chicago was booked so for the next 2 nights we would be staying at a motel just outside the city.Lollapalooza was a great day.We chilled out to some Steve Marley, partied to the roots, were in the 4th row to Snow patrol and finished the day off with Muse.

The Badlands

After 13 hours of driving, we arrived at the badlands.It was amazing, no photo can capture the rock formations, it is just so vast!It's so hot and arid, well over 100 degrees here. Unfortunately we arrived around the same time as Sturgis (Motorbike rally) so there were over 300,000 bikes in the area, making it loud, crowded and slow driving.We drove a couple of miles up a dirt road to where we were going to camp for the night, a road that the bikers couldn't drive on, so it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. The area was filled with Prairie Dogs (so cute), rattlesnakes, that luckily we didn't come across, and Buffalo.After setting up camp we spotted a buffalo, so Greg walked about half a mile, in thick grass, that looked like the home to many snakes, to get a closer look, little did he know that we would come across a herd of about 60 of them later.We were standing watching this herd walk away from us, taking some photos, when suddenly the entire herd turned and was quickly approaching us.We were backing away, and made it to the car just in time.Not even sure if a car would protect us from these things, they weigh 2,000lbs and some as big a 7ft and there have been lots of signs, DO NOT APPROACH THE BUFFALO! Luckily they all just walked right passed our car to the other side of the road, and we watched them grazing with an amazing sunset as a backdrop.The next day we kept heading west towards Mt.Rushmore, which wasn't too impressive, and was surrounded by Bikers again, so we quickly moved on, and drove until it got dark and camped once again.It had now been two days since we had seen any running water or proper toilets!

Grand Teton

After another day of driving, with impressive scenery, we reached Grand Teton national park, in the Rockies.We had 3 nights camping in the park.It was nice to be able to relax in one spot for a few days.It is a gorgeous area, lakes, mountains and lots of wildlife.On our 4th day we ventured off for our first backcountry hike and camp.We were lucky to get a permit, not many are given for the hike we wanted to do.We choose a 20 mile loop, up into the mountains and down through a canyon.The park is at an elevation of 6,500ft, so hiking isn't easy, plus it is bear country here, black and grizzly so we were definitely anxious starting out! Greg had about 80% of our stuff, but he is so big and strong! The first day we hiked about 7 miles, and just as we were getting close to the area we were supposed to camp, (backcountry has no campsites, just camping regions) when we bumped into a ranger who told us that there was a bear up there.Oh great, just what we were dreading for the last 5 hours."It's only a young one", but where there is a baby, there is a mother right???! So we set up camp about 300 meters from the bear, Greg thought 100 would be enough, yeah right!The bear was the size of Guffy.First thing we had to do was hoist up anything that would attract bears into a tree 10ft from the ground, which includes food, toiletries, water? etc. We then set up the tent.The view was unreal; we had a private view of the Rocky Mountains right outside our door.Then it was dinnertime; freeze dried, backcountry packaged sweet and sour chicken. It tasted like cold vomit! No joke! We passed out about 8 O'clock, waking through the night with gale force winds blowing the tent sideways!We woke for sunrise and an early start to get the hard part of the climb done before the heat of the day.And hard it was! We climbed to over 10,000ft.(We did a sky dive at that height!) It was so difficult to breath at that altitude, the air is just so thin.We would walk uphill for about 100meters and need to sit until we could catch our breath.Then we got to a glacier that was on about a 45-degree slope, which we somehow had to cross.It kept getting harder, climbing loose rocks, and hearing rockslides around us.The worse thing was, that there was no one near us, kept thinking if one of us falls?. Anyway we got to the top, it was a great feeling!! Now we had about 11 miles down, down felt so good after all that up.The bad thing was we drank most of our water on the 1st day, so as soon as we saw a lake we had to purify about 5 litres for the day.Mmm, the taste of iodine. The last 3 miles hurt! We were all blistered up and the concept of putting one foot in front of the other had been lost.We got back to camp in the park, so glad to see a shower and a toilet.That night we treated ourselves to a cheap motel, a big burger and a cold beer! It was so good to sleep right through the night, no wind, or being cold or hot and no animals!

Today we are on our way to Calgary, glad to be sitting in a car, as everything pretty much hurts.We have a few nights here and then it's into Banff national park.Hope all is well with everyone, wish you could be here!