Apparently Jim hasn't seen me smile so much in weeks as the day we decided to head for Port Alberni.Christine and Roy's place has been the closest thing to a home we have had in the last year and I was really looking forward to getting there, officially over camping grounds and looking at beautiful scenery every day, not so for Jim he could keep travelling for ever. It was a bit of a surprise as we didn't let them know we were coming and we weren't expected for ...

Off to Edmonton to see Jens, who Jim and I both worked with at Square years and years ago and his wife Alison. It was really good to see Jens again and meet Alison, we had a great time sitting in the sun on their deck with them and their dogs Buster and Gracie. The next day Jens gave us a tour of Edmonton in their convertible saab and we went to the West Edmonton Mall, the largest in the world. Crazy place more shops than you could ever want, a full size water...

On the drive from Banff to Jasper we saw five bears and numerous other cute beasties. The first two we saw were running along side the road. The third one I spotted walking along the hill above us, so we stopped along with another car. We couldn't see it and Jim was walking along the road and someone yelled out 'behind you' he thought they were joking and turned around and the bear was running across the road about 100m away from Jim. The fourth one Jim saw d...

We had a date with a football game at 12.30.It was the Europeon Championship final between Chelsea and Manchester United.Jim had high hopes for a Chelsea win while we sat in comfy armchairs in the St James Olde Irish Pub in Banff.Alas it went down to penalties and Chelsea lost.We decided to continue the day in the spirit it was started and needless to say were a little jolly by the time we called it a day and went back to our hotel. Heard through the grapevine i...

Once again our plans were thwarted by road closures.We had planned on driving through the Cascades National Park into BC but found we had to turn back and go through closer to Vancouver. It is now raining a lot and we spent our first night back in Canada in the Okanagen Valley, a kind of coming home for Oki the van.Lovely campsite on the river, which normally is clear and you can walk across but at the moment is brown and running very fast and high. Off towards...