Mountains!

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

START: Grande Prairie, AB – 10:30 a.m.

STOP: Overflow campground, Jasper, AB – 6:20 p.m.

WEATHER: Mostly sunny with cloudy periods and winnnnnnnnnnndy! Always winnnnndy.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

After some tearful goodbyes (on Dad’s part, obviously. Goddd, embarrassing.) we were back on the road after a quick pit stop for more Beula-juice (gas). Dad: “We should probably get some money out, too.” Mike: “There’s three bucks in that drawer.” Dad: “Oh, okay, we’re good then.” In the spirit of the day, I had jammed one of those car window Canada flags onto the outer frame of one of the side windows and ten minutes later it was in the middle of the highway. Alright!

After only two hours of driving, our first legitimate mountain came into view. From that point on it was endless picture snapping and Dad trying to keep his eyes on the road. While Mom and Mike snoozed in the back, Dad and I blew right past a possible griz sighting, as we saw two big brown lumps waddling down a side road. But as I’ve said before, Beula’s no dandy in a pinch so we were forced to keep going. We made a few pit stops along the way for various reasons, like to get some more SELTSAAAA for our Tostitos and to occasionally Windex the bug carnage from the windshield, which Dad is usually in charge of. Mom (while Dad is scraping guts off the window): “Look at Dad, he thinks he’s all that.” Steph: “Oh yeah, he looks like he thinks he’s real great.” Hahah, poor guy. And Mike ended up taking a little seltsa bath when he repeatedly ignored our urgent warnings to hold on to the jar when rounding the corner.

Coming up to Jasper National Park on Canada Day, we knew we were gonna be shit out of luck for finding a fully serviced campsite and lo and behold were told we could stay in the overflow campground (read: a parking lot – or Dad: “Campin’ in a field of noobs.”) So we pulled in and found ourselves a relatively level spot and set up shop for the night while Dad repeatedly told our neighbours to suck eggs if they didn’t like our generator noise, haha. Even for a grassy parking lot, though, you couldn’t complain because we were surrounded by beautiful and enormous mountains on every side. Mike told tales ‘round the non-existent campfire of the elusive Mel Gibson who’s known to romp around in these woods on any given night. Hahaha. ‘Mel Gibson’ is used as a slanderous term in Mike’s vocabulary and we’ve all got on board, so any reference to the man in future entries is to be taken negatively.

Some other highlights:

Mom: “You men could put the seat back down on the toilet when you’re finished, you know.”

Dad: “No, you women could put it back up when YOU’RE done.”

Mom: “Pfft, I don’t think so.”

Dad: “Women have equality now. You got the vote and now you have to suffer for it.”

Steph: “That’s going in the blog.”

*Mom trying to do up the button on Mike’s shorts.

Mike: “Get off! Moleste.”

And so ends another Perron adventure. Now that we’re finally in mountain territory, we’ll be taking our time and stopping and driving for as long or as short as we see fit and will have enough mountain pictures to choke a small country.

Letting the good times roll,