Day 7 - we packed up the van and said our final goodbyes to the Oregon Harts. We had a 5-6 hour drive ahead of us as we traveled to Golden, British Columbia.
An hour into our drive, we crossed into Canada and stopped for a Canadian Province sign.
Aside from a stop for lunch, we drove straight to Golden. We had discussed taking a detour through Kootenay National Park - it would add a few hours to our day and we knew that we would enjoy the park. However, when we arrived at Radium Hot Springs (our turning point), we decided that we couldn't handle any additional hours on the road. This trip had really kicked our butts thus far and we were exhausted! It didn't help that I was sick with a really bad head cold and didn't feel up to driving at all.
We pulled in to Golden in the late afternoon. The only thing on our agenda was to visit this bridge - Kicking Horse Pedestrian Bridge. From the TourismGolden.com website, "Spanning the river of the same name at 46 meters (151 feet) across, it’s the longest freestanding timber frame bridge in Canada". It was impressive! We loved the landscaping surrounding the bridge.
It started to rain - clouds pretty much opened and dumped! We made a mad dash to the van. Unfortunately, there was an identical van in the same small parking lot. Matt ran to THAT van and quickly realized his error...as the other family was sitting in the van looking at him as he stood there. We all shared a laugh and the kids were "extremely embarrassed"!
On the way to our hotel, we found this huge bear scratching his back - Kaitee loved imitating him!
We realized that we had left our camera battery & charger at the Kalispell hotel. Unfortunately, we didn't realize this until we were already in Canada. Did I mention that neither of us had any cell phone service? Did I also mention that our hotel didn't allow international calls? I had to get creative to figure out how to call the Kalispell hotel. I had emailed my mom with all the information she would need to contact the hotel. I also found an email for the GM at that hotel so I emailed her as well. As a last resort, I tried to call Choice Hotels through their 800#. Thank you Lord, it worked! The customer service rep kept me on the phone while he called Kalispell. They had our battery & charger and would put it in the mail the next day! Whew!!! Camera batteries and chargers are expensive!
We were very thankful that we had brought our old camera as a "kid camera". This camera became our main camera over the last days of our trip.
We got to bed at an early hour (even allowing the kids to swim for a bit). Heavenly Bliss!
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