Oh Canada

I'm back home! The drive through Alaska and Canada went as smoothly as it could go! I saw gorgeous mountains, wild animals and went in some hot springs! (all the photos in this post are ones that either I or my cousin took!)

This will be a random post about Canada and what I learned while I was there. 

 The left hand stoplight signal blinks repeatedly when it's your turn to go and it just turns off when you can't.

They have a Boston Pizza's in almost every town we stopped in. We ate their once and it was alright. 

 One of the most popular gas stations in Canada is called 'Fas Gas'. I love it! It's such a fitting name especially down here especially in Chicago. People never say the 't' in Fast anyways and fas rhymes with gas! You can also SAVE money on gas! That was great!

 It was hard getting use to kilometers rather then miles. But my cousin and I noticed that in his car, they have both miles and kilometers on the MPH dashboard. If we saw a sign that said 100 km until the next gas station, we looked on the dashboard instead of converting it in our head and saw that 100 km is in the same spot as 60 miles. It was a lot easier.

 I wish I went to Canada when I was a child because almost EVERY hotel that was in a decently large city had a water slide or TWO! They even advertise it on the outside of the hotel building 'HOTEL' and next to it says "WATERSLIDES"! How awesome is that. I thought it was great publicity and good idea for kid friendly hotels.

 Camouflage was EVERYWHERE! I saw a family of 4 at a restaurant and the Dad, Mom, little girl and little boy were ALL wearing camp winter jackets! NO joke!

 Canada is very pretty! Until you start going more south in Alberta. haha

Some caribou!

Many gas stations along the Al-can highway and even remote highway throughout Canada, are also motels and tiny restaurants. We saw many truckers at the same motels we were at. One trucker came over to our car when we were getting ready to start our drive for the day and told us she just hit a caribou a little north of where we were staying and to be careful! It was scary. It's dark when you go to bed (gets dark about 4:00 pm) and it's dark when you wake up (8 am).

Sign Post Forest!

 People come from all over the world to post their hometown signs and there was one from the city right next to my home town! How neat is that!

 Don't worry---we pulled over and just watched this bison heard eat and walk across the road. They were not afraid of us or our car.

 THEY WERE HUGE!! And everywhere...

 Me in the hot springs! It was so hot, ALMOST too hot!

 We had to stop at a gas station/motel for gas one time right next to this lake called Muncho Lake. This dog comes walking up to us with his wagging tail and just sat down outside our car wanting to be pet. He was so cute. We found out he was the gas station/motel owner's dog. His name was Muncho and was so cute and friendly. I think he wanted to come home with us!

This sign was right out in front of the desk at a Super 8 we stayed at. It caught me off guard. I think they might have had some encounters for them to actually put a sign up about being respectful. Do you think this means that customers were rude? Or their clerks were rude, so therefore costumers were rude in return? hmmm....

 World's largest Easter egg. It was huge!

 This was our little caravan back to Chicago. My cousin had 3 bikes on top, 4 extra tires on top of the trailer and our suitcases and cooler were with us in the back of the SUV.

 Ahhh...and we couldn't go through Alaska without stopping at a Tim Hortons. In my opinion, they are better than Dunkin' Doughnuts! They're hot chocolate was also excellent!

2 days before I left for Alaska, my parents bought me this new (used) car!!! I'm in love AND my parents are THE best! I'll get great use out of it because I'll be student teaching everyday starting in January. It's a 2007 ford fusion!!

We're home safe and sound and it feels good to be back in my own bed! :)