I arrived in Edmonton after flying home from Moncton via Porter Airlines. I need to quickly shout out Porter for waiting for passengers to arrive on a connecting flight before leaving. Air Canada does not do this. If you are on an Air Canada flight that’s connecting (at least in Montreal), and the time is tight, they will not wait for you. They do not let the captain know but they will lie to you and tell you that the flight is waiting, even when it does not.

Do not fly Air Canada if you can avoid it.

Porter, on the other hand, is amazing!

So I land in Edmonton, and spend the next half day seeing the things I missed two weeks earlier. I cycled the Mill Creek Ravine, drove past my old college, went into the Muttart Conservatory, ate a lovely meal at a vegan restaurant and generally went to viewpoints I’d never been to before. I really liked my time in Edmonton. People seem to not like Edmonton, but I really like it. Call me a prairie girl, but there’s something about a giant river valley that does it for me.

I was planning to go hiking and camping, but the weather was bad in the area I wanted to go to. I had three nights before I had arranged to be back in Kananaskis for more hiking. The days were still long, so on my way west I went to Silver Sands, to see if I could find my grandparents old house. We used to go there on weekends when they moved to Alberta to be closer to me. I couldn’t find the house even though I drove up and down every single street in town. I still have to ask my parents about that.

Rocky Mountain House

I continued on to Rocky Mountain House. It was close-ish to the place I had wanted to hike, so if the weather improved I could go out there for a day trip. Also, Rocky Mountain House sounds like a place that might be nice. But you know what? It isn’t.

I found myself at a bit of a dive hotel next to the road. Yes of course I could have spent more money and stayed somewhere nicer and further from the highway, but I didn’t. I ended up staying there for three nights, in the same room, but you know what? I got a TON of work done. I walked around a little bit but it was raining and cloudy. Calgary had great weather, Kananaskis had great weather, even Edmonton had great weather, but Rocky Mountain House and Nordegg, where I wanted to hike and camp, had poor weather. And so I hunkered down and that’s where I finished my SEO course. I finally got it launched thanks to the time I spent in Rocky Mountain House.

When it was time to depart, the skies cleared (of course) and the sun came out. I went to Tim Hortons one last time, and couldn’t leave without stopping at this wheat field. I took way more photos than you’ll ever see, or that I’ll ever admit to taking, but here are some of my faves.

Kananaskis

I made it to Kananaskis around 1pm and Jacquie and I had plans to hike both Sunday and Monday. We decided to hike Tent Ridge because it seemed short and not too crazy of elevation because we had to save ourselves for the Mt. Smutwood hike the next day.

Off we go, and honestly, it was magnificent. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that my knee has healed to the point of being able to hike. At all, but particularly hikes like this. You can check out my hikes on a variety of platforms, I always track them. This one, Tent Ridge, was tracked on Relive and you can watch it here.

We were pretty fried after this hike, but still had to rally for Smutwood the next day. We did rally, but it was a LOT of work. We didn’t summit, though we came close. It was just too much for us two days in a row.

I will say we sure enjoyed dinner!

After that was the long drive home. I stopped in Kelowna again on the way home since it’s a good mid way point. The forest fires were over and it was clear sailing (okay driving) all the way. The heat wave was over which made being outside a lot more bearable. My legs appreciated the rest from all the hiking. All in all, it was a gorgeous drive, and I was convinced I need to move to Canmore.

I would love to live in Canmore but it’s already too expensive for me to buy anything I’d want to live in. For all my BC readers, think Squamish.

And that, my friends, concludes my summer 2024 road trip with excursion to the Maritimes.

I’d love to answer any questions you might have about any of it, or anything else for that matter. You know how to reach me!