April 28th - 29th

*Warning most photography was taken from the window of an Uhaul*

I know I’m already slacking on keeping this blogg, but I have a valid reason. You see Chris and I took off from my parent’s house at 6am on the 28th of April in hopes to arrive by the 1st of May.

This trip was the furthest North West I have ever been by car… err Uhaul ^_^ It was a blessing that Chris volunteered to drive the whole way from Stevens Point to Edmonton. By bus it takes about two days, so we were unsure of how long it would take by Uhaul. You see not only did we rent a 14 foot Uhaul but we also added a tow dolly to the back of it and hitched good ol’ Dutchus (my car) to it. The label on the tow dolly recommended 45 Miles per hour the whole way. We kept a good 60-65 which is might slow on a HWY for two days.

Going through WI and MN was normal for me but once we crossed into ND it was like entering IL to be honest. Vacant fields of nothingness, funny how little I knew but that is what the rest of the trip would be like.

Finally I started to see signs that I found very funny. So I knew we were getting closer to the Canadian boarder. Is it wrong for a grown woman to find any sign with the word “Duty” hilarious?

The drive there went quite smooth, made pretty good time too for being in an Uhaul with a tow dolly. We came upon the boarder in no time, again with more fabulous road signs.

Did I say smoothly? Yea well we came upon Customs and Immigration at the boarder. You see I did allot of research and made allot of phone calls to make sure I could pass the boarder with no problems. I couldn’t take food, plants, questionable wood items or animals. I numbered each box and wrote what was in each box as well as printed out a list if they wanted one. I had my passport, birth certificate, Uhaul papers, Car title, along with allot of other legal papers.

After explaining our honest reason for me coming here they had us park and to go into the building to write out a claim for all my things. But after waiting in line at customs we find out I needed a Visa of some sort. Silly, not one official I talked to mentioned anything but a passport. I was nauseous because I was so scared they were going to make us drive back to WI right then and there. But luckily the Immigration guy was super cool and gave me a 6 month Visitors Visa till I got my work permit and that would then cover me. No charge he said, you’re good to go he said. Chris and I then took our paper work and left joking for the next few hours that they would hunt us down cause they never once looked in the van or inspected a single thing. But of course they never did.

Wow first time out of the country, first time in Canada, and well it looks just like ND. Bare, vacant, and nothing but empty fields for miles and miles and miles.

But the company was good and he seemed so proud to be telling me all about where we were and what we were passing. We did have an interesting adventure in the town of Russell. It was our first stop we made needed a place to sleep, eat and gas up. The main hotel was full but they mentioned they owned the motel just down the street called the Jolly Lodger and we could get a room there.

After booking a room we had to try to get the Uhaul and tow dolly over to the hotel. We were in room 211 which was in the back of the motel, thought it would be a good place to park this massive contraption we were driving. It was past midnight and poorly lit; as we tried to turn the Uhaul around to park we hit soft earth. It had rained earlier that day I’m sure and it was mud. We tried to rock it to get out of the mud but we wound up burring it axel deep and were stuck till morning.

The goal was to be up and on the road by 6am to keep with our good time. Sadly no place opened till 9am. So we went across the road and had us some breakfast then back to the Jolly Lodger. After a little bit Chris got a tow truck to try to pull the Uhaul out of the mud. But the Tow truck guy wasn’t to smart and had no idea what he was doing and snapped the wire on his truck. He then called for a Loader to come and try to pull us out. After they hooked chains and not just a wire to the Uhaul, POP it just came right out.

Back on the road we went, again making very good time. We knew wed hit Alberta and Edmonton by 7pm (don’t forget the time change is one hour behind WI) Just outside of Edmonton a pretty horrible rain storm hit. The winds were so bad it was almost blowing us off the road but Chris is a great driver and kept us safe and sound.

When we arrived of course the Uhaul place was closed. The thought was to return the tow dolly so it would be easier to drive and park. We then headed to his friends house to call our landlord to see when we can move in. After arriving to his friends house I broke out in a rash, itchy everywhere! I was allergic to something in that apt. So Chris took us out to dinner to get me out of there. We were offered to stay but he knew I couldn’t stay there, so instead we searched again for a motel at a really late hour of the night. But finally we found one and got some sleep.