Five Day Journey: Day 4

After driving for three days we had seen some beautiful parts of the world.

The third day was lovely, with lots of green and yellow.

After several hours I started thinking about it as being green and gold.

It was my wedding colors in nature - just days after my anniversary.

I told Andrew that maybe we should have gotten married in Canada!

But as beautiful as it was, none of us were prepared for the scenery from Prince George to Prince Rupert.

It was literally breathtaking.

I was sticking my arm out the window constantly trying to take pictures as we whisked by.

I kept seeing spot after spot after spot where I knew skilled photographers could spend hours.

And we only had about three seconds before we were out of view.

I was so frustrated with my camera, knowing it wasn't even remotely capturing the beauty we were experiencing.

As I look back on these pictures I am stunned!

Some of them, though taken while traveling at 100 km/hr are beautiful.

And it is amazing to remember that they don't compare to what we saw in person.

I told my mom that driving through British Columbia was like driving the Alpine Loop on steroids.

She thought that was pretty funny.

Truthfully, we probably didn't see the same kind of color combinations you would get in Utah.

But on this last day we started to get more of the reds and oranges blending with the green and gold.

I loved it!

We were in for another of our "long" driving days.

Considering how badly things had gone with the first one, we decided to make sure to get an early start.

Despite having spent so many days stuck in the car, the boys were still relatively content with the tablets.

In fact, in true child fashion, Peter picked a favorite movie that he watched several times.

I forgot, when packing for kids you don't need variety - you just need to get the one right show.

He enjoyed watching the Never Ending Story and told me more about it each time he finished.

Despite getting an early start and having the kids perfectly content, we still ended up with lots of stops.

In the first two hour stretch, we had stopped FIVE times for the bathroom.

You would think this was due to my pregnant bladder, or a child.

But that wasn't the case as much as you would expect.

(Though my pregnant bladder typically did take advantage of every stop we made.)

We had enough delays with bathroom stops,

and the drive was going well enough that we opted to skip our first break.

We headed straight through to Smither's with probably only one more bathroom stop during that stretch.

I had scouted out a nice park for us to eat lunch at in Smither's,

but when we didn't find it immediately, we decided to just eat at A & W.

We got gas, ate lunch, and the adults all had fun with the restaurant wi-fi.

Ammon starting complaining of an ear-ache so we stopped at a pharmacy.

(It was the only "shopping" we did in Canada.)

Once again we were happy to have Grandma Peggy with us -
this time as she took the role of being our own private nurse.

She got Ammon all fixed up with medicine.

Then we were back on our way.

Andrew was loving all the logging trucks and lumber yards we were passing.

The next part of our drive got even more rural.

And even more beautiful.

Things were continuing to go smoothly.

We were ahead of schedule, so if we stopped in Terrace for dinner as planned, we would be eating early.

I realized that if we just kept going we could make it to Prince George in time for a late dinner.

And that way we could avoid driving in the dark.

Everyone was on board with that plan, so we took the next four and a half hours in one stretch.

Stopping only for bathroom breaks.

The scenery was amazing!

At one point we pulled off for Derrick to take some pictures.

We were just surrounded by beauty!

Some sort of bug bit me on the arm - through my long sleeved shirt.

It stung like crazy.

The next day it started itching.

It has been itchy for a week, but getting better each day.

The redness is pretty much gone now, but I can still see the puncture in my arm where the bite/sting was.

I have no idea what it was that got me, but I hope to never encounter that bug again!

This river got really wide at several points.

People who are used to the Mississippi River would probably feel quite at home with it.

But for us "westerners" it was pretty amazing.

We started driving into these amazing mountains and everyone's jaw hit the floor.

We thought we knew mountains in Utah.

But these mountains seemed to dwarf the ones we were used to.

One of the things I loved were the cascading waterfalls that seemed to be EVERYWHERE.

We drove through some rain.

Here are the heroes of our trip!

I can't imagine how we would have done it without them.

We saw the sun begin to set behind some of the mountains.

But we made it to Prince Rupert before dark.

By the time we checked into the hotel and got dinner, etc, it was still a late night.

We also knew we had a very early morning - needing to be at the ferry at 6 AM.

So we got the boys settled in to bed and then tried to have everything ready for a quick morning departure.

The boys looked ready for a perfect nights sleep.

I was surprised to wake up and discover Ammon on the opposite side of the bed,

and Peter turned completely upside down!

It made me laugh.