Day 1, the beginning of the biggest trip I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve talked about exploring Canada for years now and it’s time to finally just go for it. The goal is to explore all ten provinces and two of the three territories with Nunavut at a later time in my life since the only way to get there is by flying. I’ve prepped as much as I can and I’m a mix of incredibly excited and a bit anxious as well. Strangely enough, the day I decided to leave ended up being the day I went skydiving for the first time exactly three years ago, maybe I just need to do something super intense every three years. So what was my first day like on the road?
I left Vancouver a bit later than I had planned but found myself on the road around 10:30 am heading northeast towards Revelstoke through Kelowna and Vernon. It rained pretty hard along the way but I made a few stops to appreciate all the scenery and stretch. I found my mind wandering, questioning if I was actually going forward with this or if I should just turn back, I didn’t talk about doing this for years just to turn back though, so I pressed on. I soon realized that while the gps may have said it would take 6 hours to reach my destination, in reality it would take much longer with the frequent stops and the various traffic conditions such as the heavy rush hour traffic I hit in Kelowna.
Upon finally making it through Kelowna, I continued north up through Vernon and some of the smaller towns such as Enderby, heading towards Revelstoke to camp for the night. I got another bit of a wake up call when I finally made it to Revelstoke a lot later than planned, around 9:20, only to find out all the campgrounds were fully booked up, I hadn’t taken into account it was a long weekend during peak camping season and that I probably should have booked ahead of time. I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed and out of my element, I didn’t wanna sleep in my car the first night and I didn’t wanna fork out $100+ for a hotel. I decided to take a risk and drive to one of the campsites that wasn’t answering their phone and see if I could get lucky. I ended up going to Williamson Lake Campground and walking into the reception, they were full but ended up finding a spot for me in the overflow! I set up my tent and the first day of my journeys came to a close.
