No question, the favourite follower award this week goes to Kim and Greg (and Chelsey and Kasie too) of Calgary. They have let us camp out in their lovely home ALL week and continued to nurse us through this bout of plague we seem to have been stricken with.  And not only that, they are excellent movie-watching and board game-playing companions who make us home cooked meals, let us borrow their car in Burt’s time of need (we are happy to announce that Burt Reynolds is now up and running with four good tires), and let us play with their dogs whenever we want.  It has been a hard week health-wise, but we could not have found ourselves in a better place to be sick than in the loving home of Kim and Greg.

• Leave a comment... (2)

Sorry about the lack of activity on Facebook, Gowalla, and Twitter. This week. We’ve been quite sick and quite unable to move for the past 3 days, the good news is we won’t need to dress up on Halloween to look like ghosts.

a&l

• Leave a comment... (8)

Check out the places from this week’s episode:
Northwest Territories
Beck’s Kennels
The Yellowknife Inn
Astronomy North

• Leave a comment... (14)

You gave us many great destinations in Saskatchewan to add to this directional vote, so we took ten and created the poll below. Now its time to figure out which ones we will be exploring! The top three destinations that are voted for will be visited, and we will figure out a logical route once they are determined!

For many of you, some or all of these places are complete unknowns. If you would like to know more about the towns and cities below, click on their names and you will be directed to a site that offers more information so that you can make an informed decision… or just pick the one with the best name! How you vote is up to you… now vote away!

Regina (the capital city of Saskatchewan), Moose Jaw (contains a very large, if not the largest, moose statue), Langbank (a hamlet with a population of 30), Gravelbourg (”a touch of Europe on the prairies”), Melfort (”City of Northern Lights”), Craik (a progressive town with a sustainable living project underway), Rouleau (AKA Dog River, host to the television show Corner Gas), Saskatoon (a lively youthful city said to be a pleasant surprise to visitors), Prince Albert (the “Gateway to Northern Saskatchewan”), Swift Current (a southern town with the least smoke and haze in the whole country)

[poll id="53"]

Let your “tweeps” know you that voted and we will toast to you next time we get our hands on a fizzy beverage.

Click here to let Twitter know that you voted.

This poll will close on Monday evening (the 25th of October) at 8 pm EST.

• Leave a comment... (9)

We are starting our long journey east towards Ontario – the province where it all began – but before we get there we have two pretty amazing provinces left to explore.  For those of you who haven’t noticed, Canadian provinces are a lot larger and arranged a lot more linearly than our cousins to the south, so we are not able to hold directional votes quite like we used to.

However, we still want YOUR input to help us navigate our way through these two provinces, and here is what we came up with…

We want YOU to set the options for this next vote.  In the comments below, on twitter or on facebook, tell us which city, town, or village in Saskatchewan you want us to add to the next poll.  We will take the first 10 destinations you suggest and open it up to everyone for the big vote!

What are you waiting for??? Suggest away!

• Leave a comment... (12)

We’ve travelled for 212 days without any car trouble, but on day 213 the Yellowknife roads got the best of us and punctured our back tire. We hold no hostility towards Yellowknife, we still love it here very much… but a flat tire in Yellowknife is not the same as a flat tire in Toronto.

Yellowknife is the largest city in the Northwest Territories but still only has a population of roughly 20,000 residents. After visiting or calling all of the tire shops today (all 3 of them) the earliest we can get a new tire installed is Tuesday October 26th.

But, the spare tire in our VW Rabbit is a full sized spare tire in perfect working order. The mechanics at the garage inspected the tires and determined that we could “Probably” make it back to Edmonton with the 3 original tires and the 1 spare still mounted to the car.

But, if we were to pursue that course of action we would no longer have a spare tire at our disposal in the not unlikely event we pop a different tire on the way back to Alberta.

But, we were told by Canadian Tire that they may be able to replace our currently broken tire in the trunk with a new tire if we show up tomorrow morning at 7:30 in the morning (We’re planning on brining coffee to the mechanics if we pursue this option.)

While it may seem like the obvious choice to wait for new tires then drive to Edmonton, every day we stay in the Northwest Territories the more snow there will be on the ground. Which will make the drive South in our VW Rabbit more difficult.

So we have three options, and would love to hear what you would do in this scenario.
Option 1) Stay in Yellowknife until you are able to have a new tire, or new tires installed, and then drive to Edmonton
Option 2) Wake up at 7:30 AM tomorrow, get a new spare tire, drive to Edmonton on the 3 original tires and the 1 spare tire… and a new spare tire in the trunk.
Option 3) Drive to Edmonton on 3 original tires and 1 spare tire, do not obtain a new spare tire, trust that everything will be ok and CAA will come to our rescue if it’s not.
[poll id="52"]

Also if you have any expert advice, leave it in the comments below!

• Leave a comment... (22)

Here are some links to the interesting and delightful things, people, and places we discovered this week on the road:

Bow Valley Motel, Canmore Alberta
FARM Restaurant, Calgary Alberta
Ultimate Frisbee with Ultimate Rob
HeadSmashed-In Buffalo Jump
Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Thowaway World, by Mark Frauenfelder

• Leave a comment... (6)