~ ANNE! ~

So! The road trip! Just a quick and relatively detail-free update...

Tonight we are in Bozeman, Montana. Last night we were in Pincher Creek (Alberta), and we spent Wednesday night in Cowtown.

I was planning to leave work a little early on Wednesday to catch the bus (I shelled out for the Red Arrow this time). Worked all morning, completely woozy under the influence of Benadryl. We had a baby shower for the girl whose maternity leave I am covering and just at the end of it, my supervisor caught sight of the giant angry-looking red patch on my arm, which was looking quite alarming and was very itchy. She wouldn't let me stay at work and made me stop at the Medicentre before I caught my bus.

So back to the Medicentre, where I had a very nice chat with a Filipino gentleman who told me his life story and the details of his arthritis. After an hour I saw the doctor for five seconds, who told me I was reacting to the adhesive in the bandage they originally put on over my stitches and prescribed me some cream. Got my cream, made a run for the bus and made it just in time to head to Calgary.

Matt met me in Calgary, and we managed to find an ideal setup: a seat on the patio with a perfect view through the window of the hockey game on a widescreen TV. Amazing! The Oilers proceeded to win, and then Matt kindly offered to give me a ride to where Amy and Micheal were staying: at the house of a friend of a friend that Amy met in Korea. The friend (of a friend) turned out to be an awesome Acadian called Michel, who was more than hospitable and a lot of fun (bearing in mind that I was a friend of a friend of a friend!) We had a bonfire in the back yard and the next day Michel skived off work to hang out with us for a few more hours. He's a traveller too and has crashed on more than one random person's couch in his life, so he was a great person to stay with.

Thursday morning we headed south, stopping at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump for a couple of hours before grabbing a hostel-cum-motel room at Pincher Creek. (Bob, the owner, used to have an HI hostel but was not too pleased with the organization. Still gave us the hostel rate, though, which was pretty decent). Michael and I went for a walk around Pincher Creek and met the resident eccentric, who showed us his thirty-year old car which belched smoke all over Michael.

Today was a driving day. We headed for the border, which was remarkably easy to cross. They looked at our passports, asked if we had any alcohol or meat, and pretty much waved us through. That was a huge relief. So we drove and drove and drove (or rather Amy did: she seems to have amazing stamina) and six and a half hours later ended up in Bozeman. Lots of stories to tell and lots of good pictures, but I will leave that for later and stop hogging Michael's laptop.

So Shawnie, my potential ride home, called today to tell me he's still in Red Deer but plans to drive through the night. I am waiting to see how that works out...

Oh yeah, and my rash is mostly better with a lot of help from some of Amy's all-natural anti-itch cream, and my toenail that got stepped on has turned a really cool shade of green (but has not yet fallen off).

so it's all good here on the road...