We did a Tim Hortons bagel breakfast this morning while we charge our car to start our drive to Winnipeg.
To combat the monotonous nature of these drives, I started an interesting practice yesterday, and I continue to practice it today.
I started to download the audio stream (no video) of some of the YouTube channels that I have been following as part of my day-to-day doom-scrolling activity. These audio streams are stored on my NAS server at home, where I create my own podcast feed (podcast.lufamily.ca), which can be accessed using the Overcast iOS App. Now I can get my daily dose of international news, propaganda, and individual opinions.
Our Tesla Model Y front is continuously battered by bugs, pebbles, and small stones as we cross the warm and windy prairies. We have been fairly lucky to escape any major damages, until today when our windshield became a casualty. There is a very nice star like crack on the lower passenger side of the windshield. I guess after about 6,000km and passing endless gravel trucks, this is not that uncommon, but still a bummer. We’ll get this sorted once we get back home.
Today’s trip is not all bad. We found Sun Fortune Restaurant, opened by a Hong Kong expat, serving the Chinese community here in Winnipeg for more than 20 years. My cravings for Chinese food and especially RICE has been satisfied tonight!
Checkout Carol’s video and be sure to watch to the end for the scrumptious Cantonese dishes we had tonight.
We started the morning with a very hearty breakfast at Denny’s, which was located near a local truck stop. I can’t lie, the breakfast was delicious and the Philly Cheese Steak Omelette was pretty tasty and satisfying.
We set out to Regina. It was a super windy day. The drive itself was pretty uneventful other than the fact that we had to charge at every Tesla Supercharge station from Edmonton to Regina. The open land and the wind really took a toll on our efficiency and therefore our range. Our total charge cost turned out to be $88.79. Adding salt to injury for some reason it costs more here, $0.60/kWh instead of $0.47/kWh from Ontario. I am beginning to think that Alberta does not like electric vehicles. The price is still reasonable considering that we covered more than 700km.
Nonetheless I cannot fault the Supercharging Network. We had no problems charging the car and there were plenty of available chargers. Knock on wood, but we have not had to line up during our trip save the time when we were in the big Crossiron Mall in Calgary.
The silver lining to all the stops, was that we got my wife, Carol, a Series 9 Apple Watch. We found a Best Buy at Lloydminster, Alberta. This is literally the last town before exiting Alberta and onto Saskatchewan. As a matter of fact, the border is within the town itself. Once again, we are delighted to take advantage of the lack of provincial sales tax in Alberta.
The sky was clear and on our drive into Regina we had a beautiful sunset to our right, while the moon welcome us into Regina on the horizon. We checked into our hotel, and I was on a hunt for some Chinese food. Unfortunately it seems like all Chinese restaurants in Regina closes on Tuesday. Just our luck! Instead, we settled for some Vietnamese Pho and sandwiches, both were delicious (maybe it’s our hunger speaking).
Once again Carol’s video is worth way more than my words.
We left Jasper in the morning after a relaxing breakfast at the Forest Park hotel. If we were to stay in Jasper again, we should probably pick a weekday instead of a weekend. The prices of the hotels during the weekend is doubled. In hindsight this is probably obvious, but our schedule just happens to land us in Banff and Jasper on the weekend. Most of the stores close after Thanksgiving, and the scenic highway 93 from Banff to Jasper also closes as it becomes harder to maintain during the winter storms.
After about 50km East of Jasper we left the Jasper National Park. It is phenomenal that when we left the park, so did the picturesque view of the mountains, and the skies become dominant again on the horizon.
Today was not a long drive. We left Jasper at around 10:30am, and we got to Edmonton at about 2:30pm. We charged in a small town called Edson. We took the extra time to visit West Edmonton Mall and just so happened to frequent an Apple Store and picked up their last iPhone 15 Pro in inventory. What luck! Also being in Alberta we pay less HST, 9% less than Ontario.
Found 100°C Tea House Cafe, and I was dying for some Chinese food, not as good as Toronto, but beggars cannot be choosers.
Checked into Sandman Signature Sherwood Park Hotel by the Suncor refinery. Best hotel for the buck yet. Tomorrow we drive to Regina.
Our first difficulty of today was getting up at around 5:30am. Carol got up at this time while I took another 15 minutes. We did a quick remote checkout and hop in the car and went straight to Lake Louis. The idea is to get there before 7am so that we can park right at the lake.
Mission accomplished! We managed to park at the lower parking lot by the lake. Did the mandatory touristy thing by taking selfies and pictures around the lake and decided to hike up to Mirror Lake which is about 2.5km of incline hiking. We did not have it in us to keep on going to Lake Agnes, as that is another 800m. These are one way distances so we have to double distances for our round trip. All in all we did a 6km hike today.
Below are some pictures from Lake Louis, you can click the picture to show the full size.
The drive North on Hwy 93 was very picturesque! The sun came out in the second half of our drive. We stopped once at one of the lookout stops, but Carol mostly took videos while in the car. We passed the glass floor bridge, because our impression was it was super small and not worth our while.
We ended up in Jasper just in time to charge back our Tesla to 80% and have lunch, which we did at the Mad Grizzly on Patricia Street. Once again the food was okay, but we were hungry.
If we were to do it again, we would probably skip Banff and travel from Calgary, with a 5am departure and go direct to Lake Louis, with a quick charge in Canmore, and on the same day go straight to Jasper. There was a non-Tesla charger station mid-route from Lake Louis to Jasper, which we could have topped up with our CCS adapter.
I am super tired now and the rest of today will be vegging-out in the hotel room. Tomorrow we plan to do another hike in the area and off to West Edmonton Mall.
After our light breakfast on September the 23rd, we set out to Banff.
The hotels at Banff on a Saturday is super expensive, but hey we are here already, so we bit the bullet and made the reservation at the Banff Park Lodge Resort on Lynx Street. Our planning involved more than just the booking at Banff. We also needed to figure out how to get to Lake Louis, and whether there are enough charging stations to Jasper.
We charged up our vehicle to 93% before we set out on our journey. We made an ice cream stop at Mackay’s Ice Cream in Cochrane. We purchased a couple of flavours to go, and also got a cup for immediate tasting. The ice cream was delicious but we still prefer the Kawartha Ice Cream brand at home.
We stopped at Canmore to charge our car again to around 95% and debated whether we should eat lunch there or just head to Banff. We decided on the latter because there was an Una Pizza in Banff that we wanted to check out. Ferraro’s pizza was better because of the fresh dough.
For dinner we visited The Bistro Restaurant on Bear Street. The food was “okay”. The Nash was better in Calgary.
All in all I think it will be a long time before I visit Banff again. It was simply too touristy for me.
As it turned out we could have skipped Canmore and not charge at all, because there is a destination charger at the hotel which we topped up to around 95% again. Tomorrow morning at 6am we will be ready to head to Lake Louis and then straight to Jasper without further charging. Fingers cross and hope we have enough charge with all the hilly terrain.
We stayed at our cousin’s place in AirDrie as he and his wife are both retired. We arrived at around 8pm on September the 18th. cousin Eddie was kind enough to slap something simple for us to eat. His rendition of the soya sauce based ribs was perfect with the steam rice that I had. At this point on the road trip, I have not had any rice for many, many days!
The next day we went to the CrossIron Mills Mall in Airdrie. This gives an opportunity for the girls to do some shopping while I can charge at the Tesla Supercharger that is located around the parking lots of the mall. When I got to the mall, I was surprised that it was full, and I had to queue up for a charge. After waiting for about 30 minutes, I got a stall that only gave me about 29kW. This was the slowest super charger experience yet on our road trip. The Flo fast DC charger that were next to the super chargers was faster, giving us 50kW. To make the experience worst, upon a thorough research, this was the only super charger station near Calgary! Anyone planning to drive to Calgary with a Tesla should be advised to get their vehicle charged up prior to entering the city. I gave up with the super chargers, and decided to just charge our Tesla at our cousin’s house at a measly 1kW. This means one day of plug in will only give us about 30% of charge. We didn’t do a lot of driving around town, so this worked as long as we leave the car plugged in all the time.
On the 19th, we went to cousin Rob’s place for dinner. He and his wife cooked a superb meal for us. The meat was tender and delicious, and the dinner rolls were like candy. After one, you immediately want another. It was good to catch up with them.
On the 20th, Eddie’s wife made some wonderful blueberry pancakes for us with accompanying bacon and sausages. This meal was a carb bonanza! The pancakes tasted better than my wife’s cooking. I made sure that she got the recipe. On the same evening, we went to the Modern Steak restaurant. Even though it was a steak house, and I had the Black Angus Filet, the most memorable for me were the oysters on the sea food platter. The crème brûlée also imprinted a lasting impression in my mind.
On the 21st, we woke up with some delicious pastries from La Table Haute Pastry in Airdrie. These were compliments from our cousin’s daughter and her husband. What left a real impression was the delightful almond croissant. There are no words to describe its taste. For me it was heavenly and perhaps even life changing!
Later on, we drove downtown and visited Shiki Menya Ramen for a late brunch. I had the squid ink soup, and its special savoury flavour made me want to just breathe in the ramen. Their portion was large enough that we were all stuffed. Their gyoza were also very tasty. However, in the end I had an after taste of garlic and a dying thirst for the rest of the day.
We had walk off our fullness at the Market Mall and a short visit to a local Costco for some light shopping. The garlicky flavour was alleviated by another helping of pastry from La Table when we got home. That same night we had another get together with Rob and his wife at the The Nash. It was another great opportunity to be with good company and enjoy some excellent food, especially my lamb shoulder that was cooked to perfection.
On our final full day in Calgary, the 22nd, we took our drone out to do some flying around Eddie’s gorgeous neighbourhood that was surrounded by canals lined with parallel walking paths. We use those same paths, to frequent a local Crumbl Cookies. These cookies were packed with sugar, excellent for an apocalyptic sugar rush. On our last evening in Calgary we had a super delicious meal at Ferraro Truly Italian. I had a spaghetti dish, but the pizza appetizer was out of this world. They made all their pasta and dough fresh when ordered.
This morning we bid our farewell to Calgary and our cousins on the morning of the 23rd as we head out Banff to checkout some of god’s fine landscaping. We really, really appreciated and grateful for both of our cousins to be able to share their time and residence with us. The time that we had was memorable and both Carol and I were glad that we made the trip out here to Calgary.
It is too bad that we have to make our U-Turn here, and not Vancouver or Victoria on Vancouver Island, as we must make our way back to Toronto for a wedding in October. Sorry cousin Melissa for not be able to make a visit this time around. I am pretty sure there will be a next time though.
Here is a video curated and edited by Carol on the four days that we spent in Calgary.
While at Moose Jaw, we stayed at Temple Gardens Hotel & Spa. Carol did a dip in the hot springs pool and she claimed that the mineral water really helped her psoriasis. The morning breakfast buffet was delicious along with the accompanying, friendly service.
After breakfast, we visited the Tunnels of Moose Jaw, before heading off on our final leg to Calgary. There were three tunnel tours, but we picked the one associated with the Cold War. The 45 minutes guided tour brings you back to the 1950’s of the Cold War era where facilities in Moose Jaw was used to trained NATO and 5 EYES spies. They also talked about how the Canadian government at that time surveil social (leftest) politicians from Saskatchewan thinking that they were potential communist spies.
Our final drive to Calgary was largely uneventful other than that Medicine Hat was a much bigger town than I original thought. The final charging stop was in the middle of nowhere with just an accompanying Subway restaurant. At each charging stop, three in total on this trip, our new Windex cleaning process seems to be working with the bug infested windshields.
Just as we approach the outskirts of Calgary, the sky opened up as if the city was rolling out the “yellow carpet” for us. Check out the stunning pictures below.
As a bonus the car was washed with heavy rain fall just before reaching the city boundary.
This morning we had another Tim Horton’s breakfast with a 7am rise and setting out at around 8:30am after a 30min charge near the Tesla Superchargers at Polo mall.
I had to take a little detour to pick up a used stereo amplifier that I purchased, the SMSL DA9. I was looking for a balanced XLR input amplifier for my bedroom and this came up on Canuck Audio Mart. Hopefully it will sound good, but I will not be able to test it until I get home at the end of the month.
The above pickup was about a 30 minute detour, but we had beautiful weather for our 6 hours drive to Moose Jaw. The straight roads, clear skies, and Tesla Auto Pilot made the journey pleasant and relaxing.
There was an interesting Co-op stop in the middle of nowhere at Whitewood, Saskatchewan.
About 50 km from Moose Jaw, the Tesla auto wipers started to act up. I think it is the dead bugs build up on the windshield, and disoriented the front cameras that doubles as the rain sensor. I will have to wash the windscreen tomorrow morning before we set out again.
Another thing I noticed is that Saskatchewan highways had the speed markers too far to the right of the road. In a few cases, the Tesla failed to pickup the speed limit which was 110 kph, it instead erroneously assumed 80 kph. This impacted the cruise control until I applied a 30 kph offset in the Auto Pilot menu. If I did not have this offset, the car will revert back to 80 kph and I will be experiencing phantom breaking when cruising at 120 kph. Of course, this is a bit dangerous if there is a car following you too closely.
We had a nice Chinese dinner at James Chinese Restaurant, which is about a 5 minutes walk from our hotel. The food was okay, and when you are hungry, anything tastes good. Nonetheless, I will go back again.
After dinner we took a nice stroll towards Crescent Park. Here are some photos that we took.
Tomorrow we are going to visit the Tunnels of Moose Jaw, and then straight on to Calgary. We were going to goto Edmonton, but I think we’ll hit Edmonton on the way back, the same with Regina.
Today’s drive is our longest yet. We checked out of our AirBnB, and proceeded to a charge station to top up or batteries. This took about 30 minutes. Afterwards, we helped ourselves to a bagel breakfast to go at Tim Hortons. We ended up starting our journey at around 7am.
Today we actually crossed time zones from Eastern to Central, so we actually gained an hour.
The drive was uneventful and we are learning to stop at Supercharging stations at towns or cities with big populations so that there is either a Walmart or some big restaurant row.
There are two things which I find are critical assets for these long drives. The first is a good audio book, and the second is Tesla’s Autopilot / Auto Steering features. Both of these make the hours go by quick.
As usual, Carol’s video of the day gives a better experience than my wordy blog here.
Last night we stayed at the Quattro Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie. I really liked this hotel. Carol got her swimming in using their indoor pool, and we also got some laundry done with their guest laundry facilities. The place also came with complimentary breakfasts with real eggs and sausages!
We started our drive at 11am to Thunder Bay. The first half of the trip was met with beautiful weather. Northern Ontario has some really nice sceneries. We also got a bonus view, with some of the trees already changing into their fall colours.
The second half of the drive was pretty dangerous. It got super foggy on the highway, and we could not see more than 30 to 50 meters in front of us. It was like this for about 300 km. At our last charging stop, we had to use the GPS to guide us to get there.
After about three charge stops and numerous washroom breaks, at around 8pm we finally arrived at Thunder Bay. To our disappointment, most restaurants closed at 9pm here, so we settled for something simple, like McDonald’s for dinner.
Tonight we are staying at another AirBnB place. A very nice one bedroom suite with our own washroom. The host, Dawna was very nice and waited for our arrival. The room has a very “family” feel to it. It is as though we are staying with relatives.
Tomorrow, we plan to start early to Winnipeg.
Carol’s video is worth a million of my words, so here it is.
Day 4: Driving from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay
