Day Six | Rest, Oh Canada, and a Firework Finale … Eh?

The Fourth of July started with me making an executive decision that my traveling team could use a couple extra hours of sleep. So our original plan of catching the 10:00 boat tour moved to 1:00. I spent the morning making lunches, doing laundry, cleaning the Cozy Cabin, hauling garbage to the dumpster (I was in heaven) and picking up warm cinnamon rolls! Yum, yum. 

We hit the road and drove to Canada. Yes, we left the country on one of the biggest celebration days of our country’s history! One of the best parts of the day was simply crossing the American/Canadian border and seeing how the land was cleared all the way from Montana to the Pacific Ocean (see the cut in the trees just above my left shoulder). The girls loved it. Scott and I were relieved they didn't search our car and find the large box of fireworks we had stashed in the trunk!

We drove to Waterton, located on the Canadian side of Glacier Park, and boarded a boat that took us on a two hour ride down Waterton Lake.  We docked at Goat Haunt which is on the American side of the park. Beautiful. When we arrived, we got our passports stamped, once again, with a cute goat stamp!

We did a little shopping to pick up our pins and stamps and Annelies became a Junior Explorer (equal to Junior Ranger in America). We had an early dinner at Trapper’s Mountain Grill (Scott had to smell the ketchup since it wasn’t Heinz) and hit the road back to the great U.S. of A. We stopped on the way home and finished up all the ‘twirly – shooting – twisty – exploding’ fireworks on the side of the road overlooking one of the best Fourth of July backgrounds we have ever had. The girls would like to travel every Fourth of July, to any state that legalizes fun fireworks! They had a blast!

I would like to take a moment to thank my traveling team. When Scott and I first met, 17 years ago, the first year of our relationship was built around planning a month-long trip to Europe. Travel became a large part of our lives and I learned rather quickly I love traveling with him. We are great partners. Everyday I’m reminded at how much I enjoy traveling with Annelies and Paradis as well. We don’t vacation like normal Americans – I realize that. Our goal is to immerse ourselves in the natural environment of the locals as much as possible, we love learning about the history of this wonderful country, we avoid eating out and getting sucked into tourist traps, we love collecting things (pins, rocks, pressed pennies), we love to meet new people along our journeys and we are just downright cheap! There isn't a day that goes by that one of us doesn’t get caught in a huge belly laugh on account of another. We have a democratic process of voting on what we want to do and just simply have fun. I completely admit Drivin’ the Dream was my dream; but this team has jumped on board and more importantly embraced the dream themselves. Thanks Scott, Paradis and Annelies … you three rock!

Day six: 156 miles (1,497 total); $0.00 on gas ($230.08 total); $62.13 on souvenirs ($127.28 total); $121.05 tourist traps ($200.05 total); One state (Three total); Two Countries (Two total); 0 fights (0 total); 1 injury (1 total).