Are you serious? (or, why this trip isn't fun yet)

The last two days have not been the best. In fact, by the time the second crappy thing happened, I was wondering what the most direct route would be from Kalispell to Mobile so that we could just get it over with. But then I figured missing out on the Grand Canyon would sort of be like cutting off our noses to spite our faces, so we should probably keep going. But the thought is still in the back of my mind.

I'll start with yesterday. This is why we were happy to make it out of Jasper....

Yeah. That's the truck being towed. Definitely not the best start to the day. As I mentioned the other day, we had a bit of an issue with the transmission as we were getting ready to leave Dawson Creek. It was slipping and we even stalled a couple times. We thought everything was ok, though, since we made the trip to Jasper mostly uneventfully. But then, when we went to pull away from the hotel, the same thing happened. Jason managed to get us going and down the street to a service station, where he parked on the main street and went to see if they could take a look at it. As luck would have it, they had no openings until the afternoon (it was about 10am at that point), so we braved the international cell phone rates and called AAA. They pointed us to a different place, so Jason left me with the sleeping baby (of course she was sleeping then!) and walked over to the other garage. They said they'd take a quick look if we could get the truck over there right away. Well, when he got back, we got to make another call to AAA... this time to set up a tow.

Initially, there was talk of possibly needing a new transmission, which would've meant THOUSANDS of dollars and MANY extra nights in Jasper (at least 10, come to find out) at $250-ish/night for the cheapest nice-ish, dog-friendly hotel. But instead of that, it was 6 hours, just over $350 and a little bit of worry. Come to find out, the guys we had do the service on the truck in Kodiak (to get it ready for the trip) didn't know what they were doing when it came to installing the transmission filters. So instead of actually pounding them in with a tool made specifically for that, they just banged on 'em a little with their fists. 2500 miles of ALCAN later, and they'd unseated enough to no longer get any pressure and thus no fluid and thus no transmission. So, you can see we were VERY thankful for more than a couple things - first, that we made it out of the most remote places of Alaska and the Yukon with a working vehicle, second that we didn't try to make it through the winding, remote Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff, and third that it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been and we were able to keep our schedule and not spend a fortune!

Once we got on the road, the views were spectacular... starting with this girl crossing the road right in front of us!

We were treated to a bit of sun every once in a while, though not as much as we would've liked. The baby mostly cooperated and we had a good afternoon/early evening. Thank goodness my little Alaska girl likes the cold temperatures and a ride in her Kelty backpack!!

I had to take this shot because I wanted to show what it looks like as you're driving down the road on the Icefields Pkwy. I didn't even have to stop and get out to take pictures... I took most of them from the truck!

How incredible is that!?!?

And here's the same mountain as the one above with the rainbow, just with a little more sun on it.

Just outside Banff is Lake Louise - which is apparently one of the most photographed places in the world. Unfortunately, we were there late-ish in the day and it was really overcast, so my pictures are not good. But I did have fun taking some pics of my girl!

Inspecting her first flower - a buttercup I picked for her, and which she quickly discarded. Fred took a turn at it, but he also spit it out. No love.

And here's Daddy and his girl! Like the goatee he's sporting? I love how it only takes about 12 shots to get one good one, too... thank goodness for digital. Wanna see an out-take?

So after all that yesterday, the only highlight of today was that we made it back to the US.

We intended to drive the Going to the Sun Highway through Glacier National Park. Intended is the operative word in that sentence. We did our homework this year, we thought, on getting through the road, thanks to being turned away the last time we rolled through. Yeah, it would've been nice if we'd paid attention to the vehicle size restrictions and not just the snow removal. Come to find out, you can't take that road if your vehicle is longer than 21 feet. Yeah, we're longer than that with the trailer.

Things got a little ugly for a bit after we were given the rules by the world's most unfriendly park ranger, and we were forced to drive around - AGAIN. Come to find out, it was probably better that way since the trip through was taking 2-3 times longer than the trip around, but we weren't very happy to be turned away at the gate. Again. (Did I mention that's happened to us before?)

So we're in Kalispell, MT, tired, a little road-weary, and facing our longest day of the trip tomorrow - 420 miles from here to Idaho Falls. We're praying Michaela handles it as well as she's been doing the last few days and that we get there in uneventful style. I think I'll take a quick look at the map tonight to see what that direct route might be, just in case.....