Crossing the border into Canada was pretty easy. The border guard had a few questions for us and we were on our way. I drove the first leg through some winding mountain roads that day, with some commentary about me driving too slow coming from the passenger seat. Hey! We all arrived alive!

When we got into the Banff area, we were blown away by the Canadian Rockies. We learned that there are fewer than 100 bears in all of Banff National Park, but where we were staying in Canmore was basically their bear highway. Sadly for Sam, we didn't see any grizzlies at the campsite, but we did find some of their fur.

The towns of Banff and Canmore were super cute, and we had a great time wandering around the little shops buying souvenirs. We even stopped at a hole-in-the-wall conveyor belt sushi place, and I loved snagging dishes off the little sushi train.

This part of the trip has really been dominated by the lakes, and for good reason. They are insanely and beautifully colored in the prettiest blues you've ever seen.

We did a boat tour of Lake Minnewanka, where we learned the history of the area all the way back to the Indigenous peoples who first lived here. It was a great way to see the scenery without anyone having to do a lot of hiking. At one point on the tour, we stopped to listen to the silence of the backcountry, and it was so incredibly peaceful.

Then there was Moraine Lake, which might be my favorite color. I did the Rockpile hike by myself (and about 200 strangers). It's listed as easy, but it's intense. Totally the devil's Stairmaster. But the moment I got to the top and saw the color of the water from that iconic viewpoint, it was all worth it. I stayed up there for a while, taking photos with every lens in my bag, and my phone for good measure. 

Next up was Lake Louise, which turned out to be a pretty significant stop on this road trip. Sam and I found a spot by the lake to sit together for a while, and somewhere between admiring the view and talking about our life, he asked me to marry him.

And I said yes. It wasn't a big production, and that made it perfect. Just the two of us sitting together beside Lake Louise talking about the life we've already built and deciding that, yeah, we'd like to keep doing this together. So we came to Canada as boyfriend and girlfriend, and we'll be leaving it engaged. ❤️

Since that wasn't enough excitement for one week, we kept moving. We relocated to Golden, British Columbia, giving us a chance to see a little more of Canada and explore Yoho National Park.

Yoho gave us more of what Canada apparently does ridiculously well: waterfalls, mountains and water in colors that don't look real. Getting to Takakkaw Falls required navigating some serious switchbacks; I actually had to put the truck in reverse to get around one, but the falls were worth it.

Then there was Emerald Lake, another absurdly beautiful shade of blue-green. We grabbed lunch by the water and contemplated renting a canoe, but Canada reminded us that it was September by turning cold and rainy. We decided a warm camper and an afternoon of relaxing sounded pretty good instead.

And maybe the weather was telling us something, because by then we were all starting to feel ready for a little less adventure and a little more home.

The great thing about driving your own little condo across the continent is the flexibility, and tonight we flexed some of that.

We're getting a tad homesick.

We've officially been on the road for almost three weeks, and as incredible as this trip has been, we're starting to miss home, our dogs, our own beds and normal life. So tonight we pulled out the itinerary and made some adjustments. We shaved a couple of days off the remaining trip without giving up the things we're still really excited about.

There's still plenty of adventure ahead of us. We're heading east toward Lake Superior, with more national parks, waterfalls, rocks to hunt and places we've never seen before.

We're just going to do it on a slightly faster path toward home.