Wednesday

Wednesday, April 14

Today dawned at "normal" time, 730am. I woke with a sore throat. Rrrrrrr. >:( I fought a sore throat for 7 weeks before the trip, I dont want Chris'! On the positive side, hes feeling better. Yay. Always good when youre driver is feeling better!

We get breakfast (bacon egg & cheese bagels again at McD's!) and head out. We thought about going to the Olympic Museum ... until we found out they dont until .... May. Calgary Tower and Calgary Zoo were also a thought ... but we really had to be on the road early and they both opened at 10am. It was going to be a long drive to Helena MT. Looked it up on the internet on Tuesday night and wow! Its an 8 hour drive! Thought it was less than that. Oooopss! On the road by 9am, destined for the border in Coutts, AB, Ca. In Lethbridge, AB, Ca, we get off the 3 and go through town to get to the 4, the freeway south to the border. Going through the town, creepy, every single stop light is out. We get on the 4 and head out of town. Just out of town, the sheriffs are blocking the road. Pull up, freeway is closed due to snow and they havent plowed yet. It will be a couple hours before its open again. But we can go down and wait where its closed or go back to town. We decide to head back to town. Maybe we can catch a movie. We drive around for around an hour, pretty much seeing the entire town. All except a theatre. We find out power is out in the entire town. No gas stations, restaurants, stores, any, are open. No wonder stop lights are out! So we give up and head back out the freeway to go wait. Pass the first roadblock and drive down to the second one. Sheriff says, no, you cant wait here. Find another way (!) or wait. Head back to town again. Laugh as we try to find a place to get some food and we finally find the theatre! Oh well, they had no power, we would not have been able to see a movie. Text back and forth with my mom to see if there is any other way to go. Nope. Freeway closed due to blowing snow, expected to re-open late afternoon. We dont know when "late afternoon" is ... so.... As we are waiting, power is restored to some places and a couple restaurants open. We get some lunch, park, eat, recline the seats, sleep for 2 hours. Wake up, head out, road re-opened! Yay! Finally on our way after a 4 hour delay.

Freeway looked incredibly dry and clear for a lot of kilometers. But then, we came across where the snow had blown and drifted over the freeway, huge piles of snow still left in the road in some places. It was like dodging mines! Plows still working on both sides of the road. We get close to the border and I wanted to stop at the duty free shop before we left. Looked for it, but there was a huge line for the truckers to go through customs into the States, easily a couple miles long. They were blocking the driveway so we skip it. Get up to the customs gate and there is only one car in front of us. We breeze through quickly after a brief search of the trunk and questions about where weve been and where we are going.

Head into Montana and down to Helena. Pretty uneventful the rest of the day. Finally get to a hotel around 8pm. Feeling much worse, congested and coughing now. Drag bags in and order pizza for dinner. Coughing has made my lungs a little weak, almost an asthma attack. After dinner, I am feeling terrible so I decide to call it a night. I put on my CPAP and instantly the air hits my throat, and I have go into a full asthma attack. My inhaler, of course, is in the car where I left my purse. I start to put on outside clothes and dont get far, I am so panicked, I end up getting sick. Chris goes out to the car and gets my inhaler for me. Take a couple deep breaths and I start to calm down. Enough to finally call it a day and crawl into bed. Whew.

No rain or snow (where we were!). Huge snow storm hit Lethbridge and south which is why there was no power and the freeway was closed.