Sean and Paul have arrived and the road trip part of the holiday has begun. We left Fernie on Thursday, headed for Rossland and four days in Red Mountain. We stopped in Cranbrook to get ourselves set up with Canadian mobile numbers, as it was the first town we got to that had a Rogers shop, and they’re the only telecom operator in Canada who sell SIM cards. All the others force you to buy a phone, which I sure as hell wasn’t paying for.

After getting that sorted out, we continued skirting the U.S. border, in one case a little too literally. We missed a turnoff, and 10km later found ourselves about to drive across the border. Given that myself and Dave want nothing to do with U.S. Immigration bureaucracy, we decided we should turn back right about the time we saw a sign that said ‘this way back to Canada’, so we duly took that turn and prepared to head back to our missed turn.

Unfortunately as soon as we made the turn a siren went off and a Canadian customs officer came running out of a building. We decided that pulling over would be a smart move and prepared for some questions:

Officer: Where are you going?

Us: Rossland.

O: Where have you come from?

U: Fernie.

O: Do you live there?

U: No, we’re foreigners.

O: So you’ve an excuse for being lost…

U: Yes.

After a cursory glance at some ID we were out of there with directions to the turnoff we should have taken, while remarking that if it had been U.S. Customs we probably would have either been shot, or at the very least had all our luggage searched!

It was pretty plain sailing after that, though the scenery was pretty spectacular, and we’re now settled in to our place in Red Mountain. We went for our first runs today, and while more snow is definitely required, it’s a pretty nice mountain.