Day 28

Last day of the trip, and the day we arrive back home! We got up early and tore down our soaking wet tent. No amount of towelling off would get it dry, so we had to pack it up wet. We showered using our last tokens, and it was Brett with the company this time. Brett waited for the shower to open up, and found that, like him, there's always somebody forgetting their shampoo and such. Rhonda was the first woman in the showers, she even had to turn in the lights. A first.

Brett grabbed a cup of coffee from the general store. As soon as Rhonda was out, we hopped in the truck and hit the road (on our way out, the sun began to shine and there was a rainbow in the mountains. It figures, nice weather when we are leaving. But with only 2 days of rain in 28 we can't complain all that much). Brett's big concern was the inevitable lineup at the border crossing, which was only 20 minutes away. And the possibility of a search...

We arrived at the border crossing, and didn't see any duty free shops. ? However, the customs checkpoint was deserted! Hooray! And once again, as soon as the magic words "we're schoolteachers" passed our lips, we were on our way!

We had started the trip with a McDonald's breakfast, and we thought it would be cool to end the trip the same way. However, the nearest McDonald's was in High River, an hour and a half away. We filled up in Cardston around 9:30 AM, and made breakfast at the McDonald's in High River at about 10:45. Thank goodness it was a Saturday!

We drove through Calgary, and made our way to Red Deer. We filled the truck again for the last leg of our journey, taking the secondary highways back to Evansburg. Our GPS had different plans, as it wanted to lead us all the way up to Edmonton, take the Devon Bypass route, and use Hwy 16. According to our GPS, the route we ended up using took the same amount of time anyways.

Brett decided to trust the GPS when it was going to lead us along even more secondary highways to completely bypass Drayton Valley. It lead us to the Hwy 22/Tomahawk turnout, and we were back in familiar territory.

We arrived back in Evansburg at about 3:00 PM, having put about 700 km's on the truck that day, our longest since the beginning of the trip. And we were finally out of the truck and back home, safe and sound!

Total km's driven on the trip? 8,900 km's. Total pictures taken? Around 1200. Total gas expenses? We'll see... Total expenses overall? We'll see...

Was it worth it??? YES!!!!!! It was the trip of a lifetime.