Earliest road trip memories

I recently came across a couple of photos of one of my early cars. This was my second car and the  first I ever bought from a dealer. It was 1975 and I paid $400 for it. Can't remember how many miles were on it at the time but I do recall it needed a new windshield and within a couple of months of ownership I had to replace the brakes.

Even back then I couldn't leave things stock. I wanted to up the performance a bit so I installed a Mr. Gasket dual point distributor and a carburetor from a '69. The choke had to be converted to the '59's 6 volt system from the '69's 12 volt. I purchased an AM/FM radio and a voltage converter to go with it. Other modifications were the custom steering wheel and interior door panels. I also started on painting the stock steel wheels to resemble the then popular Jackman 5 spoke steel wheels.

The reason I'm sharing this is that the photos reminded me of my first road trip! I had only had my driver's license for a couple of years and hadn't ventured much more that two or three hundred kilometers from home. Friends had recently moved from Calgary to Campbell River BC, which is located on Vancouver Island, and had extended an invitation to come and visit. That was the seed for my first solo road trip.

There was no gas gauge in the early Beetles so planning for the trip was based on an estimated fuel consumption and how far I thought I could get without risking running out of gas. It turned out that my initial estimates were very conservative. My route took me west from Calgary along the Trans-Canada highway through Banff with the first scheduled fuel stop in Golden BC, 265km / 164 miles away. I only needed 18 litres / 4 imperial gallons of gas which netted me 40 miles per gallon. This turned out to be the average for the whole trip, 1600 miles and 40 gallons of gas.

The Coquihalla Highway was still 10 years from being opened so my route followed the Trans Canada Highway through Fraser Canyon. I remember the exhaust developing a leak somewhere after Kamloops BC. In those days oil came in cans so I stopped at a gas station, asked for an empty can, purchased  a couple of clamps and had my exhaust quieted down in no time.

Stopped at a campsite near Hope BC overnight planning an early start the next morning. Made it to Vancouver in time for the noon ferry across to Nanaimo BC and then headed up to Campbell River from there. 

The trip was a lot of fun and other than the exhaust patch I had no problems with the car. I didn't run out of gas either! I showed the pictures to the family the other day and one of the first things they said is that I should have kept the car! Perhaps they were right.

Do you remember your first road trip? Please share it by commenting below.

We've been everywhere... an update

I don't want to leave out the Canadian portions of our road trips so here's a map showing the provinces we've been in during the same time frame of our earlier post:

Provinces we've visited in the Festiva marked in yellow

Although over the years we've been in more than what's shown I've only included those provinces that we've been in with the Festiva.We hope to increase the yellow bits on both maps during 2015!

We've been everywhere... well not quite

I was just going over some of our blog posts and thought it would be fun to map out the states we have been through in the Festiva so here it is...

The states marked in yellow are the ones we've driven through since September of 2011 on our "Festiva Madness" and "Festiva in the Park" road trips. Final tally is 25 states plus Washington DC as of November 15, 2014. Those two road trips totaled over 18,000km / 11,000 miles spread over 29 days. Follow the links to the first post in each of those trips.

Your comments are welcome.

Not every road is a winding road.

Most of the road trips and favorite drives I've written about in the past have featured twisty two lane hardtop highways winding their way through mountain and forest. In fact there are some great drives that fit that description only an hour west of our home here in Calgary. 


The picture is considerably different an hour in the opposite direction. When you drive east from here the roads straighten out considerably and the vistas are long and broad. Although my preference is for the twisty bits there's something appealing about the long view too. The following photos were taken on the westward drive from Salem Acres Bible Camp, just west of Big Valley AB, to Innisfail AB along Alberta Highway 590.

This stretch of highway is about as straight as you can get as it rolls across the prairies and is a fairly typical example of the roads to be found across the eastern half of our province.

WESTIVA 2014... more photos

Here are a few more photos from the Westiva meet held last month. Enjoy...

Promised engine shot of Casey's 1.0L 3 cylinder turbo

Casey's Swift

Brad's Festiva in its current trim.

Upper Kananaskis Lake where we dipped our toes in the water.

On the road up to Boulton Creek Trading Post.

Thanks to Wilf and Brad for sending these. 


Brad also posted a little video of the drive from Wedge Pond up to the Boulton Creek Trading Post....

Thanks again to everyone who made it out. See you again next year, July11!

Gridlock on the TransCanada Highway.

Yesterday, August 4th, I drove my son and a couple of his friends to Grindrod, BC in our Ford Festiva. The drive out was great; we made really good time,didn't use much fuel and enjoyed the great driving weather and relatively light traffic. From our home in Calgary to our friend's in Grindrod is a 500km westward run that passes through Banff, Yoho, Glacier and Mount Revelstoke National Parks and over the Rogers Pass.

Castle Mountain near the intersection of the Trans Canada Highway and Highway 93

I was really looking forward to the run home that afternoon as there are quite a few stretches that are a lot of fun to drive, and by fun I mean twisty two lane. I was also planning to take a short detour at Golden to drive up the Kicking Horse Trail, one of the roads I mentioned in one of my "favorite drive" posts. Before I continue with the story I must say that I had noticed that the eastbound traffic was a little on the heavy side. With it being the Monday of a long weekend I wasn't surprised but as you will see it turned out to be quite a bit worse than I first thought.

After depositing the boys at the designated spot I began my return trip. The first leg from our friend's Grindrod home to Sicamous is about 34km on twisty two lane  BC Highway 97A that hugs the shore of Mara Lake for about half of that distance. Highway 97A is the northeastern branch of the highway that runs from the US border just south of Osooyos BC, through the Okanagan Valley and joins the TransCanada Highway at Sicamous. I wasn't too surprised then to see a bit of a back up in Sicamous with all the holiday traffic. I filled up the Festiva's tiny (38L) fuel tank, registering a satisfactory 5.7L/100km, and then headed out eastbound on the main highway. 

Here's where things began to fall apart. The heavy traffic I'd noticed on the way in was now heavier and slower. It took ninety minutes of stop and go to reach Revelstoke BC, only 75km away! Average speed.... 50km/h! 

I stopped in Revelstoke and revisited the Nomad Food Co. on Victoria Ave where Sharon and I had dined on our June road trip. The place was hopping and the food was awesome; you should try their crispy chicken burger. I stayed in Revelstoke for about an hour and then hit the highway again. The first 25km or so were great, even with the expected heavy holiday traffic. Things came to a stop, literally, 28km out, right by the Skunk Cabbage Boardwalk with stopped vehicles as far as one could see up the road. From there it was stop and go again for the remaining 120km to Golden. I left Revelstoke at 6:00pm MST and arrived in Golden at 8:50pm MDT. Average speed....52km/h!

Stopped at the Skunk Cabbage Boardwalk turn-off

Golden was just crawling with hot, tired travelers trying to get gas or coffee. Once I had my coffee and a box of TimBits I returned to the highway for the last leg home. By now it's just after 9:00pm and I'm ready for home so I didn't make the little detour I had planned. After the first 20 minutes or so I reached the Kicking Horse Rest Area and the base of Ten Mile Hill where there is a long stretch of four lane divided highway. By this point the traffic was able to spread out a bit and I made the remainder of the trip home in relatively good time arriving just before midnight. Fuel consumption also suffered, the return trip worked out to 7.1L/100km.

A few observations:

1. BC Highways and the federal government desperately need to finish twinning the Trans-Canada Highway!

2. I don't mind being in heavy highway traffic when it is moving consistently at or close to the speed limit. That wasn't happening on this drive.

3. I was pleasantly surprised at the road manners of almost all the drivers caught in this situation. There are quite a number of passing lanes along the way and invariably everyone would just stay in their place in line, probably recognizing the futility of rushing ahead by about five or six car lengths only to end up stopped.

4. The car behaved well, the A/C worked when called upon, got to listen to some great tunes and the weather was nice enough that I could have the windows open most of the time.

I will be going to pick up the boys tomorrow, August 6, and my guess is the drive will be a lot more enjoyable. Maybe I'll make that detour on the way after all!

Another road trip report.... this time not mine.

One of the blogs I follow is Subcompact Culture. Andy and his wife, Mercedes, recently took a road trip from their home in Portland, through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alberta and BC. Follow this link to read of their adventures.

From www.subcompactculture.com

Sharon and I have driven portions of their route, albeit not in one trip, and can attest to the reports of great roads, great scenery and great food. 

On a technical note... Andy did a single post for the entire road trip whereas I have tended to do day by day postings. This begs the question: which do you prefer, a single post for entire trip or day by day postings? Please let me know by way of a comment.

Enjoy!