26th – 27th July, 2017

We are on the road again! Yes, dear readers, we are on our travels again, this time on a road trip through Canada (a bit) and the USA (a LOT!) with the main aim of stopping off at Cody, Wyoming for the reunion of descendants of Buffalo Bill on the anniversary year of his death in 1917. For those of you that are not aware, he was (is?) my Great-Great Grandfather, but more on that in due course when we are nearer to Cody.

For now let me fill you in on what has happened so far. I am typing this at 4.30am in Calgary or 1130 UK time having gone to sleep at 7.30 last night local time.

Well, our party this trip consists of myself and Val, Christopher and our lovely Texan daughter-in-law, Shivonne and Caroline and her (lovely?) partner, Nick. So we are six if you don’t count the bump that Caroline is carrying. Did I mention that Val and I are going to be grandparents? 21st January, 2018 is the due date. Very exciting.

All went well with a very civilised pickup at 0930 and a drive to Gatwick by taxi. Checking in went fine, we settled down to wait for the flight to be called, the kids went off to find something to eat (Boots meal deal), Nick worried about whether he had packed his new toy, a sort of GoPro camera (he had, we discovered on arrival at Calgary), Val and I fretted that we needed to get to the gate (we were fine, but we can’t help it) and then it was all aboard our WestJet flight to Calgary.

An uneventful 9 hour flight and several films (Hidden Figures, very good, Master & Commander, a classic and opportune as I am rereading the books and Once, which, if you have not seen it, is brilliant) later we touched down in sunny and nicely warm Calgary. WestJet are decidedly budget, but they try very hard and the stewardesses (there were no stewards for some reason) were endlessly cheerful. We were met, after a small delay, by Imran who took us all to our AirBNB where we were to overnight.

The apartment is good – clean, comfy and with all the modcons and will do us fine. See photos above. A walk down the road and we were sitting down to a nice Italian meal, despite several Chinese restaurants en route, which was very brave and decent of Val. Then an early night and, as you can see, an early morning. We will head off for some breakfast before Imran picks us up at 0900 to transfer us all to Kalispell in Montana. Why not drive yourselves, I hear you ask? I did look into this, but it is impossible to do a one-way hire from Canada to the USA and as it was soooo much cheaper to fly to Calgary than to anywhere even remotely close in the US, this is the best option.

I am glad to report that everyone is in good spirits. Val had a bit of a pre-trip wobble, but is now OK, Chris and Shivonne are in top form, Caro is tired, but holding up well and Nick has only made about half a dozen puns so far – indeed I must acknowledge his contribution to the title of this post. I will be intrigued by what he can come up with for Kalispell, our next destination!

More soon!