On the road

After working in sustainable fashion for the last few years it has become impossible for me to ignore the statistics on sustainability in other industries - namely, aviation.  While I do love traveling, flying has a much higher carbon footprint than driving, so this year we filled our summer with road trips.  This turned out to be not only more environmentally friendly but also less expensive, so we were able to go more places!

Our first trip was to Vancouver with an overnight stop in Revelstoke and a lunch break in Vernon at Davison Orchards - the food there is so fantastic we always have an empty cooler in the car to bring home their pies and fresh pressed apple juice!  Whenever we're in Vancouver we love visiting Stanley Park and the Aquarium; this year we also visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge.  On the way back we stopped in Kelowna for good food at the Salted Brick with good company.  

The Canada Day long weekend gave us a chance to go camping in Waterton with friends.  The novelty of sleeping in a tent outside has never worn off for me, but I will admit that sleeping on an inflatable air mattress makes things a lot more comfortable!  There are a lot of beautiful walks in the town site and great hiking trails nearby.  If it's a really hot day you can cool off by jumping in the lake, though with the glacial runoff it stays pretty frigid year round!  

We also took a motorcycle trip down to West Glacier in Montana and drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road, one of the most beautiful roads in the Rocky Mountains.  While in West Glacier there are a lot of things to see and do in the area: Kalispell hosts Arts in the Park and the Glacier Rod Run right next to the classic soda shop Norm's News.  There are also a lot of stalls selling fresh fruit by the roadside in July; there are few things better than a bag of fresh cherries eaten in the shade by the lakeside!  

We also took a day trip on the motorcycle out to the Bomber Command Museum in Nanton to see the Avro Lancaster with the engines running - my dad worked in the aviation industry most of his life so his love of planes must have rubbed off on me!  It's fantastic how well that museum has managed to restore and/or preserve their collection of old planes and engines.  

And another advantage of driving instead of flying this summer?  My 6'2" hubby is much happier not being folded into an economy class plane seat!