Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Banff to Dawson Creek)

First off, I am in Dawson Creek. Note, the lack of 's to separate it from the TV show that was on quite a while ago, starring Katie Holmes and James Vanderbeek. So no, don't ask if I've seen them.

Today was not a good day of driving. The hostel in Banff was interesting. I felt strange being there only one night, especially since most of the people who were there seemed to be staying for 3 nights at least and going off to do outdoorsy stuff (it is in the middle of Banff National Park). In the morning, I decided to be safe and go to fill up on gas before I left Banff, because I didn't know how far it would be.

Well, after I was done I went to back up - just as a guy in a large Dodge Ram pickup truck did, and we hit each other. I did very little damage to him (a few scratches and a bit of the liner on his step into the bed of his pickup truck was screwed up). However, I managed to shatter my left tail light, and screw up the handle on my hatch. Thankfully it still opens so I can get things in and out of it, but it is going to have to be fixed at some point. I also seem to have misplaced the most recent insurance card for my car. I don't believe that I need it to get back into the States (I have the registration and proof of sale and my enhanced driver's license), I'm just annoyed that I managed to lose it - in my car. I'm sure I'll find it at some point (at least, I certainly hope so). I'm just annoyed.

So then I finally got on the road. Called Dad to let him know what was going on, and then hopped on the road. Jenn had one way for me to go, but it involved going on a road that was neither primary or secondary (so possibly dirt), so he found a different way for me to go. However, his way did not show up on the GPS, and tried to get me to turn into the middle of a field (GPS and directions got confused, neither wanted to fix the other). So I ended up having to go to Canada 2 and then up to Edmonton just to come back west, to get to Dawson Creek. It added an extra 100 kilometres (see, the Canadian spelling!) to the trip, which just make me cranky. I left the hostel around 8am, and rolled into Dawson Creek about 8:30pm (once I found the hotel and got checked in and everything). It was a long day, and tomorrow is a long day as well (11.5 hours, though pretty much all on the Al-Can Highway, which is good).

I still need to write about Missoula, but that's not going to happen just yet.