Spicy Amigos

Over the last couple days, as the weather gets nice, I’ve been reminiscing about our cross-country road-trip and the great things we did. I thought I would make a list of 9 great things you won’t want to miss if you do the drive!

• The Habit Cafe in Thunder Bay. This coffee shop is located in a church, and it has high ceilings, huge stained glass windows, and big flat tables (a perfect location if you were looking to do school work, or in our case…play bananagrams). We went to The Habit Cafe right when we arrived in Thunder Bay after hiking the Sleeping Giant (and before we went to pitch our tent by a public boat launch), and then we went back to the cafe in the morning before we left Thunder Bay. I really recommend this coffee shop!

• Sleeping Giant Hike. This hike was 25.6km/7.25hrs round trip and ended with A LOT of blisters. However, do not let that discourage you! I simply didn’t have thin enough socks. The view from the Top of the Giant was beautiful and Lake Superior is endless…you fully understand why it is a Great Lake. We saw a bunch of people biking half of the trail and then hiking to the top, which in retrospect, would have been a much better idea! I recommend doing this hike because it allows you to move your legs for a full day when you’re completing such a long trip.

• Ko’s Ice Cream. My parents told us we should stop here when we went to Winnipeg because apparently when I was a little girl and we lived in Manitoba, I made sure we went whenever we were close. Young Sarah was right though because the ice cream was good. It was soft serve and it was HUGE, and coated in your choice of flavour. I got birthday cake and it tasted like I was eating a funfetti Betty Crocker cake – pretty great! Nathan got peanut butter and it was also good. This was located slightly outside of Winnipeg.

• Great Hills Sands Ecological Reserve. This place is definitely out of the way but is worth it! There are random sand dunes in the middle of Saskatchewan, surrounded by farmland and cows. There were lots of kids tobogganing on the sand and that looked pretty fun! 

• Dinosaur Provincial Park. This park was absolutely amazing! I could not believe what I was looking at, but it made total sense that dinosaurs once lived here. It is a must stop on your way across. We were there during sunset and it was even better – if you’re able to be there at sunset, I would totally recommend! 

• Spicy Amigos YYC. When we arrived in Calgary we were really craving burritos for lunch so we googled burritos in Apple Maps and found Spicy Amigos – a place with great reviews and a promising menu. When we arrived, I got a Barria Burrito and Nathan got a Lengua Burrito – they made fresh tortillas to order. But this was a GREAT place, definitely one of my favourite burritos. This is also where we got the name for our blog! 

• Canmore. The entire town of Canmore is great. There’s not really much more to say then that! It’s a great starting point for so many hikes – Ha Ling Peak and Sparrowhawk are the 2 we did. Make sure to go to Beamers Coffee for a tasty latte after a hike!

• Lake Louise. The pictures of Lake Louise do not lie, the real thing is just as amazing as the photos. There were so many people at Lake Louise, it was slightly overwhelming but I can understand why. 

• Wells Grey Provincial Park. This park has so many great waterfalls and alpine blueberries! There was a great rec site located near a waterfall that we camped at – I’m not going to give too much detail about it, but take a look for it on iOverlander.