Today is our last day in Vancouver. Woke up at about 5 or 6 in the morning thinking that we'd be leaving around 7ish so that we can get to Jasper in good time and maybe see the Ice Fields the same day.
We all got ready, had our showers, and went downstairs to get some breakfast. Alnoor uncle had already started making a pretty big breakfast consisting of waffles, pancakes, fried eggs and cereal. I had some cereal and, for the first time, had waffles with syrup. Yummy!
After a lot of shouting on my dad's part, we started to move our stuff into the van and I gave the car one last quick clean out when Alnoor uncle suggested we give it that power spray that we were thinking of giving it.
We went round the car about 2 or 3 times, and the car looked a lot cleaner after we did. Had a bit of fun with it and got my brother almost completely wet in the centre of his trousers!
After saying our goodbyes to everyone we jumped in the car about 11am-ish, and set off back to Vancouver.
About 3 hours into our journey my mum noticed a lot of smoke behind us. It turned out that it was us that was causing the smoke! We stopped at the side of the highway and my dad opened the bonnet of the van to take a look, tons of smoke poured out of the car. We were all really worried about what had happened, and I felt so worried, mainly because we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
After about 20 minutes a tow truck pulled up, almost out of nowhere, and the guy jumped out and started chatting to us about what could be done. We found out that the transmission had blown, and after abut 45 minutes of phone calls, decisions and discussions we decided to go to Kamloops, rent a car and drive all the way back to Edmonton in one day.
The drive to Kamloops was about 4 hours away, so two of us sat in the cab with the driver, and the rest of us took a $250 taxi ride.
From there we got a bit lucky, as a car at the budget we were at needed to go back to Edmonton anyway, so we didn't have to pay the $500 one-way charge. It came to around $120, which everyone said was a good deal.
We drove and drove and drove, and ended up at a place called Blue River where we refueled both vehicles and had something to eat. The food portions were massive, and I only finished my burger and couldn't finish the chips! Mum and dad shared a roast beef dinner, and mum said that the portion she got was perfect, even though it was half of the actual portion.
After that, Talib swapped with me at sitting in the cab and I got to sit in the car, which was soo nice.
We kept driving, and driving and we finally, after almost 19 hours of driving, we arrived in Edmonton.
The truck had already arrived there about an hour earlier, mainly because he was traveling at about 120kmph, which is about 20kmph above the speed limit in some parts and about 60kmph above the limit in others.
Apparently he overtook a car, and turned a corner at about 130kmph which scared the crap out of Talib and Muj!!
In Edmonton, we decided to meet at Salim uncle's shop, as that was the best place to get someone to come look at the car. We dropped the car off, emptied it almost completely into our car, and Salim uncle's car, and drove back to the house.
The drive from the store to home was the best part of the day, the scene was tranquil, the sun was coming up behind the trees, the sky was turning pink, and there was mist all across the shallow valleys beside the road. I wished I had had my camera with me to take some pictures.
But at least the car was nice and clean.
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