This is part 1 of our journey from Kelowna BC, to Jasper/Hinton, AB

Our agenda for the day was twofold. First, we needed to acquire a sim card from Bell (Canadian Mobile Service Provider) so that I could stay connected with work while in Canada. Second, we needed to drive to the Jasper/Hinton KOA. We were particularly excited for this second objective because we opted to take the longer and more scenic route through the Banff and Jasper Parks in Alberta.

The bell store opened at 10am, so we planned our day accordingly. We were going to pack up and head to the Bell store right when it opened, I’d drop Emmy off at the nearby Tim Hortons so she could charge our equipment while I dealt with Bell in getting the sim card. We figured an hour was a safe amount of time to plan for this ordeal, and then we’d be on our way to the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

It’s important to note at this time, that Em and I were quite proud of ourselves for so prudently planning out our day and being conservative in our time estimates in order to make sure we weren’t rushed as in previous endeavors.

The remainder of this story is the account of what actually happened…

*From Emmy’s Perspective:*

RJ walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth and put on a fresh set of clothes while I stayed at the campsite to stuff the sleeping bags and roll up the mat. Several minutes later he comes out of the bathroom all in a panic. I could tell something was wrong the second I saw him. He starts telling me how there was a HUGE spider in his fresh pair of underwear and he dropped everything and ran. I was quite skeptical; he usually exaggerates when it comes to insects—everything is huge and could kill him. I told him there wasn’t much I could do to help him out especially since it was in the men’s restroom. He reluctantly walked back in to somehow deal with the spider issue.

Ten to fifteen minutes later, after I had most of the camping gear packed up, he comes walking out albeit, a little more somber than before.

Apparently, he had spent all that time trying to eradicate the spider and convince himself that there weren’t any other spiders in his clothes. I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of a grown boy dancing around the bathroom in his bunny tights (no, that is not a typo. He really does have bunny tights and no, he is not ashamed.) trying to kill a measly spider. Fortunately for him, he managed to grab a picture of the spider, and I’ll admit, it was a pretty massive spider!

*From RJ’s Perspective:*

Not shortly after the Great Spider Incident of ’18, we headed to the Bell store. We pulled into the parking lot 10 minutes after it opened which wasn’t great, but still not bad considering I was one false move from having a swollen set of man-berries.

The Tim Hortons was easy to spot, so I dropped Emmy off at the front and then proceeded to drive around the building and back because I could not find the Bell store for the life of me. It wasn’t until I returned did I realize that this was a large mall with the store somewhere inside. I parked at the end I thought would be closest which also happened to be on the opposite side of the Tim Hortons.

After entering it took me like longer than I’d like to admit till I was able to find the Bell store. And as luck would have it, I parked on the wrong side of the mall and ended up needing to walk pretty much all the way back to the other side of the mall near the Tim Hortons…:facepalm:.

At this point, we are about 20 minutes into the hour we allocated for the bell store, but hey, no worries, I’m a calm guy, I did all my research beforehand, spent over an hour comparing plans with a Bell rep over the phone before we left on this trip. So I felt confident that I could get this sim card wrapped up within the 40 minutes.

Once I finally found the store and waited for someone to be available, I straight away start telling the rep that I wanted a pre-paid plan with specific options. I had done my research with a Bell rep over the phone to figure out the best plan for me.

The Bell rep at the store starts off by letting me know that all the 1+ hours of research I had done before hand were more or less useless and that the plan I’m talking about doesn’t quite sound right. And if that wasn’t enough to take the wind out of my sails, he lets me know that I needed 2 forms of Canadian or international ID to even get me a plan… bruh.

I didn’t have my passport on me, so I had to go find Emmy to get it. When I found her, it turns out after all this time, she was just in the TH and never found a charger, so none of our stuff had been charging this whole time…. After “gently nudging” Emmy to go and search for an outlet,  I returned to the store to finally get my sim card.

I gave the rep the passport which counted for 1 form of ID, but after trying all other possible forms of ID, I ended up short one form of ID :'(. Funny enough, It turns out that I only needed two forms of ID for monthly plans,;I didn’t need anything for pre-paid plans. Huh, what do you know, if Mr. know-it-all Bell rep just listened to me in the first place, we wouldn’t have had to go through that rigamarole….

*Meanwhile, Emmy was trudging around the mall in search of an outlet. She was trying to juggle both laptops, chargers, camera and her helmet. She texted me to let me know that she was quite certain British Columbia didn’t believe in outlets and she was close to having a heat stroke walking around in all her riding gear.*

I finally get the exact plan that I knew I wanted before (thanks for wasting my time Bell). We try to put the sim into my phone, but my phone rejected it. I *completely* forgot that I needed to get my phone unlocked before I can use an international sim card. ugghh. To make matters worse, unlocking your phone can take up to 48 hours!

I called my boss (my dad), to talk through some options to see if it was feasible for me to go 2 days without service. He comes up with the idea of buying a MiFi.

Seemed good to me, I talked to the guys and they said ya, that should work fine. So I got a MiFi device, they popped the sim card in, and everything looked like it was coming together… but at least 1 hour longer that it should’ve taken, not to mention the few trips throughout the mall.

I walked all the way back to Emmy who was now in the Starbucks next to where I parked the bike, and she did end up finding an outlet (apparently my pep talk worked). We sat for a bit while I verified the MiFi and the data plan. However, for some reason I couldn’t actually access the internet from it. I tried everything I could think of, checked the manual, looked online, and nada. Twenty minutes later, I figured that I better go see my favorite cell provider reps and see if they could help me out. I walk all the way back to the Bell store at the other end only to find out that the MiFi is incompatible with pre-paid plans.

So now we are back to square one! I opt to return the MiFi, and then unlock my iPhone and just figure out how to go into Monday without cell service…

And just when I reach for my wallet to get my credit card, I realize that *I LEFT MY WALLET BACK WITH EM!* gahhhhh!

I ran back and forth yet again to get the wallet so that I could return the MiFi that didn’t even work.

I finally get the darned thing returned and head back to Em, and I think I’m now on my 6th round trip across the mall in *all my bike gear*. Ya, I wasn’t a very happy camper at this moment.  And to make matters worse, I had to pass this popcorn vendor who sold 9 different types of amazing popcorn that had a pervasive aroma that triggered instant salivation. Walking past that in all my motorcycle gear 6 times on an empty stomach would make anyone cave. Also, because this mall experience was so terrible, I figured, maybe purchasing this popcorn would help lighten the mood and moment.

So, on my last trip back to Emmy, I caved and purchased the Jalapeño Cheddar flavored popcorn. It was so delicious, yet had this funny side affect where every time you inhaled a bit of that flavor, you straight up went into a coughing fit. It was still worth it and at least gave that Bell store experience a happy ending.

Moral of the story: you will always spend more time at a cell provider than you expect.

Now that we had the sim card and our equipment charged, it was time to head out towards the Banff and Japer Provincial Parks, but we’ll cover that in the next post :).

To be continued…

-RJ