Day 217: Johnston Canyon

Today would be a jam packed day with precision planning and perfect execution needed to achieve all goals…which only ended in disaster and stress. See, we have a flight to catch to Seattle for a wedding and need to be back in Calgary by 5:30pm. We had also hoped to pack up our campsite, cook breakfast quesadillas, hike Johnston Canyon, get lunch with Mary’s parents, drop chairs off at Kathleen’s, pick up a paid of nude heels, and stop by Aunt Shelia’s / Uncle Bobs to grab wedding clothing.

Well we succeeded up until lunch with Mary’s parents. Johnston Canyon was awesome and spring fed; there are actually limestone cave features exposed along the canyon. After hiking for 1.5 hours, we drove to Banff and grabbed poutine at their weekly Wednesday Farmers Market. We said goodbye and wished Andy/Susan farewell.

We made good time reaching Calgary and pulled into the mall when we heard “CUDUNK CUDUNK CUDINK”. After parking, we did an inspection of the suspension and wheel bearings. Kieran caught it; 3 out of 5 lug nuts were missing!!!! After googling this, it was clear the worst case happened: the threads holding up the lug nuts stripped off and sheared off because if you lose one, the weight is not distributed and they all fall out. The “CUDUNK” we heard was the wheel wobbling…we managed to survive 1.5 hours on the highway without this problem…

Extremely lucky, a repair shop was 4 minute drive away; Kieran tightened the two remaining lug nuts and drove the car up to the shop. We explained the wedding situation with the shop owner and he was super understanding; agreed to hold our car until Monday!!!!

We Ubered to Bob and Sheila’s with our bags and got everything packed in time for our flight to Seattle.

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