Most family driving vacations are done in this manner, which is probably why family driving vacation and claustrophobic death march have often been used in the same sentence. I admit to being a prime offender. Canada offered me a chance to reform my ways.

The Canadian Rockies are truly worth savoring. They rise abruptly from the windswept prairie outside Calgary, starting first as a series of low, rolling hills carpeted in firs and pines and then jutting upward to form great jagged peaks that block the late afternoon sun. When Scotsman Alexander Mackenzie charted the region on his transcontinental journeys in 1789 and 1793, he made careful note of his surroundings; we did the same. Even though the Buick Lucerne that I was driving was a deceptively powerful car, with all the prerequisites of a great road-trip vehicle (speed, legroom, comfortable seats, and a booming sound system), there seemed to be no point in hurrying.

From the airport, we drove just 40 miles that first day, spending the night at Falkridge, a wondrous corporate retreat. The purpose was to decompress after a day of air travel so that we could start fresh in the morning. Falkridge perches on a forested hilltop, facing west, toward the Rockies. Our bedroom featured picture windows that let in the setting sun, and dinner was served in a small gazebo. Atop the gazebo was a lookout tower that offered a 360-degree view of the spectacular and undeveloped countryside and from which we gazed out across the long wilderness valley leading to the mountains. The setting sun rendered the granite peaks a slowly changing palette of purple and pink and mauve.