At Home

 Well, we have been home for just over two weeks now. We have been fairly busy getting the Montana unloaded and in to the dealer, Bluenose RV, for a bunch of little things that can occur after 25000km of driving across the country. We told them not to hurry and do it right! The rig is still there and I have to go in tomorrow and add a couple more things to the list that have to be done.
We got the truck cleaned up, finally. It took a couple of days to get four months of bugs and tar removed. Quick washes throughout the trip got road grime and mud off, but the tar and bugs needed some special attention and a lot of elbow grease. I think I might have a bit of transmission problems with the truck. It seems to shudder a bit on downshifts. Noticed it in the last three days of our trip. Talked to another Ford owner, actually an oil pipeline contractor from Alberta, who has 27 Ford trucks. He says the transmission shudder is in all of them and Ford can’t find the solution. He also said that it does not seem to get any worse, just annoying! However, I don’t like annoying and am going to chase Ford on this one. The tranny fluid has a slight smell of burnt brown sugar but seems to be the proper pink color. I’ll go back to the dealer and if nothing comes out of that I’ll go to a commercial transmission shop and see what they say. Sure would like to get it solved before we head south this winter.
Our going south plans are progressing, but slowly. Too many options out there which seem to complicate planning. We are loosely setting a departure date for late in Dec. or early Jan. Broad plans will have us going directly south, down I81 to Cajun country and then west through Texas towards Arizona. The number and lengths of stops in between will vary. What we are doing is looking for that special spot that we can consider calling home for 5 months each winter. There is a lot down there to look at.
For those of you who might be interested in what it costs to make a trip like we did this summer, my dedicated navigator, accountant and money manager came up with the following numbers.
To keep these numbers in context, here are some of the factors. Our total combined weight (truck & trailer) was 21,750 lbs. Total mileage driven was 25,135 km and our fuel consumption averaged 24.4L/100km or 11.6mpg. My driving speed on good highways was between 90 and 100kph and probably averaged out at 95kph. It was much slower on secondary roads, rough roads (of which there were plenty), long mountain uphill grades etc.
We also cook almost all our own meals. In fact I think we only ate out three times during the whole trip.
We were gone for 124 days and stayed in 54 RV Parks. Two months and one week of this time was spent in Alberta, BC, the Yukon and the North West Territories.
Our costs have broken down like this.
Food (includes cleaning supplies & toiletries) $16.67/day
Campgrounds $27.71/day
Diesel Fuel $49.82/day
Misc. (Truck & Trailer Maintenance, eating out
Wine & spirits, museum admissions and anything
else that is not included in the above.) $34.25/day


We could have reduced our costs somewhat if we had spent at least one night a week at Wal-Mart or Truck Stop parking lots at no charge, as well as no services. We always planned to do this but never did.
This is all for now. We will post occasionally to keep you up to date on our winter travel plans.
Quote of the day: I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
  - E. B. White

P & N

On to Nova Scotia.

We left Renfrew early on a Sunday morning planning to get as far as Quebec City by the end of the day. This leg of our travels is more of a transit stage, as we have driven this route from the Ottawa area to Nova Scotia many times. We also wanted to try to by-pass as much of Montreal as was possible to avoid the constant traffic jams and continuous road construction work.
The drive down through Ottawa was easy with minimal traffic, although the traffic levels increased considerably going through Ottawa. Everyone was in a hurry at 9:30 AM Sunday morning. There were a lot of people either rushing to church (which I doubt) or a lot of people who thought they were important or what they were doing was important (which is possible when you look at the number of politicians and their staff that live in this area).
We drove along the Ottawa River on old route 17 to Hawkesbury and crossed the river into Quebec. Our plan was to travel route 50 to 15, then south to 640, east to 40 and then on to Quebec City on 40. Things went smoothly until we hit the junction of 15 and 640. Last year when we travelled this route, this junction was under construction, and it still is this year. Not a lot has changed. Traffic was bumper to bumper and there were six police cruisers with cars pulled over in a 1 km stretch. It appears they were really enforcing the 50 kph construction speed limits, which was great. However, where they had cars pulled over it narrowed down the traffic lanes and further slowed things down. We eventually reached route 40 and the traffic eventually thinned out.
DW then suggested that we cross the St Lawrence River at Trois-Rivieres and link up to route 20 east. We had never crossed here before so it would be a bit of new road for us until we got on 20. Route 20 was it's usual self. Lots of traffic, mainly transport trucks, and lots of construction which we were able to get past quickly as no one was working at the sites.
We finally reached Levis and pulled into a KOA campground, just off route 20 and settled in for the night. This is a nice spot with full service, clean and modern. Great place to stay if you want to tour "Old Town" Quebec City. They have a shuttle service to the Old Town which means you can leave you vehicle at the campsite and not have to worry about where to find a parking space in the city. The other advantage is that you can visit as many wine bars and bistros as want and not have to worry about driving back intoxicated. The only requirement is that you have to remember where the shuttle is going to pick you up and what time the last run is! We plan on doing this on our next trip up through this area.
We left the next morning and continued east on 20 until we got to Riviere-du-Loup and then headed south to New Brunswick. The drive through the rest of Quebec and into NB was colorful with the trees in full fall colors. Once into NB we drove down the St. John River as far as a RV Park in Gagetown. We have stayed here before and it is now under new ownership and is called Coy Lake Camping. A lot of changes have been made and this park is slowly being improved. They still have a lot of work to do to make their sites comfortable for big rigs.
We left on Tuesday morning for the short drive to Amherst NS where we were stopping next. We arrived in Amherst around noon, got set up at Loch Lomond Campground in Nappan and then spent the rest of the day visiting relatives.
We got a later than usual start on Wednesday morning but knew we only had a short day's drive to Lunenburg NS. This was our last official day of travel for this trip and we were both a little sad that this one was over. On the flip side, we were happy to know that we would be spending time with old friends and family for a few months until we leave again, probably around Christmas time when we plan to head south to warmer climes. We will be posting occasionally over the next few weeks keeping everyone updated on our future plans. We regret that there are no photos in this post but there is a new album posted called fall colors in Ontario. Not many photos, but beautiful color.

Brandon to Renfrew

Our week in Brandon was a busy one. N was spending most of her time with our daughter and the two grandchildren. With my hearing aids I’m only able to tolerate a short time of their playing, laughing and crying on a daily basis. If the weather is warm and fine, outdoors is great but this week was cool and wet at times so most of the play was indoors.
The week did however, allow me to catch up on the blog and photos, get an appointment for the truck servicing and fixing a few nagging problems with the trailer. I was also as able to get any shopping done that was required including topping up the wine reserves.
It was cool at nights and fall is definitely in the air. The aspen trees are yellow and leaves are falling constantly. The win is blowing hard each day and rain or showers seem to be the norm.
Finally got the truck in on Friday, our last day in town, for it regular service.
Good-byes were said on Friday evening and Saturday morning saw us on the road heading east with sunny skies and a strong tail wind.
We stopped in Winnipeg to spend a couple of hours with and old friend of mine along with his wife. It was good to see them if only for a short time and we were soon on our way east again heading for Dryden, Ontario. As we headed into Ontario, we could see that fall was well on its way there also. The leaves are changing and occasionally we would see the odd splash of red in the bushes along the side of the road. We arrived in Dryden around 5 pm and settled in at our usual RV Park there, the Northwestern RV and Tenting Park. We had a late dinner and then in bed early. Long days seem to tire me out more than they used to. I wonder why?
We woke up to another frosty morning. Everything was white and the trailer seemed a bit cooler. That confused us for a few moments until N found a couple of windows still open a crack from the day before.
Again, we were on the road early heading for Nipigon. Another nice day and another tail wind. Boy, do tail winds help the gas mileage! We are trying to cover as much distance as we can each day because we have been over this road so many times and the drive is starting to get a bit boring. We arrived in Nipigon by mid afternoon and settled in an RV park that N always wanted to stay at. We are getting caught up on our budget and bookwork and enjoying the relatively warm temperature of 14C. Tonight it’s back to the minus figures so we’ll be scraping frost again tomorrow morning.

The frost was minimal on Monday morning as we left Nipigon. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day to drive the scenic route down to Sault Ste Marie. The leaves are starting to change and the yellow, orange and red colors were really coming into their prime. We arrived at our RV Park in the Sault late in the afternoon and got settled in. We decided that evening that we would stop into Elliot Lake, the next day, and take a look at the town that was claiming to be a retirement haven. The temperatures are getting warmer now which we appreciate.
We left the Sault early in Tuesday morning after making a phone call to the Elliot Lake retirement living organization. They said that they would make arrangements with the town for us to stay at the municipal RV Park, and set us up a schedule to view the town and some of the 1800 rental properties they have. It was a relative short drive to Elliot Lake (less than 200 km) and by early afternoon we were settled in at a full service RV Park in Elliot Lake, complements of the retirement living organization.
Our first engagement was a tour of the town and surrounding area. We met our tour guide, Tom, at the Retirement Living center at 5 pm. Tom, who has lived in the area since the 50’s gave us the two-hour grand tour. This is an impressive area. There are thousands of lakes in the area, miles and miles of hiking trails and 4-wheeler trails, which in the wintertime become cross-country skiing and snowmobile trails. These trails are kept separate to avoid conflicts between the different users.
We decided to have the organization show us what was available in their rental units so we were set up for another tour on Wednesday morning at 9:00 am.
Wednesday morning saw us visiting several different apartment buildings looking at one and two bedroom apartments. The Retirement Living group is a non profit organization that was able to purchase a large number of apartment buildings, town houses, duplex houses that had been built by the mining companies to house employees when the uranium mines in the area were going full blast. These buildings were built in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and the interior décor reflected this. However they have been well maintained and things like heating systems, electrical and exteriors have been brought up to today’s standards. Although the interiors are dated, so are the rents. The one-bedroom apartments start out at $475.00 with hot water provided. Heat and lights are over and above the rent and range from $60 to $120 a month depending how much you economize or don’t economize.
Thursday and we are still in Elliot Lake driving around the area in pouring rain. We checked out the shopping in the area, found out about the great fishing in the area and generally tried to get a feeling for the area. By now you are probably wondering why we have taken this detour. Well, Elliot Lake is just about the same distance from Halifax as it is from Brandon. Also, it is only a four-day drive from here to Texas and/or Arizona where we think we would want to spend the winters. Elliot Lake is a one day drive to Ottawa and to Toronto. On Friday, we looked at a couple more apartments and did our final looking around the area. Tomorrow morning we leave here and head towards Renfrew, just an hour west of Ottawa. By Sunday evening we hope to be at least half way through Quebec and if all goes well we should arrive back in Bridgewater by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
This will probably be our last post until we are back to N.S., unless we decide to detour to some other place on the way home.

Quote for the day:
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
  - Woody Allen

Cheers

P & N

Southern Saskatchewan

We woke up to a cold, rainy, windy Friday morning in Swift Current. We can’t complain too much though because this is only the second time on this trip that we have had to hook up and get underway in the rain. In fact, the rain eased off to what we would call an east coast mist being driven by 40kph winds.
Swift Current is a very easy town to get around in and we were out of town and heading due south into wheat country. Who ever said that Saskatchewan was flat never drove on any other highway than the TCH. We drove through rain and wind until we reached Cadillac then turned east and headed through Assiniboia then south through Willow Bunch to Coronach where we stopped for the day. Willow Bunch had the first bi-lingual English French signs that we have seen for a long time. We found out later that this area was settled by Metis which explains the French names and bi-lingual signs.

We drove over plains, through valleys past fields of wheat that are still a long way from harvesting. It has been so wet down here that the fields are literally floating in water. The ground must be totally saturated.
Coronach is a small prairie town with the basic essentials. There is a Co-op gas station, grocery store, drugstore, insurance company, restaurant, motel, spa, a recreation center and golf course. As well, there is a small RV park where we are staying tonight.
We walked around town today, bought a couple of things which have to remain unidentified because they are gifts for certain people we know. The weather has cleared some but the wind is howling. Must be gusting to 70 kph. It was a good evening to stay in and play cards.
Tomorrow we are heading up Route 34 to Bengough where there is a regional park. We will probably stay there for a couple of days, and hope that the rain stops, so the back roads can dry up some. If they dry up we will be able to get into the Big Muddy and see what we want to see.
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, with the wind down to a whisper. With the wind blowing as hard as it did overnight, we have no idea how the grass around us could be so white and crunchy with frost. We got hooked up and were on the road in the early morning.

Our first stop was in Big Beaver where we dropped in at Aust’s General store. It is a family owned country general store that sells just about anything and everything. Big Beaver and area was also, many years ago, the starting point for the “outlaw trail” that ran from Big Beaver down through the mid western states to Cludad Juarez, Mexico, and was established by Butch Cassidy and his “Wild Bunch”. They ran it like the pony express. They had a series of ranchers who were either on the shady side of the law, or had been threatened into cooperating, maintain a string of fresh horses for members of the gang as they ran from various lawmen and posses. Of course there were also a lot of lesser known outlaws like Dutch Henry, The Pigeon-toed Kid and a half breed known as Bloody Knife. Bank and train robbing along with stealing horses seemed to be the main occupation of these characters.
It was interesting to be able to drive and walk through some of the places where these people rode and lived. Some had small ranches in the area while others lived in caves dug out of the sandstone cliffs of “The Big Muddy”. They even had caves big enough to hold their horses and keep them out of sight.

The only way to visit these caves is to take one of the local tours that only run in July and August. We could have hired a tour guide but the daily cost for just two of us was too high. However we did get to see and walk around Castle Butte which has been a landmark for centuries, used by first nations people, outlaws, and the NWMP. We also spent a short time talking to one of the ranchers in the area who only had 10,000 acres to run his beef on.
We only drove about 60km today and stopped at a nice regional park in Bengough. Bengough is just north of the Big Muddy valley and has a population of about 450. This regional park is small, but really set up for big rigs. Lots of trees and is very quiet. We drove around the local area just sightseeing and finally settled in for the day with a nice sunset and good dinner. We decided to move on towards Brandon and the grand children the next day with a stop in the Turtle Mountain Provincial Park in southern Manitoba, south of Brandon.
We were up early the next morning and on the road by 8 am. Drove from Bengough north to Highway 13 and turned east. It was a beautiful day with a strong westerly blowing giving us a push along the way and improving our gas mileage. We drove through Weyburn, just missing seeing Keefer Sutherland by two days. Weyburn is the birthplace of Tommy Douglas, known as the father of medicare. The town dedicated a life size statue of Tommy Douglas on Friday. Keefer Sutherland is his grand son and was there for the unveiling. Needless to say most of the crowd was present to see the famous actor rather than for the unveiling of the statue.
Around this time we got a cell phone call from family in Brandon advising us that some work schedules had changed for the time we planned to be there. After the call, N suggested that we drive straight through to Brandon now and arrive early. The driving was good and the tail wind still strong and the traffic was light, so we headed to Brandon.
Crossing into Manitoba we left Sask. route 13 and entered Manitoba route 2. This route took us all the way east to route 10, then just a few short km and we were at Meadowlark RV park in Brandon setting up camp for the next week. There were some surprised grand children when we called to let them know we arrived early. They were at our trailer door in 15 minutes.
This next week will be spent with family, cleaning up our trailer, getting the truck serviced and generally getting ready for the final leg of our trip back to Nova Scotia.

Quote fro the day: Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
  - Frank Leahy

Cheers

P & N

Fort Macleod to Swift Current

Tuesday Sept. 7 saw us wake up at 5:30 am to a heavy hard frost. The truck was coated in an ice like frost as was everything else outside. At 6:30 am I put the thermometer outside and it registered –1C, and the sun was up. It would have been colder at 4 am so this has been the coldest morning of our entire trip. The weather forecast is calling for snow in the mountains tonight. Time to head east.
We got underway around 8am after being serenaded again by the local coyote packs. Their morning songs will be missed. We will also miss Buffalo Plains RV and tenting Park and the owners Sue and Ernie. They run a small, friendly, clean oasis of a park that is ideally situated for many day trips through southwest Alberta. The location is very quiet helped of course by being about 12KM away from any major highway, but having an excellent paved road leading to their location. The washrooms and laundry facilities were clean and well maintained and the whole place was well managed. We will be back and can highly recommend it to anyone traveling in this area.
Traffic was light through Lethbridge and we stopped at Tabor to pick up another dozen corn from a local truck vender.

We arrived in Elkwater, Cypress Hills around 1 pm and got quickly settled into our site. Very quiet here with hardly any campers left after the long weekend. We took a long walk along the lake and found out that we have not been walking enough lately. Our legs started to get tired after a couple of hours.
Had a great dinner of steak, baked potato and corn on the cob. Just as we finished dinner three deer paid us a visit. The doe and her fawn did not want the other one around so an interesting chase took place all around us until the interloper was scared off. It is very quiet here. Only about three rigs in the section of the park we were in.
The next morning, Wednesday, we left for Swift Current. It was overcast but no rain. But there has been a lot of rain this year in Saskatchewan. Fields have standing water in low areas, which are filled with ducks and geese. We heard on the news that only 13% of the crops have been harvested and farmers need about three weeks of dry weather for the crops to mature and the fields to dry out so they can be harvested.

We drove through Maple Creek where the TCH was washed out in June. The highway is divided here but only one side of the highway is open with two-way traffic, east and west. It is hard to say if it will be finished this fall or not. Anyplace where there were hills you could see slumps and slides because the ground is so water logged.
We arrived in Swift Current early in the afternoon and found lots of spaces available at the Trail Campground, right in town. We got set up, found the local mall and did the shopping we needed to do, groceries etc.
Thursday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and a forecast for rain. We decided to stay in Swift Current for another day. I was able to find out on the internet that a representative from the hearing aid company that made my aids was scheduled to be at a local Pharmasave Store. Since my aids needed some work on them I decided to go down and see if I could get to see the representative. We got there at 9:30 am and she took me right in as the person who had an appointment for that time had not shown up. She did the repairs that were needed and within 20 minutes was on my way with hearing aids that worked much better. Talk about good luck. This representative is only in Swift Current every second Thursday and this was the day! N did all kinds of Christmas shopping here as well, so we can now say our Christmas shopping is done.
Tomorrow morning, Friday, we head south to Coronach, a small town near the US border. Coronach is central to the area of the “Big Muddy”, which was home years ago to many famous outlaws from the USA, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There are a large number of historic sites to visit and a fair number of museums that should be interesting. We plan to spend three to four days in that area and then head towards Brandon Man. To see the grand kids. There is no WiFi in Coronack and area, so this will be the last you will hear from for the next week, or until we arrive in Brandon.
Quote for the day: When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
  - Bernard Bailey

Cheers
P & N

Moving on Tomorrow

Well here it is Monday, the end of the Labor Day week-end. The highways will be a mad house today so we are staying here until tomorrow morning when we leave for Elkwater in the Alberta side of Cypress Hills.

 On Saturday morning we found a great grocery store right here in Fort Macleod called Family Foods. The meat looked like it was local, there were lots of bakery items including whole grain breads of several types, and local produce. We were able to buy green and yellow beans even this late in the year. Great service here too as our groceries were carried out to the truck for us.
After lunch, we drove the 3 km to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump. It was really crowded as the weather was warm and sunny and although we have visited this place five years ago it was good to be back. It is a well-designed center with a World Heritage Site designation. The center is built into the side of the cliff next to the actual buffalo jump that 1st nations people used for thousands of years. The hills are known as the Porcupine hills and afford a view of the southern short grass prairie that is unparalleled.
Feeling energetic, we walked a trail along the foot of the cliff, where the buffalo that went over the cliff were butchered and prepared for the long winter ahead. Just about every bit of the buffalo was used for something. Food, clothing, shelter, utensils, just about everything the plains Indians needed to survive.
The Blackfoot, which consist of three or four clans, are the traditional 1st nation in this area. Their territory used to stretch from Montana to central Alberta. Traces of human activity go back hundreds of centuries long before even the Blackfoot.
At the beginning of the trail was a posted bear warning, along with coyote and cougar warnings. Have to carry the bear banger all the time out here!
Saturday was the last of the warm weather. Sunday dawned with a cold windy rain. The temperatures never got above 7C so we stayed inside and caught up on cooking, baking and cleaning. It did clear up in the evening and we were able to go for a walk, although it was cold and windy. We talked to a couple from Switzerland, who pulled in late in the afternoon and they had driven through snow on Route 22 “the cowboy trail”. Sunday night was cold, probably the coldest we have had this trip. We woke up and had to put the furnace on at 5:30 AM. With the amount of moisture that came off the roof in the morning sunshine, it must have been covered in frost. On the way to the washroom  we heard coyotes howling and yelping to each other from two different locations. Don't know if the cool morning had anything to do with this or not!
Today is a bit warmer than yesterday but not short sleeve shirt time. Quite cloudy but not raining and the temperature is about 12C. We are packing up today to leave tomorrow morning for Cypress Hills. Weather for the next few days will be marginal, but we’ll have a great time! It might a few days before we can post again as we will be in some of the more remote areas of Saskatchewan.
Quote for the day:

There are too many people, and too few human beings.
  - Robert Zend

cheers

P & n

Fort Macleod

Today is the fifth day we have been here at Buffalo Plains RV park and we will be staying here until Tuesday next week through the long week-end. In our previous post we said we were going to drive to the town of Foremost to look at their RV park and perhaps stay there.  On Sunday we made the the trip through Lethbridge to Foremost back up to Taber. It was raining most of the drive and gave us a look at the prairies in south western Alberta under these conditions. It always has been hot and dry here in our previous trips through this area. It was wet and certainly not hot as the temperature never went above 8C all day.

We arrived in Foremost, checked out their municipal park and decided that we would continue to stay at Buffalo Plains Park. After a short drive through town we headed back to the TCH, Alberta route 3. On our way through Taber, we stopped and bought a dozen ears of the famous Taber corn. On our last trip through Taber we bought corn and it was without a doubt the best ever. By the time we got back to Buffalo Plains the rain had eased up and the clouds were starting to break up. The park cat came over to officially welcome us to the area for the next few days.

We packed a lunch and got under way early Monday morning. There is a lot to see in this area so we decided to head back to the mountains, go up to Crowsnest and visit the Frank Slide area. The first thing that we noticed was fresh snow on the mountains ahead of us. What we got in rain arrived as early snow on the higher mountains. It was really weird because when we drove down from Cochrane there was no snow to be seen on these same mountains. Just shows how quickly things can change in this part of the country. The Frank Slide occurred in 1903 when the side of Turtle Mountain collapsed and millions of tons of rock took out half of the town of Frank in less than two minutes. The interpretation center is a fantastic place with human interest stories, history of mining in the area and an excellent explanation on the formation of different kinds of mountains. You could almost become a amateur geologist with the information at this center. The interesting thing is that there will be another collapse of the south side of this mountain. It's not a matter of "if" but "when". Movements in the mountain are being monitored on an ongoing basis and a system has been set up to evacuate people well ahead of any collapse, they hope!  This photo shows the CPR rail line going through the existing slide residue. An interesting piece of folk lore is that for centuries the First nations people would never set up camp at the base of Turtle mountain which they called the trembling mountain.
We finished off the day by visiting Pincher Creek then heading back to our campsite.

Tuesday we headed out to the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston, about a 45 minute drive to the south of Fort Macleod. It was another fine day, a bit cool but sunny. Cardston is another of these southern Alberta prairie towns. Neat, tidy, lots of flowers and, of course, wide streets. This museum has the largest collection of carriages, wagons and early cars in North America. We took a guided tour and then did the tour on our own so we cold take our time. Some of the carriages were magnificent. We ate lunch there and then took a tour of the restoration area within the museum. An elderly gentleman gave us the tour and explained the process of restoration. It is a fascinating story that is too long to be told here. A side note. This is our 25th anniversary year and N did not get a Yellowknife diamond when we were in the NWT. However, here in Cardston, she got her prairie diamond. It seem that when people were moving into the western provinces as settlers, young couples would meet, fall in love and get married on the way out, Wagon trains moved slow! Since jewellers were not among the early settlers,  diamond rings were created out of horse shoe nails. Our host in the restoration shop made N hers. So, now she wears a prairie diamond. We left Cardston and drove to a small town south of Lethbridge called Raymond. The reason we went to Raymond was to visit the Old Country Sausage shop. (www.oldcountrysausages.com). Owned and operated by Klaus Schurmann, this shop produces smoked meats, dry cured bacon and ham, back bacon and all kinds of sausages, using only herbs, spices and sea salt. He uses no binders, no fillers, no MSG, gluten free,no sugar, no grain products, no artificial colouring and no nitrates. Needless to say we bought as much as we could bearing in mind that our freezer space is limited. It is real good stuff!!
The next day, Wednesday, we just stayed at the campsite and took it easy. The wind was blowing, it always seems to blow out here, but it was a good day. The sun shone, we had showers, some cloud and more sun. Watching the weather out on the prairie is fascinating. You can see rain showers coming when they are miles away. The sky can be black in one quarter while the sun shines in the other quarter which makes the light patterns on the ground change constantly.

Thursday was a good and bad day. We spent the morning in Fort Macleod touring the old North West Mounted Police fort and museums. Fort Macleod is a good history lesson on how the Canadian west was developed in a far more peaceful manner than the American west. There is a exceptional first nations museum devoted to how their clothing was made, how they travelled and lived. The decorations on and quality of some of these exhibits was magnificent.  This was the good part of the day. The bad part started in the afternoon at the campground. It was time to empty our holding tanks and this campground did not have sewer outlets at each site. This meant that we had to hook up to the RV and move it to the central dump site. This type of move means that our slides have to come in, gear has to be stowed etc. We did all of this, hooked up and moved towards the dump site. All of a sudden we heard a SNAP and I remembered that I did not lower the TV antenna! The power line I hit with certainly lowered it for me. The antenna was broken off completely.  We dumped the tanks, got back to our site and I went up on the roof and disconnected the cable and brought the pieces down. I needed some new parts for sure. Friday morning I got on the phone and found a dealer in Lethbridge who said he had the pieces I needed. We drove to Lethbridge only to find out he did not have the same pieces I needed. On our way back we decided that we might be able to repair the antenna and get it back up. Not that we had to watch TV, but I wanted to make sure that I could keep the roof watertight, and the only way to do that was reinstall the antenna. With N's help we found a piece of wood and cut a piece out of it to slide inside the two broken pieces. Two or three screws, some gorilla tape and we were back in business. Went up on the roof, straightened some bent aluminum and attached the repaired antenna. Good as new, almost!!
This brings us up to date. I'll post a new album later today.

Quote for the day:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
  - John Gaule

Cheers

P & N

Hinton-Cochrane-FortMacleod

Going to use this post to try and catch up with where we actually are. We left Hinton on Wednesday morning in bright sunshine which stayed with us all day. On our way out of Hinton we stopped and refreshed our grocery supplies and picked up some disposable rubber gloves which we use when emptying our tanks.
We drove down towards Edmonton and turned off on Route 22, the "Cowboy Trail" runs all the way down to the Crowsnest Pass in southern Alberta. We had a great day for driving. With the exception of some lengthy delays due to road construction the drive was very smooth and the scenery was nice. Lots of cattle and horses.
We arrived in Cochrane by mid afternoon and set up at the Spring Hill RV Park. This park is only five years old and still under development.  The services were good. We contacted our friends in the Calgary and Cochrane area and made arrangements for them to join us on Friday for dinner.

On Thursday morning we left Cochrane and drove a loop through the Kananaskis region of the Rockies on route 40. It was a fantastic drive. Deep in the mountains, lots of hiking trails, campgrounds and beautiful scenery. A lot of the hiking trails were blocked off with bear warnings. This time of year is when the grizzlies come down to fill up on berries and whatever else they can find to get their body fattened up for a long winter. It was also one of the hottest days we have had so far, up to 30C with a strong warm wind blowing. Part way down into Kananaskis country is a provincial park named after Peter Lougheed. We drove in and covered some 40 km of roads through campgrounds, trail and lakes.  The pictures above are only a sample of what we saw. We'll post a new album in a couple of days with all the pictures.
We drove over 340 km before we arrived back in Cocharne. N was really happy because she was back in the mountains. I've got a feeling that we might have to relocate out here because of her love of the mountains.
The next day was spent getting ready for company and dinner. We had a good day talking and getting up to speed with our lives. It was great to see Gail and Sharon. They got away around 8:30 in the evening and we began to pack up to get underway the next morning (Saturday).
Needed to turn the furnace on this morning. It was down close to 0C last night but the morning dawned bright and sunny. We got underway later than usual but we knew it was not going to be a long day. We had planned to go to Waterton National Park but decided that since we had been there several times before that we wanted to go somewhere new. After a very scenic drive through the foothills, we wound up in Buffalo Plains RV Park just outside of Fort Macleod, which is just to the west of Lethbridge. We can see Buffalo Head Smashed In historic site from our window about 5 km away. This is a little gem of a park. Small, only 34 sites, quiet and not very crowded, large campsites and very clean facilities. We plan on taking a break from moving from place to place and stay put in this area for the next few days and over the long September weekend. We will either stay here or at another small municipal park in Foremost, which is south and east of here. We'll drive to Foremost tomorrow to look at that park and then make our decision. We have been on the road since the first of June, travelled almost 18,000 km to this point. Time for rest and recuperation before we start heading back east. It will give us a chance to rest up, get all our photos posted and get the rv cleaned up and looking presentable again.
Stay tuned!

Quote for the day:

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
  - Franklin P. Adams

Cheers

P & N

Manning to Hinton

We left Manning early on Monday morning and drove straight to Grande Prairie, only a three hour drive. Arrived at McGoverns RV and Marine Center service department just outside the city limits. They were the people who repacked our wheel bearings on our way to Yellowknife. After a few moments wait we got to speak to Dale, the Service Manager, and show him our problem. Although he and his technicians were rushed off their feet, it only took another couple of minutes for a technician to come out and start to fix our problem. He was able to use two of the existing screws to fasten the floor of the slide up in place but needed to locate three more screws of the same size. The ones they had in stock were too short. Dale sent one of his staff to Grand Prairie to try and find the necessary screws. After searching the town for two hours he was unable to locate the right size screws and it would take a couple of days to order them in. We opted to go with the temporary repairs and get the job done when we get back home. Dale did not charge us a penny for this fantastic service as he said it was a warranty claim. McGoverns have only been a Keystone RV dealer for a year, but a lot of dealers could learn some very important lessons about customer satisfaction. I can highly recommend this dealer to any RV traveller who is passing through Grand Prairie.
After leaving McGoverns, we drove to the RV park where we were going to stay for the night. Did some running around town for groceries etc.
We headed out the next morning later than usual because we only had a short drive to Grand Cache.  We encountered some of the steepest hills we have had on this trip. The scenery was ok but the driving was tough. The truck was really working hard, especially when you had a sharp curve at the bottom of a hill and then a climb of 5 km with grades up to 10%. We finally arrived in Grand Cache and found that all the RV parks were full of workers who were there for the entire season. We had no choice but to drive another 190 km to Hinton where we checked into a lovely KOA RV Park. Nice level site, cable tv and all the other necessities of life. We settled in for the night and decided that we could reach Cochrane by the end of the next day.

Quote for the day:

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
  - John Lithgow

Cheers

P & N

Manning Alberta

Manning Alberta appears to be a hidden gem in the Peace River district between High Level and Grimshaw. Named after an Alberta premier with a population around 1500, Manning appears to be an agriculture center for the large grain farms in the region.  We discovered it by chance on the way towards Grande Prairie from Louise Falls. It was getting late in the day and we were looking for a place to stay when N found a listing for a municipal campground in Manning.

We drove into a nice little campground situated beside the Notikewin River in the center of town. Only 9 sites, but all equipped with electricity and water. There are washrooms and showers available as well.
When we were getting set up, N noticed a problem. The floor on our main slide out which contains the sofa bed and dining room set had started to pull away on one end. On closer inspection we determined that the super rough roads going into Yellowknife had apparently bounced the sofa enough to separated the floor from the sidewall of the slide. Now I will admit that the sofa air bed is one heavy beast, but I would have thought that the engineers at Keystone would have designed a fastening system between the floor and wall to keep it all together. We will stop at the Keystone dealer in Grande Prairie and get a temporary fix until we get home and have our local dealer repair it permanently. This has been our first major problem in some 15,000 km so I guess we should feel lucky. However, it is still frustrating when you buy a supposedly well built unit only to find out that the engineers who worked on the building specifications had not factored in the strength to carry the load of furniture in the slide!
Now, back to Manning.
When the town employee came around to collect the $20.00 fee, he turned out to quite a salesman for the town. There is a lovely trail along the river. Across the bridge was a place that sold great ice cream, there was free firewood as well as free coffee at the seniors complex right next door to us and that the Saturday night movie at the local theatre was Gunless, starring Paul Gross.  He was just a fountain of information abut his town.
We had dinner and then decided to go for a walk around town. We thought we would try the ice cream for dessert and her was right. It was about the best soft ice cream we had ever had! While strolling around town eating our ice cream we came across the theatre and on the spur of the moment decided to go and see the movie as it was just starting. We both can highly recommend seeing this one. It’s easy to watch and will have you rolling in the aisles laughing. Well written, well acted and well done! On our way home we realized that this was the first movie we had gone to see in years. By the way, the ice cream and the move cost a total of $20.00.
We decided to spend an extra day in Manning to look around a bit more. By staying here on Sunday, it will allow us to stop in at the RV dealer in Grande Prairie on our way in town to let him look at our damage and hopefully do some quick temporary repairs.
We slept in on Sunday morning! First time in a long while! Most everything in town is closed. The only open store we cold find was the IGA, so we freshened up our food supplies.

Spent the rest of the day doing general chores around the rig and walking around town. From the parts of Manning we saw it is a nice neat little place. We had a late dinner and got the rig ready to move out to Grande Prairie tomorrow morning.

Cheers

P & N

Yellowknife & Area

Tuesday morning dawned bright and clear. After a leisurely breakfast we headed downtown to do a bit of shopping (my black rum supply was getting low and you can buy Old Sam in Yellowknife) and spent a couple of hours at the library sending e-mails and  updating the posts. Looked around downtown at a few shops and then went back to the campground to just take it easy, have a good lunch and get ready for our evening fishing trip.
By 4:30 we were on our way to old town with our packs full of snacks, sweaters, rain gear, gloves and anything else N could squeeze in. We also had our rubber boots. left our fishing rods at the trailer as our guide was providing all of the equipment. We arrived at Bluefish Charters (www.bluefishservices.ca) and our guide Mike was waiting for us along with the owner Greg Robertson. Our little outboard was loaded and ready to go. Mike informed us that he was taking us some 22 miles up the coast out of Yellowknife Bay where the fishing was really good. Our boat was an open aluminum 16 footer, broad beam, with a large outboard on back. Two seats for N and myself and mile at the tiller had a consul with marine gps, radio and sounder. All the deck was carpeted. There was a water holding tank for our catch, and several compartments with an assortment of rods and reels and other fishing necessities.

We headed out of Yellowknife bay, keeping a careful watch for landing and taking off  float planes, into a cool breeze and slight chop (white caps). N was holding on for dear life as she felt like she would be bounced right out of the boat as we sped along at a really fast clip. Mike really knew what he was doing and got our confidence very Quickly. He slowed down to show us an Bald eagle nest with a fledging in it and momma watching us closely. Because it was blowing a bit and cool, Mike decided to head to another place just 18 miles out. He took us into a group of islands where the wind dropped off and the sun was warm. At our first stop, Mike was advised of N’s just acquired fishing skills and assumed that I was old enough to look after myself and not fall overboard. He spent a lot of time with N. teaching her the proper way to cast as well as providing her with a lot of fishing hints. I had the first hit, but lost the fish. So guess who caught the first one, N. It was less than two pounds and had to be tossed back. I guess I should say here that we were fishing for Pike. Things were slow where we first stopped so mike took us to another spot about 15 minutes away. N landed the next one and it was a keeper for our shore dinner. I was starting to feel like I should jump over board as my amateur fishing wife as putting me to shame. Then my male ego was restored when I landed an 8lb pike. It had to be tossed back in as it was too big to keep for dinner. The outfitters up her throw back the big ones and the small ones. This is all a part of conservation and ensures they always have fish for their clients to catch. They keep the 3 lb ones for dinner. After my “big one” was thrown back, N caught one almost as big and then caught the second fish for dinner! At the end of the day she out caught me by the count of 4 to 2. Nuff said! Mike found a nice spot on shore and brought out the food. He prepared the fish fillets, batter and deep fried them in a cast iron frying pan over a portable stove. We had baked beans, crusty Italian bread and pickles. What a feast. No bugs, warm fall evening ( fall starts up here on Aug 1), no wind and nothing but quiet! If they had more than 2 seasons up here (winter and mosquitoes) I might consider living here!
By 9:30 in the evening we were speeding back over calm waters back to Yellowknife and the end of this short but fun filled adventure. We said our goodbyes to Mike and headed back to the trailer, tired, stomachs full and ready for a good nights sleep.
We were up bright and early the next day to head out on the Ingram Trail, a 65 km stretch of road that heads north out of Yellowknife and ends at a lake with a sign “ice road closed”. This is where the “ice road truckers” start their run over the ice roads to the many diamond mines up north. We walked a neat trail to Cameron River Falls, looked around three territorial parks, did some fishing and generally had a good day. It’s really stating to feel like fall up here. The trees are starting to turn yellow and we are waking up to temperatures in the 4 to 6C range.
Thursday we woke up to a cold rainy day. High of about 10C. We did a bit more shopping, got the truck fueled up with a load of diesel, and got groceries. Still trying to figure out why diesel is cheaper here than in N.S. (every liter of fuel come in by tank truck from Edmonton), and why groceries are cheaper as well!!
We visited the new legislative building. It is beautifully designed and truly represents the culture of the NWT, one land, eleven languages, thirty three communities. The are no political parties, everyone elected has to have 51 % of the vote or there are run offs, the premier and cabinet ministers are chosen by the elected representatives and decisions are reached by negotiation and consensus. The caucus room and the legislative assembly rooms are set up in the traditional circle. The acoustics of the caucus room are such that the slightest whisper in any part of the room can be heard by all present, so there are no on the side deals made during meetings. Sounds like a model that the Canadian parliament should use in these days of partisan BS looking after the interests of the party as opposed to the interests of Canadians. It’s interesting to note, that only the speakers office overlooks the city of Yellowknife and the offices of all other elected officials overlook the lakes and wilderness of the NWT. This was purposely designed to remind the elected officials that their interests are those of the people who elected them, and not the “center” of the NWT, Yellowknife!
We had a great guided tour of this fantastic building and then headed over to the Prince of Whales Northern Heritage Center. This center covers the history of the NWT, it’s many peoples, economic development and environment. It has the latest cutting edge in interactive technology that is user friendly and easy to use. We arrived back at the trailer for a late dinner, ran into Bob and Luci whom we had met in Louise Falls and had an enjoyable evening exchanging notes and experiences. We were packing up and getting ready to leave the next morning, but after our discussions we decided to stay an extra day, until I found out on Friday morning that out site was spoken for the weekend. We wound up leaving Yellowknife on Friday morning around eleven pm and headed back towards Louise Falls.
We checked into Louise Falls campground around 5 pm  after an uneventful drive from Yellowknife. Got dinner ready and then an early night to bed as we were both tired. Two more days should put us back in Grande Prairie.

Quote for the day:
Perhaps the most valuable result of all you learn is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

Cheers

P & N

High Level to Yellowknife

This is the third of three posts we posted today. The internet service at the Yellowknife library is really fast.
We left High Level on a beautiful bright sunny warm morning. You really have to concentrate on staying alert when driving up here. The road is flat and just goes on straight for km after km. A lot of people must fall asleep at the wheel up here. There are very few cars on the road and even fewer tourists. The most traffic you meet up with is transport trucks.
We arrived at the Alberta/NWT border at the 60th parallel with some large black clouds forming and a threat of rain. The NWT has a great visitors center, still under construction along with satellite wireless internet. We ate our lunch just as the rain and thunder started. The cloud cover must have done something to the satellite reception as I was just able to check for e-mail before it started performing slower than dial-up.

We carried on as far as the Territorial Park of Louise Falls. It is a lovely park with electric service, modern washrooms with exceptional fiberglass showers, and clean pit toilets scattered throughout the campground. The rain had stopped long enough for us to get set up. We had thundershowers off and on for the rest of the afternoon but managed to walk down a trail to Louise Falls. They are beautiful and impressive. They are one of a set of three falls in this area on the Hay River. The Alexandra Falls were only about a 1.5 km walk up river but the rain started up again and the walking along the gorge was slippery and dangerous. We decided that we would see them on the way back.
After dinner we went for a walk around the park. We ran into a lady originally from Halifax, who trained as a nurse there, came north to Fort Vermillon, met her husband there and now lives in High Level. Small world! 15 minutes later we struck up a conversation with a guy from Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. He called out his wife, who was French Canadian and an artist. Take a look at Lucie’s web site www.luciegagnonartist.ca. She works with graphite pencils only. Her husband, Bob, is a machinist and a mechanical genius, especially around diesel engines. We quickly became friends and they came over to out trailer later to talk. The conversations must have been interesting as they stayed until 12:30 am. We got to bed at 1:00 am and were up at 6:30 to get ready for a long drive to Yellowknife.

6:30 am came awful early for this old guy. However, it was up and at them. We got underway at about 8:30. Again, it was another bright sunny start to the day.   We have noticed though, that both the days and nights are starting to get cooler. We had a fifteen minute wait for the ferry that took us across the Mackenzie River. Boy, this river is wide at this point and runs with quite a current. From the Mackenzie up to Yellowknife all you see are warnings to watch out for wood bison on the road. We saw two lone bulls only. These animals are massive. The bulls weigh up to 2200 lbs. and the cows are about half that weight. As we drove along, we noticed the trees getting shorter and shorter. Again, not much else to say about the drive until we got to within 100 km of Yellowknife. The road is essentially flat and straight, with a few slight curves thrown in. For the last 100 km, the driving was a nightmare! Aside from being a bit tired after several hours of being on the road, the highway turned into a massive roller coaster ride. It was rough, full of heaves and dips. I had to cut our speed back to between 50 and 70 kph in order to keep 13000 pounds of 5th wheel trailer on the road. I swear that it was airborne at least twice. We finally arrived at Yellowknife by mid afternoon and got set up in the only RV park in town. We have electricity and a nice site. One slight drawback! We are opposite the airport and do get some aircraft noise. There is one blessing though, we are not on any of the approach paths for landing or take offs. Just after we got set up, the thunder storms and rains started. We were in bed and sound asleep by 9:30. I must be getting old. This kind of day never bothered me before.
We woke up late on Monday morning had a good breakfast and left for downtown Yellowknife to become tourists. Our first stop was at the visitor’s center. This is a great place. There is lots of information on the history of Yellowknife and on the diamond mining and processing that takes place here. The chap who looked after us was originally from Truro, NS. We bought our fishing licenses. Mine was free, because I’m a senior. N had to pay $20.00 for an annual license because she is not! They gave us a free parking pass for the city which means you don’t have to feed the meters. We found out where the grocery stores were, where different shops were and felt as if we had been treated like royalty!
We drove downtown and did some looking around. We went to an internet café and checked our e-mail but will go to the library tomorrow to post what you are reading now.

We had a great lunch at the Wildcat Café in old town Yellowknife, P. had beer battered white fish and chips and N. had a buffalo burger, absolutely huge,  with chips. The chips were deep fried long wedge cut potatoes and were delicious. We enjoyed the meal as the rain and hail came down. This café was built the same year as P. was born. When we finally post the picture of the café, you will think P. is over 100 years old! We were told to stop in at the oldest northern supply store in Yellowknife called Weaver & Devore. They have everything from food to clothing and still ship out supplies to trappers and prospectors by bush plane. They are the dealer for Canadian Goose parkas. Their prices for top quality clothing was so much cheaper than what we would pay at any clothing store in the south. We both bought lovely warm fleece lined mocassin slippers. N’s even have beadwork on them.
We left Weaver & Devore’s and proceeded to Bluefish Charters located next to Air Tindi in the old town. We are booked to leave with one of his guides tomorrow at 5pm for a five hour fishing trip and shore fish dinner on Great Slave Lake. We’ll be fishing for pike and N is probably going to catch the biggest fish ever! That’s all for now. I hope I can post this tomorrow morning at the library and that the internet is fast enough that I can upload some photos. If not, you will have to settle for text only and pictures at a later date.

Quote for the day:
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
  - Sir Winston Churchill
 Cheers

P & N

Grimshaw to High Level

We woke up to an overcast morning. We got on the road about 8:30 am and started up to High Level. What amazes us about this Peace River district is the amount of agriculture going on here. Grain fields going over the horizon, cattle herds and lots of horses. This area is the flattest piece of real estate that we have ever seen. It makes the southern prairies seem like hilly country. There were only two downhill and uphill runs, both for rivers that have created their own valleys. As well, the roads go straight on without a curve for kilometers. On one 57 km stretch, we counted three slight bends, not even sharp enough for me to have to move the steering wheel. We just sort of leaned around it.
By mid morning the sun broke through and it turned into a lovely day. Temperature got up to 23C. When we arrived in High Level we went directly to the tourist bureau because they had FREE overnight parking for RVs. However, Friday is time for the local farmers market and they take over the parking lot until 6pm. Since we wanted to unhook and drive to Fort Vermillon, the first settled Hudson Bay community in Alberta, we drove out to a nice little RV park, Aspen Ridge Campground. It claims to be the most northerly full service campground in Alberta. Another piece of useful information is that High Level has the most northerly grain elevators in North America.
We did stop at the farmers market. Most of the producers were Mennonites. There was a great assortment of fresh and preserved products. We bought a bottle of pickled beets from one vendor, and found another vendor who was an organically certified farm operation. Bought some home made 9 grain bread, home ground whole wheat organic flour, and farm fresh organic brown eggs. The eggs were $3/doz and the flour was $5 for five pounds.

We drove the 80km east to Fort Vermillon, only to find that the oldest building in town was built in 1905. It seems that although settled in the late 1700’s, there was nothing left but a National Historic site monument. Very disappointing! Nice drive though. We got some great shots of the Peace River and saw a lot more flat prairie and grain fields.
In High Level, we fueled up at the local Shell (Flying J) for $0.859/L. Five days ago we were paying $1.329/L in northern BC. Also refilled our drinking water supply at Extra Foods owned by Loblaw. Had a quick look around the store and to our amazement find again that food is the same price as Nova Scotia or even cheaper. We pay a lot for our groceries back home compared to the rest of the country.
We got back to our campground around 5:30 pm just in time to have the owner drop by to let us know that there was a black bear in the campground. Don’t think we’ll go for a long walk tonight.
We were cautious today, being Friday the 13 and so far all has gone well. Unfortunately, for a couple from Victoria who were returning from Yellowknife, they managed to hit a black bear between Hay River and high level. After pulling off the broken plastic and prying fenders out they continued on their way only to hit a deer 30 minutes later. They are her in High Level with a totally redesigned front end on their car. The 13th was not a good day for them!
Tomorrow we will be in the NWT, if the bear and deer keep out of the way!

Quote of the day:
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
  - Voltaire

Cheers

P & N

Grande Prairie to Grimshaw

Had a good short 2 day stay in Grande Prairie (pop. 50,000). What a growing rich community. Oil, lumber and agriculture are driving this place as a boom town. All the shopping of a really big city, parks, walking trails, museums, colleges, you name it and Grande Prairie has it.
Our neighbours in the campground, who were there with their Montana 5th wheel, same model as ours but two years older, invited us to join them around the campfire. After comparing the differences between the two 5th wheels and good conversation around the fire, Lynn & Harold cooked up some smores for everyone with a twist. They were made from a toasted marshmellow and a thin flat square of chocolate sandwiched between two Peek Freans chocolate digestives. Really good treat.  We restocked our grocery larder, found a replacement for a broken closet door latch and made an appointment to get the wheel bearings on the Montana re-packed and checked. We already have 14,000 km on the rig.
The RV park we were at provided us with an invitation to a bar-b-q supper at the local tourist bureau for tourists only on Wednesday evenings. Bison was on the menu so we decided to go. It was not very crowded but the spread was quite good. We had bison smokies on buns, potato salad, green salads and assorted desserts. Coffee, tea and lemonade were the beverages available. Both N and myself were a bit worried about the smokies, which were huge. (about 9-10 inches long and a good inch and one half in diameter). They were well smoked, quite spicy and very lean but must have been good quality. Neither of us any signs of indigestion at all!
We were up at 5am on Thursday morning to get ready to take the rig to the RV dealer for 8am. He was squeezing us in and wanted us there first thing in the morning. Rain showers got us a bit wet as we broke camp but nothing serious. Unlike southern Alberta which is underwater, northern Alberta is bone dry, so any rain they get is welcomed! Took them all morning to get the job done and we were underway by 1pm with a slightly lighter wallet. It was a good job done and well worth the cost.
We drove up route 2 to Grimshaw and then on to route 35 which will take us to the NWT. We are at a golf course/campground about 11 km north of Grimshaw.  It is not a bad spot but does not match the grand description in the campground directory. Another campground in the area that we were going to stay at is not in business anymore. We are settled in for the evening and will be making a short haul tomorrow to High level, about 275 km from here. Apparently there is a lot to see and do in the area so we might stay for a couple of days. We’ll see!!

Daily quote:
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
  - Edward Abbey
 Cheers

P & N

Down the ALCAN to Grande Prairie

We left Toad River on a misty, rainy morning. The clouds were low and obscuring some of the mountain tops. We had planned to drive as far as Pink Mountain on the Alaskan Highway but were advised by a local in Toad River that the camp site there was not much. We didn't worry too much as there were another couple of "resorts" in the area.  The drive was a hard one. Lots of hills ranging from 6 to 10 % grades, narrow road with no guard rails, gravel stretches and some wildlife. We saw caribou, bison, and a roadkill moose (fresh). Not a lot of traffic on the road but still a long drive which was soon to get longer.
When we arrived in the area of RV parks at Pink Mountain after some 300+ km of driving, we found that none of the "resorts' were places that we wanted to stay at. A quick look at the maps showed that the next possible one was a BC Provincial park located at Charlie Lake, just west of Fort St. John, and another 180+ km of driving.
Not much choice but to carry on. As we got closer to civilization, Fort St. John, the roads got wider, traffic got heavier and road construction delays got a lot longer. Nor only were we muddy from the gravel sections but now we were picking up a layer of fresh tar over the mud from the new paving sections being done. On top of that, the rain had stopped, the sun was coming out and everything was drying to a hard coating on the truck and trailer.

We arrived at Charles Lake late in the afternoon and got settled into a nice site. Beautiful park as seems to be the norm for northern BC parks.
Had a good dinner and walk after dinner and got to bed earlier. It's easier to get to sleep now because the days are shorter down here and it actually gets dark by 10pm.
On the road again the next day, (Tuesday) drove through Fort St. John and headed towards Dawson Creek and mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. The were some really tough long climbs in this stretch. It didn't help things that usually at the bottom of each long hill, there was a bridge being repaired, or one that needed repair with a 50kph speed limit. Needless to say that with our weight the diesel truck was working really hard to try and accelerate up the hills from a dead start.
I was reminded of a story from an old diesel mechanic we met somewhere who said "these things got to be worked hard to work good". Our truck seems to be working awful good!
We passed through Dawson Creek and carried on another 140km to Grande Prairie. The road was really good until the last 20 km into Grand Prairie. The "wows" were frequent and big. Twice we had to look back and see if the trailer was still attached!
We arrived at Camp Tamarack RV park on a hot, sunny afternoon. After we checked in we stopped at the RV wash and spent over an hour trying to get the mud and tar off. Got most of the mud off but the tar will probably still be on when we get back to N.S. Later we took the truck there to wash it as well. From a distance, both units look good. Up close is another story!
Compared to the last few days we are living in the lap of luxury. Level site, clean washrooms & laundry room, cable tv, high speed internet and diesel fuel at 89.9 cents per L as opposed to $1.33 per L at Toad River.
Got our shopping done today (Wednesday). Tomorrow morning we stop at the Montana Dealer to get our wheel bearings checked and repacked, then North towards Yellowknife.
Will post again as soon as possible.
Quote for the day:


Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.
  - Cullen Hightower

Cheers

P & N

In Transit

Again, just a short post without photos. We are in transit from Whitehorse to Grand Prairie. We left Whitehorse on Saturday morning and had an easy drive to the Continental Divide Lodge and RV park, which is located about 100 km west of Watson Lake. But before we arrived at the campground, we stopped at the Yukon Motel and Restaurant in Teslin and were treated by our friends, with whom we were traveling for the day, to the nicest grilled cinnamon buns we have ever had and a great cup of tea. Our stop for the night, Continental RV park is completely powered by a large diesel generator as there are no power lines. We had full hookups, a spacious level site with small trees, shrubs and fireweed separating the sites, and great neighbors next door, our traveling companions. We chose this location as we didn't want to stay in Watson Lake due to heavy forest fire smoke. We spent out last night of traveling together with a nice dinner and a few drinks in our 5th wheel. This morning, we said our good byes and we headed towards Watson Lake while our friends were joining the 1 KM line up of traffic that would eventually be led by a "pilot truck"down the Cassiar Highway, #37, through the area of the forest fire that is burning near the Yukon border. We hit the smoke about 10 KM west of Watson Lake and ran out of it almost 100 KM east of the town. A fairly brisk wind was blowing so the smoke was not very thick, just hard on the eyes and nose. We are spending the night in Toad River Resort and RV park. For those of you following us on a map, Toad River is on BC highway 97, located between Muncho Lake provincial park and Fort Nelson. The weather is cool here with light rain. The scenery today was spectacular again and we got pictures of buffalo bedded down and grazing - magnificent beasts.
We plan to overnight tomorrow in a place called Pink Mountain, which is also on Rt 97 between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John. If all goes well we will be in Grande Prairie on Tuesday. Wednesday will be spent topping up the grocery larder and starting our way north to Yellowknife.
The next post will probably originate in Grande Prairie on Tuesday.

Quote for the day:

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
Dr. Seuss

Cheers

P & N

Forest Fires

This will be a short post today with no photos. Our friends arrived last night from Alaska. It was great to see each other for the first time in 3 years and catch up with our respective lives. We'll spend the day today in Whitehorse area and getting ready to move out tomorrow.
Our friends had planned to drive the Cassiar Highway south but the forest fire reports as of this morning have the highway closed again. Several new fires have broken out here in the Yukon. Three of them are near Teslin, Watson Lake and Upper Laird village. All of these fires are in the proximity of the Alaskan Highway, which is the only way out of here with the Cassiar closed. The Alaskan highway was closed for a short period of time last night due to smoke and fire. We will take a look at the reports from both the Yukon and BC governments tonight and make our decision to go or stay. If we go, it will probably be a long run as we would want to get past all of the areas that are on evacuation alert along the highway, which would mean trying to get as far as Toad River, south of Watson Lake.
The fire situations in BC and now the Yukon have burned tens of thousands of hectares of forest in both areas. Hot and dry but not much relief in sight. It is cooler today with a forecast of 60% showers over the next two days.
Once we get past Toad River all should be well and we will proceed to Yellowknife.
All is well here and we are looking forward to being on the road again after a 6 day rest stop here in Whitehorse.

Quote for the day:

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
  - Mae West

Cheers

P & N

Whitehorse

Well, here it is Wednesday. We have been in Whitehorse since Sunday. Good trip down from Dawson City. Slow going at times due to gravel roads and roadwork. Permafrost heaves gave us a few roller coaster rides when I got the speed up a little faster that it should have been but everything held together. The weather has been just fantastic here the last four days, 27 to 30C but humidity only 18%. Makes it really livable. Monday morning we left for Carcross. about 50 km south of Whitehorse. This is were the gold rush people were finally able to get rafts, crude boats and anything else that would float into the Yukon lake and river system and start downstream to Dawson City. You would think that you were in the Caribbean, with the white sand beaches and the colour of the water. The water temperature reminds you that you are not. Always seem to meet a multitude of characters on a trip like this. One guy rode into town on a 20 year old BMW motorcycle complete with sidecar and his dog. He was out looking around and the dog was sitting and waiting for him to return.
Talked to the locals to find out where to go fishing and got some great directions for a good fishing place. It was in the direction we wanted to go, down the South Klondike highway towards Skagway. The drive down this highway is nothing short of breathless. The lakes, rivers, mountains, glaciers along with a greater number of guard rails made this a great drive. With good directions from the Visitor Centre in Carcross, we found the gravel ruts for our turn off to go down to Windy Arm, a branch of Lake Bennett and the location of our fishing spot. The only way to tell you were on the trail was to look where the rocks were the most compressed. Got down to the bottom of the road, right on the lake.

After an hour or so of no luck, we decided that the fish didn't like us and we left. Driving out was a bit interesting. A steep climb over large rocks. We were in 4 wheel drive low the whole way up. We drove out of the Yukon and into BC before hitting the  Canada customs at Fraser, where we turned around and headed back. Tuesday was a day of chores. N cleaned out the dust and dirt in the truck that had been gathering there since we left Lunenburg. In the afternoon we took the truck in for routine service. oil change etc. While that was being done we played the role of tourists and toured the galleries and upper end craft stores in town. After picking up the truck, we got a major grocery order, 250 litres of diesel and headed home. Today we decided to go fishing again. On our way through Whitehorse, N made a hair appointment for Thursday. Then we drove 50 - 60 km out to a couple of lakes that were classed as good fishing. It was hot, very windy and again the fish didn't like us. Someday soon that will change. On the way out to the lakes, and back, we had to drive over 8 km of road under construction. It was being watered down heavily and our truck was a solid mass of mud when we got back. Pressure washed the truck here at the RV park so it's clean again. This is a nice feature about RV parks in the north. Most have pressure washers to clean your truck and rig. This is about all for now. We have friends that we met three ago on our trip and have stayed in touch with since then. They are coming out of Alaska tomorrow and will be here with us for Friday. We plan on heading south towards Grand Prairie on Saturday. From there back north to Yellowknife.
Quote for the day:

Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person.
  - Ethel Mumford

PS More pictures being posted in a new gallery called Whitehorse as well as more in the Yukon gallery. Some readers have not realized that if you click on the gallery picture, it will open up a thumbnail gallery, in some cases with over 100 additional photos. These galleries are posted on the left hand side of the blog.

Cheers

P & N