May 21, 2015

It seems they do a lot of wildlife ranching here in Canada. We passed an elk ranch not far south of Edmonton.  While the landscape in still flat, rolling country, there are more trees now, aspen and conifers. The soil is very rich looking. I wonder if I can sneak some home for my garden? This area is rich in gas and oil but it does not have the frenetic traffic of the Midland/Odessa area in Texas. Perhaps this is due to the lower speed limits and more polite drivers!

Through the day, the land climbed to a plateau then began morphing into foothills with heavy timber. Highway 43 is a fast route northwest of Edmonton. It is a divided highway with 4 lanes almost all the way to British Columbia. In fact it was so fast that we decided to go on to Dawson Creek after arriving at our original stopping point, Grand Prairie, at 1:30 in the afternoon. We did run into our first highway work in Grand Prairie then again in Dawson Creek. So far we cannot complain about the waits.

Again our early start put us into Dawson Creek this evening where we will stay another day to rest up, do laundry, shop and play tourist. Dawson Creek is the actual start of the Alcan Highway and so is the true beginning of our Alaska adventure at Mile Marker Zero.

We are self-contained campers in our rig and that is proving to be a plus tonight as the campground, Northern Lights, had a water main break. We were really looking forward to a nice hot shower but that is a no go this stop. Tomorrow we get to sleep in and play tourist, both of which will be great!

We left Shelby early to avoid traveling with at least 8 other RV’s heading to Alaska. We thought the time crunch at the border would be extensive with that many vehicles. I am sure we will run into some of them later in our trip. Crossing the border at Sweetgrass/Coutts was easy peasy. The only hiccup occurred when we both thought the agent asked if we were together. When I answered “Well, yes, we are married”. The agent looked confused. We looked confused.  Then we realized what she asked was, “first time in Canada?” We all had a good laugh. The currency exchange lady on the US side thought we were crazy getting small bills for our trip but the provincial campgrounds are cash only and usually run about $11 Canadian so there was a method to our madness.

Alberta is flat, rolling prairie country with massive wheat fields, occasionally dotted with pump jacks and apparently, dinosaur tracks. The cattle all seem to be red Angus. To the west snowcapped mountains paralleled our route north. We will enjoy them during our return trip. Our stop in Lethbridge allowed us to buy a few groceries we thought could not be brought across the border. We were only asked about liquor and cigarettes. Of course, our next crossing could be different. Lethbridge is a nice town with every fast food venue and all the shopping you could possibly desire. 

Lunch was at an A&W in Claresholm, south of Calgary. It was pleasant to find that A&W is so very popular up here and sinful to have that creamy root beer in a frosted mug!

Every time we used the credit card, we were asked if our card was chipped. Finally, we had to ask about it. Canadians do not have credit cards as we know them. Theirs are really more like debit cards embedded with a chip containing all their information and are used with a pin number. So while we have no trouble using our credit card, we cannot pay at the pump when getting gasoline. It is a minor inconvenience but for the privacy it is priceless.

Verizon roaming in Canada is a crazy beast. If you have a smart phone, it locks you out of all your apps. Contrary to what US Verizon told me, I am unable to receive texts and can only receive and make voice calls. It would have been quite nice to know this beforehand. I ended up putting my phone into airplane mode so that we could listen to our audio books which are on my phone.

While Calgary is a big city, the through traffic is routed around the edges making it so simple to get through town. Now we have stopped for the night in Red Deer, Alberta at the Westerner Campground. Everything is rodeo oriented around here. So ends our first day in Canada. Tomorrow we should be in Grand Prairie. By the way, the weather has been extremely nice though a little windy. We really cannot complain.

I was unable to post this last night. The RV park had no free wifi but it did have an ethernet port. My computer does not have an ethernet port...somedays one just cannot win!

After a more reasonable start this morning--no mowers--we had a wonderful trip through Idaho and Montana. It rained all night but it was relatively light though the gray skies hung around most of the day. Just north of Idaho Falls we spotted a huge herd of bison. It must have been a bison ranch, still it was exciting to see them. We also saw several different groups of pronghorns throughout the day.
Ancient lava flows crisscrossed the flat, rolling landscape before morphing into wheat fields.  We could see sand dunes nestled against a low mountain range to the east.

Montana has beautiful scenery that we will have enjoy at a future time. Butte, of course, sparked my interesting being a mining brat. It is very intriguing. The Missouri River is absolutely beautiful. Its crystal clear waters are a far cry from the muddy waters that course across Missouri.  And the canyon the river flows through is amazing with its volcanic structures.  I only whimpered as we sped by the turn off to Glacier National Park. So much to see in this great country of ours.

Tonight we are in Shelby, Montana. We will be crossing into Canada tomorrow morning. We have already met another Alaska bound individual camping here for the night.  It is a quest! The flag is at the Veterans Memorial in Shelby, fitting for our last night in the US for a couple of weeks.

Cloudy skies greeted us this morning in Kanab then accompanied us on most of our day's drive. We left Kanab much earlier than we had planned. Who mows their lawn at 6 a.m.? Anyway, we continued on Hwy 89 through some very beautiful country. I can tell you now, we will be back to spend some time here. The route lead us pass many beautiful sites, including Bryce Canyon and Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.

Once we hit Interstate 15 north through Salt Lake City, the scenery was lovely but we fired up the audio book and focused on just heading north. The skies remained gray until we crossed into Idaho when patches of sunshine graced us. However, we then picked up storm that paced us all the way. It began to gain on us about Pocatella. Now we sit in Idaho Falls by the Snake River waiting for this storm to finally catch us. At least it was kind enough to let us get set up and cook some dinner before making an appearance.

Tomorrow night. we should be in Shelby, Montana. We will then cross into Canada Wednesday morning.

Even though this is our third day, I feel our adventure really started this morning as we finally headed north. Tonight, we are in Kanab, Utah having driven through Arizona. All the country we traveled through today, was country we either had not seen in a very long time or country we had never seen so it was exciting and fresh and wonderful to our eyes.

We began in Globe, Arizona driving along Roosevelt Lake into the Payson area. The first thing I thought was entertaining was a sign that read "Mad as Hell Ranch". This set off all manner of speculation as to what the owner had to be mad about. Are they still mad? Why were they mad? Do they mean "mad" as in crazy? But since we were driving through the area of the Tewksbury/Graham feud, I decided they still were fighting that feud!

The San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff were lovely with Mt. Humphrey still clad in snow. It was unbelievably hard to pass all the wonderful and enticing venues...Sunset Crater, Wupatki Ruin and the North Rim entrance to the Grand Canyon...but it would be too easy to lose our focus on Alaska. We did, however, stop at the Navajo Bridge for photo opts. What a lovely spot. And after lunch, we stopped again by the Vermillion Cliffs to look for condors. We luckily spotted three soaring on the thermals.

Tomorrow will be even harder as we drive through Utah, one of our favorite states. I guess we will just have to wear blinders!

The first day of our great adventure was filled with high wind and dust all the way to Tucson. Plus the law enforcement people were out in full force but then so were the crazy drivers. By the way, it remained cool all day, from Far West Texas to Tucson. It now appears we will be driving through snow as we head north. We have planned for all weather types so we have shorts through insulated jeans to cover heat through snow. We have jackets of all weights and types so we can layer for colder weather and still survive warm weather too. Rain boots, flipflops, tennies and hiking boots make up our footgear. Now we think we are prepared for all Alaska can throw at us!

Today, we are going north to Globe/Miami area of Arizona. Our goal is to be at the Canadian border by Wednesday then the true adventure will begin.

Test

May 6, 2015

We will be heading up to Alaska in a very short time now. The packing is about half done. The “to do” list is finally showing more check marks than new items. We did a couple of upgrades on the camper and did some major organizing within the camper since extra space is at a premium. Canadian cell service has been set up.

Now, we are finally allowing ourselves to become excited about the trip. So our next post will be from the road. This is simply a test to see if posting from Word is an option.