Monday, July 26, 2010

We (Sharon, Terry, Jo-Anne and I) were off this morning at 10 headed toward Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.  HSIBJ is a very interesting location where the Indians herded the buffalo over a cliff in order to provide meat for the tribe over the winters.  We watched the movie depicting the event even though we knew what was going to happen.  They said that no animals were injured during the making of the movie so it was a very realistic computer animation.  The building which housed the Center was 6 stories tall that was only 1 story on the outside.  The whole building was built into the back of a hill.  It was quite unique.

After we left HSIBJ we drove toward the Frank Slide near Crowsnest, Alberta.  Frank Slide is the location where an entire half of a mountain collapsed in the middle of the night killing 70 people back in the early 1900's.  It's almost unbelievable how much rocky debris still lays on the ground, but looking at the mountain just verifies it.  Nothing has grown in the debris since the slide happened, except for a couple of pine trees.

We stopped for lunch shortly after viewing the collapse site and after that we started to head back home.

We stopped at a couple of places on the way home including a campground that Terry wanted to check out.  In our opinion the Provincial Parks that are laced throughout the Province are not suitable for large RV's.   This one proved to be no different, although there are always exceptions.

After we got home Sharon decided to catch up on the laundry for the week.  This will probably be the last time while we are on the road this trip.  We expect to be home within a week to 10 days.

We also went to the Legion tonight to eat Dinner.  I was taken by a T-Shirt that I saw hanging at the entrance but it was the wrong style.  I don't usually wear collared shirts and this was one of them.  It was a dandy shirt however.

After we got home I finally got a computer connection that I could publish the Journal on.  I got online and it took about 15 minutes to get it up and running.  We've had such a good time on this trip I hate not to share the experience.

After Sharon got our laundry done and I was finished with the Journal we came back out to the coach and watched TV for awhile before heading for the sleep chamber.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

We (Sharon, Jo-Anne, Terry and I) were on the road early again this morning heading toward a new adventure.  We were actually headed toward our 5th Canadian National Park.  In the past week we've been to Jasper, Yo-Ho, Banff, Kootenay and now Waterton Lake.  We've had a very busy week along with several other places we've visited in the past week.

We arrived at the townsite right around noon so we stopped at the Bayside Inn to have lunch.  It was quite good and we had to kill some time before we took the boat tour anyway.

We went on the boat tour at Waterton Lake and enjoyed it very much.  We actually rode into Montana and then back again as evidenced by our pictures.  Boat tours are not my cup of tea but this one was different and fun.

We drove through the townsite and observed several deer in different places, lounging in the town, wherever they wanted to.  We also stopped at the Prince of Wales Hotel to have a beer in the Lounge and to take some pictures of the Hotel and check out the overview of the area since it was high atop a hill.

After we finished at Waterton we headed back to Lethbridge and to the Chinese Restaurant, Mimi's.  They didn't have much of a selection of food but what was there was very good.  We had no trouble finding enough to eat.

After Dinner we went back to Terry and Jo-Anne's and a couple of their neighbors, Cliff and Linda, came over for a while.  We sat and chatted for about an hour before it started getting a little chilly on the deck.  It was also starting to get dark before 10 for a change.

Tomorrow we will hit the road on the way back to the States.  It won't be an early start but we should be moving by 9 in the morning.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

We were traveling again this morning as we got ready and then started heading toward the US/Canadian border.  It was a short trip and we arrived about an hour later.  It took us all of about 3 minutes to get through Customs after we squeezed through the gate to get there.

After that we arrived at our campground, Johnson's RV in St. Mary just outside the gate to Glacier National Park. We couldn't check in until 11 so we parked at the office while we ate lunch.

We got set up in our site and left immediately to go to Glacier.  I actually got to use my Senior Card for the Entrance Fee, which was $25.  We checked in at the Visitor's Center and they informed us that it might be better and faster if we take our own car to the "Going-to-the-Sun Road."  By the time we left, after watching the two movies, We headed up the mountain in our own vehicle.  It took us 5 hours to get from one end of the park to the other.  It was a magnificent journey through the mountains but after being in the mountains for the last 4 days we were pretty much sceneried-out.

When we got back to the motorhome Sharon set up the Dish and I just sat and relaxed.  I tried to hook on to the Campground Wi-Fi but after a phone call found out that it was just a wireless router that you had to be at the office to get it.  Hardly what was advertised as Wi-Fi.

After connecting our Mobile Broadband Sharon was happy as a lark.  She could finally surf the Internet without chasing to the office.  We haven't had regular e-mail in the last 3 weeks.  It makes you feel isolated to say the least.

I just sat in front of the tube and was very happy.  I managed to find a whole slew of things to watch until the clock struck 11 and I went to the haystack for the night.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Today was going to be a pure travel day.  We left our campground at St. Mary, Montana headed for Deer Lodge.  We also wanted to wait until we hit some civilization before we bought gas for the motorhome. It was going for $3.19 a gallon in St. Mary.  We didn't, however, realize that we'd be traveling through the foothills of the mountains, going through the ups and downs with only a quarter of a tank of gas.  We did finally make it to Browning after the Low Fuel light was on for the last 10 miles.  I figured the light went on early since we were climbing hills at the time.

Our next stop was in Helena at the Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries for the next few days.  We still had about 50 miles to get to our destination in Deer Lodge to the campground, Indian Creek RV Resort.

We needed to climb the 6400 foot McDonald Pass to get to Deer Lodge so we decided to start the generator to run our roof airs to give the engine air a break climbing over the mountain.  The generator ran for about 15 minutes before it shut down and refused to restart.  It was 90 degrees outside and it appeared that the compartment was too hot for it to run.  We shut down the roof airs and just toughed-it -out.

We rolled into the campground about 5 and were happy to just get the Airs Running.  It took about an hour for the coach to cool down even though the cool air felt good immediately.

We had a DiGiorno's Pizza for Supper tonight and it really hit the spot.  Especially since it was the cheapest meal we had eaten in 3 weeks, except for the hot dogs we had yesterday.

After Supper we just sat and watched TV even though the DVR didn't record our Jeopardy show.  Sometimes even the best thing you own doesn't work like you want it to.

We were both ready for bed by 10:15 tonight and we shuffled off to Buffalo.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Our first order of business today was to go to Grant-Kohr's National Historic Site located here in Deer Lodge, Montana.  We got the motorhome ready to travel and then left for the park.  Grant -Kohr's Ranch is the only working ranch in the entire National Park System.  The ranch has been around since the 1860's and has been an active ranch ever since.  We arrived about 11 and signed up for the ranch house tour, which is the only "tour" available.  They carry out several demonstrations on the grounds, but nothing special was scheduled for today.  We walked through all the out-buildings for at least an hour before the tour was scheduled to run.

The gentleman conducting the tour was as dry as the Mohave Desert and nowhere near as interesting.  I was having trouble with my back today so I didn't make it past the first room in the house.  Sharon informed me later that he didn't get any more interesting during the rest of the tour.  I really didn't miss a thing.

After the ranch we stopped at McDonald's for lunch and then went back to the motorhome and got on the road heading East.  The rest of the day would be taken up traveling.  We were going to make it as far as we could without pushing it.

We pulled into the Grandview Camp and RV Park in Hardin, Montana about 6 o'clock after having stopped in Billings for gas for the day.  It was very hot all day and our generator refused to run again on the road to run our roof airs.  The Dash air was keeping up nicely today however.  As soon as we pulled in to the campground we plugged in and I put the Power Booster on the electric and it kept the voltage up for our air conditioning.

I found the satellite which was unusual to say the least.  I've lost patience with that damn thing over the past couple of weeks and Sharon has had to find it.  Although we were in Canada and not supposed to receive the signal anyway.

We watched TV for the rest of the night but we both caved at 10 from a long day.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

We had a little trouble getting going this morning.  It was going to be a travel day but we had some difficulty with the right rear jack on the motorhome.  It wouldn't budge this morning for almost 45 minutes, and by the time I got it up I was not in a good mood from the heat and the trouble.

The dash air on the motorhome was working sporadically and exhibiting a vacuum leak somewhere in the system.  It would work going downhill but stop going up.  It was too hot for the generator to run in that little compartment so we couldn't run the roof air.

We were on the road by 10 and headed east toward Wyoming and South Dakota.

Our next stop was in Billings to eat lunch at McDonald's before moving on again.  We drove until Sharon found a campground in Blackhawk, South Dakota which is located between Sturgis and Rapid City.  We pulled into our campground after a fashion.  The exit that we were supposed to take was non-existent and we drove back and forth past the campground until we figure out where we should exit.  We pulled into 3 Flags RV Park about 5 and quickly got settled into our site.

At about 7 o'clock a storm came through accompanied by ferocious winds and rain.  It almost seemed a precursor to a tornado.  We kept an eye on the sky but didn't see a funnel in any direction.  We retracted our slides to protect our awnings and just waited it out.  It lasted about an hour before the sky finally cleared and the sun actually came back out again.

By 10 the storm was over and we headed off to the "funny farm" for the night.  We would have another long day tomorrow.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

It stayed hot most of the night last night and the air conditioner ran intermittently most of the night.  By this morning it was cool enough to turn it off instead of letting it go off by itself.

Since we didn't have anything but electric plugged in last night, it was easy to get ready and get on the road this morning.  We left about 9 and stopped for gas almost immediately.  Our next stop was at Wall Drug to see if I could find a new T-Shirt.  My old one was garage material.  After Wall we stopped  for "people fuel" and we took care of that at a rest area along the way.

The only other stops before our campground in Mitchell, S.D. was to change drivers a couple of times.  We rolled into our campground around 5 and got set up immediately including turning the air on.

After we got out of Sturgis today we must have seen 400 motorcycles on the road headed that way.  We don't know if they were all headed to Sturgis, but they were going in that direction in inordinate numbers.

We settled in for the night with a couple of Bloody Marys each and they went down very nicely.  A little TV and a little liquor and we were ready for sleep by the time 10 rolled around.