Reports and Thoughts From The Road

Leg 6:  Rapid City, SD  to  Buffalo, WY

Approx: 222.9 miles

A long time friend of mine, Rick Taylor, suggested that each day we include a weather report from  our stops from his favorite site and one most everyone that spends any time on the internet has seen,   The Weather Underground.  So beginning today I will copy their main panel showing the important  information right under the map of each day's leg. It will be a jpeg file using Vista's Snipping Tool so the links won't be searchable.  I tried to copy and paste onto the site but the site still would not let the links be searchable .

Entering Wyoming, and not too many trees, maybe the dish will work again.

Visible are the Big Horn Mountains and not very many trees getting close to Buffalo.

http://www.bighornmountains.com/

I was encouraged that there wouldn't be any diffuculty getting the dish aligned when we got to the RV park since we had not seen very many trees all the way to Buffalo. When we pulled in to the park, you never saw so many trees...it looked like a forest. I asked the manager if there were any spots without a tree.....of course not...but we got cable, he says. Well, like Forrest Gump said "That's one less thing to worry about" We're all set and it about supper time now. Tomorrow it's on to Billings, Montana....approx. 235 miles. See you then.

We met a couple RVing in a beautiful Dutch Star motorhome (bottom left; 3rd one from the left, bronze color). They were from Germany and he couln't bring his dogs in because of the restrictions but he said he misses them so much he wanted to come over and met Key and Juliet and he brought them some steak....... .........Meanwhile, I had a    weight-watchers dinner for my supper.

  Leg 7: Buffalo, WY to Billings, MT

   Approx:  166.8 miles

 We got on the road right on time this morning    at  9 o' clock sharp and the trip to Billings was a easy drive. Good roads and not too much wind just about all the way. What wind there was seemed to be blowing straight towards us from the west. As we came into town we noticed that the Yellowstone River that is about a hundred yards east of the Yellowstone River RV Camp (our stop for tonight)  is almost over it's banks.  I will include some photos of it tonight. This is beautiful countryside and I was tempted to stop several times to get a better shot as it went by but once you are going it's better to keep going.

      Here's a photo taken while we were still in Wyoming. Alot of smooth hillsides with few trees (except at the RV camp grounds).

In Montana....Big Sky Country and I'm told that this is also Crow Country. That's as in Crow Indians.

Close to the Camp is a trail that leads down to the Yellowstone River and although this is certainly not as dramatic as it is at the bridge, you can see that it has come over it's bank.

This is what the other side of the river looks like.

                                  The best of the camp.

Leg 8: Billings to Helena

Distance: 242 miles

     We had an enjoyable drive to Helena.....the Tahoe might not have cared for it though. From Billings to Livingston, about 116 miles, and just a little beyond we climbed to about 5700 feet above sea level. That's only about 1400 feet higher than Billings, except that it seemed we made it over and over. OK it wasn't that bad and not anything we didn't expect. We took photos of the Yellowstone River in several places and every where we looked it looked like it was about to spill over it's bank. The camp manager at Billings told us of a bridge that was out  in Livingston (don't know why) and until it gets rebuilt the folks that live on the other side have to use boats to get to town.

         Yellowstone River near Livingston, MT

                   Beautiful countryside all the way

This is not an accident getting ready to happen; its a display at the entrance to Helena Regional Airport. That chopper is standing still. 

 This is even a rarer photo of me...period. Our sat. dish locked on right away (happy wife)(had to talk the manager into switching spots so the trees were not in the way) also the Verizon air card had a blazing connection, a cold beer and a faithful dog.

           That's about all any guy could ask for. 

 Leg 9: Helena, MT to Lethbridge, AB, Canada

 Distance: 267 miles

   The drive from Helena to Great Falls was the most thrilling of the whole trip so far. This was 86 miles through the Spring Creek and Wolf River Passes and tremendous canyons raging rapids of these two rivers and then crossing the Missouri River twice. This area is  known as the "Gates of the Mountain." It was very entertaining and we took alot more photos than we have room for this day. Maybe after we get to Fairbanks I can get all of them on the "More Photos" page.

    When we got to the border we expected to get a full vehicle inspection.  Some of the RV's ahead of us were getting vehicle inspections. All we got was questions. The officer only wanted to see the passports and dog heath records. All of my answers were yes and no. It took about 10 minutes and we were on our way. I told Linda it must have been the "Fort Worth Code" baseball cap I was wearing.

    This area is part of or close to the Helena National Forest. The best part is the area between Helena and Great Falls.

  You know this guy is going to get questions about the "Eagle" in the truck bed

                         Maybe that's not an Eagle

    Tomorrow we are off to Calgary. One huge city. It should be a short drive so we might have time to get around the city and take some photos, maybe.

 See you then.

                Leg  10: Lethbridge to Calgary

                   Distance: Approx 159 miles

       Our stay at Lethbridge was satisfactory although the camp itself was really kinda'  like a......................parking lot. No other way to describe it. Everyone was parked on asphalt kinda pointing to the same spot; like circling the wagons.  Getting out wasn't easy either but leaving Lethbridge was the simple part, even the drive to Calgary was uneventful. The road was excellent and traffic was very light .The only problem we had was entering the address into the GPS navigation system. The address listed on the Calgary West Campground said 221  101st Street SW. The problem was that the navigation system wanted 6 numbers for the street address. I called the campground and they said "Yep, it's 221". So we programed to route to the street without a address number. We finally made it to the Campground but it kinda' was lucky that we saw a sign with the campground  name and arrows to it. When we got stopped at the office building I walk in to get registered. As I walked up to the counter two young ladies were waiting to meet me. I said "Your not going to believe how much trouble we had finding the campground office."  She said "Well, you still havn't found it, this is the gift shop, their door is right around the corner". That figures! The desk person at the real office says that the city just recently re-numbered the street and now we're 221.  Most of the navigation systems are not updated yet.  One thing I can say....don't go dragging a 33' travel trailer around Calgary if there is any other way.     

           It was a perfect day to drive to Calgary.

       No wind, 67 degress and very little traffic.

 Close quarters at the Calgary West Campground

  This is Key's favorite spot to see what  is going on outside.

 We are in for the night. Tomorrow we are headed to Edmonton and will spend Saturday and Sunday there so we are planning to do some sightseeing in town and maybe eat out Saturday night. It's about a 200 mile trip ...should take us about 4 1/2 hrs.

  Leg 11: Calgary to Edmonton

  Distance: Approx. 200 miles        

        The drive up from Calgary was smoth, good road and the directions we had were good, plus the navigation system did it's job and we found the campsite with out any problem. The registration was quick and we were assigned to our spot and with directions in hand I began a winding drive through the park to our spot..............

...........through this......... Actually the RV's have enough seperation but when you have to crowd either the towing vehicle or the vehicle  being towed to the mix, then any spare room is used up.  

   Back tracking just abit, two things really were noticeable. The number of motorcyclist...most with full blown camping gear strapped to the rear luggage carrier....and the massive sections of farm land. In Canada even the median is harvested for hay, but we saw planted fields that were a quarter mile in length and the depth was farther than we could see.

This was a motorcycle club on a ride but alot of times we saw singles, doubles and small groups riding with camping gear.

This photo just doesn't do the size of the field justice. They were enormous.

Here's something else that is enormous. This is a screen shot of the mall from Goggle Earth.                    

                        www.westedmall.com  

 
                       This is where we went for dinner.        

The girls were handing out hor-d'orves to the people passing by in the mall.

Back at the ranch, Key and I are checking out the activity out in the "parking lot".