I normally wouldn’t post back to back like this, but we are spending the next 2 days at the Calgary Stampedes, and I think that post might be overloaded!
We got into our campground, Calgary West, just after 11:00, and it was a riot trying to get all these big rigs parked in a old, cramped, unlevel campground. It was definitely not designed for 40+’ long RVs with slides on both sides. However it is the only campground in the city limits. After (almost) everyone was parked, we collected for a car pool to the Alberta Heritage Center. I was only lukewarm, and I was, again, thrilled with the venue.
There is a semi-modern section when you arrive, and we started looking at cars from the early 1900s through the 1920s in their automobile exhibit. There were dozens of fancy roadsters.
But I was amazed at the number of fully restored and operational work vehicles.
Oil delivery truckA basic delivery vanAnother oil truckThey even let people get in some of the trucks
I found it interesting that they use period trucks to deliver workers and goods when guests are in the facility.
Note the period clothing too
After we left the automobile area, we visited the main area of the 1910s or so. Lots and lots of buildings plus lots of docents and guest workers in period costume. This is only a small number of the buildings in this section.
The Wainright Hotel was THE place to beThe bank had a second floor access to be used to shoot robbers!An impressive town hallThe local Mountie talked to us a whileWe got a coupon for a free ice cream cone as part of our admission.
We only spent time in one other era, the Settlement. This represented the period of fur trading by the Hudson Bay Company.
There was a clerk at the Hudson Bay officesAnd there had to be a church of courseThe sauna was an unexpected additionShows the tradition from early settlement to more modern times
The facility covers dozens of acres. There is an old-time amusement park, a farm, and so many other beautiful things. We both said we wanted to come back on another trip, but hopefully on a cooler day.
The next two days we will be at the Calgary Stampede. Long days so I don’t expect time to post. We are on another long day the third day sightseeing some of the classic Banff National Park locations on a bus tour. Not the way I would have gone if we did it on our own (we would probably have spent 3 days!), but it will be a sampler. At least I can sleep on the bus on the way back!
Data on my cell phone is restricted to 0.5GB a day, so I will have to be cautious with how many pictures I post. I took a lot more than I put here!
We left Great Falls headed to Sweetgrass/Coutts to cross the border early on Saturday morning. The drive was uneventful, and we arrived at 10:45. There was a long line of 10+ vehicles and only one border agent processing us. Finally another lane opened, and after a few brief questions by a very nice border agent (“Do you have guns, cannabis, mace?”) we were on our way in 30 minutes. There is a huge truck parking/rest area immediately after the border where we had lunch. Then we headed to our first stop, Cardston, AB. We took Hwy 502 for most of the drive, and souther Alberta is GORGEOUS! There are gently rolling hills covered with knee high prairie grass interspersed with yellow canola and purple alfalfa fields all against a back drop of snow covered craggy mountains.
Hwy 501 from north of Coutts
We got into our campground, Lee Creek, and went to pick up Canadian currency and groceries at the closest grocery store. You can’t take fruits of vegetables into Canada from the US, so we stocked up. Then we went to the Remington Carriage Museum which was amazing. They have the largest collection of horse drawn carriages in the world with about 350 in the current collection. We got a nice carriage ride around the grounds as part of our tour, but, sadly, my pictures of the horses and carriage didn’t work out.
The man who started the collection was a local rancher who obviously had time on his hands. He started with a single horse drawn sleigh for a Christmas parade and fully restored it. After that he was hooked. He willed 50 carriages, all restored by him, to the province of Alberta who agreed to build a museum and bring in other carriages stored in other museums. Here is a sampling of the museum.
this was an inexpensive csrriage, $20. It came in a box as pictured on the left.
A quality doctor’s csrriage.
And then there were the really fancy ones!
Carriages were literally stacked to the ceiling. There are rows and rows of storage like this.
The legendary Conestoga wagons were also represented.
As were heavy wagons for hauling.
And I added this one for my daughter in law who works for John Deere. It is a McCormick broadcast seeder next to a school bus. I didn’t see any John Deere rigs.
We left on Sunday for Fort MacLeod and Rivers Edge campground. Along the way we stopped at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police museum which is located in the historic Fort MacLeod. It was an optional stop for our caravan, but it was well worth the 2 hours we spent there. Not only was the museum interesting, presenting both the history of the Mounties and giving this newbie a good overview of the settlement of western Canada.
This is the current fort recreation. A number of the buildings still are of primarily original construction, but they have had newer pieces added for repairs.
And here is a diorama of the old fort.
They also have something they call “The Musical Ride” which was 7 riders doing cavalry drills of all types while music played in the background. It wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. While posted at what was then the edge of civilization in a harsh climate, the Mounties used advanced cavalry drills for competition and recreation. Setting the work to music just made it more fun. The riders are local youngsters from the ages of 13 to 20.
We got set up at our campground and went as a group to Heads-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Center. Another great place that totally exceeded my expectations. We had a local Indian docent who discussed the native tribes and their way of life, watched a very well produced movie about how an entire tribe would cooperate to drive the buffalo over the jump, and how they would then cooperatively butcher the animals, using every piece from head to tail. Almost nothing went to waste. I can hardly imagine the amount of work it took to completely process 100-300 buffalo within the 2-3 days with stone and bone tools, but they did it. This particular jump was used for nearly 6000 years, and the last kill was only in the mid 1800s meaning the lore was still in oral tradition. Oh, and the views were as open as any I have ever seen!
The top bluff was where the jump was made.
And those views!
We move again on Monday to Calgary and the Calgary Stampede.
We moved to Great Falls, MT. The campground has new owners who call it “Great Falls RV Park”, but all the signs still say “Dick’s RV Park”. It isn’t bad – lots of pull through with decent gravel sites and grass between sites. Plenty long enough even for the really big rigs.
This is the last of our Lewis and Clark trail sites on this trip. We had originally planned on doing the Yellowstone River section of their trip, but that all went by the wayside with the Yellowstone floods. We have pretty much done entire trail except for that, though it has been across a few separate years. This time we visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center just downstream from the Black Eagle Falls, one of the few parts of the falls still visible. Most of the multiple falls Lewis and Clark experienced are under the waters backed up by dams. It was a standard but very nice experience. We have seen similar exhibits in the other museums and centers along the way, so I didn’t take pictures. I think one of the best sections of exhibits was about Sacajawea and what it meant to be a native woman in her time.
Across the river was the remnants of a huge smelter. Only the mill channel and the foundations were left, but it was impressive.
Black Eagle Smelter ruins with mill race
The falls themselves were still impressive, though only a fraction of their original size. That is some hard rock!
Dam with mill channel at upper right
There we’re lots of little islands even with the water at a pretty high level. Gulls had take over most of them. I wish I had taken a video so you could hear them, but I only have this (very poor) iPhone picture. You will have to use very sharp eyes to tell the difference between the rocks and the gulls, but they really are there!
Can you see the gulls?
And then I got this adorable picture of Minnie and Luna cuddling again! This little bathroom rug is Minnie’s favorite spot, and Luna decided to check it out too. It was just after I had washed and dried it, so I think they liked the fluffiness of the rug.
Cuddling on the world’s best rug (according to Minnie at least)
We are also doing last minute preparations for the Canada crossing. We filled up the car with fuel, bought groceries, and did some (never-ending) laundry. The Adventure Caravans “Tailgunner” came by to go through a checklist for our motorhome. He checked tires, asked when we had last had full service, status of spares (fuel filters, water separation filter, serpentine belt, DEF), and we passed. It would actually be hard not to pass since they sent us the checklist in advance, but I guess some people do.
We had our first official meeting with our Adventure Caravan crew. There are 19 rigs traveling as guests plus a Wagonmaster (in overall charge, always heads out first, arrives at destination first) and a Tailgunner (last in the group, helps with any issues on the road). We are a diverse group – mostly couples from all over the US plus a couple from Belgium and Venezuela, a few singles, one family of 3, motorhomes of various types and sizes from 45’ to a Class B, fifth wheels, and travel trailers. All seem to be retired which makes sense with the time of year and the length of the trip, but ages range from just under 60 to 80+. I still have some concerns about how much “togetherness” we will be expected to have. I like my privacy too! I am definitely looking forward to the trip.
We left the Black Hills on Monday, 27 June. We scored a great dry camping spot at De Smet Lake between Buffalo and Sheridan. We spent 3 nights there, sitting right next to the lake. It was a lovely change from all the commercial campgrounds we have been in. It was also the first time we have been without hookups on this entire trip! We did need some generator time for AC on two days, but it was pretty simple except that. Since we are finally in the mountains, we had to have mountain pictures!
See the snow capped mountains? Near Buffalo.Look carefully for more snowThe views were lovely even without snow
We saw at least 100 pronghorns, but this was the only picture I got. It isn’t very good, still being from a distance and cropped a lot, but at least it does show a pronghorn.
Probably a nice male all by himself
We left De Smet and went to the KOA at Hardin, MT. They had a tornado her not too long ago, and the campground still shows the effects. It wasn’t in great shape before, but the owners have been so busy recovering from the storm that a lot of routine maintenance has been deferred. Still not a bad place to stay the night. It was amazingly quiet.
We took a trip to the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area south of Hardin almost to Wyoming. The area is lovely with a large flat area for farming and a canyon where the Bighorn River runs. There is one big dam and a smaller dam, both to supply power. The smaller one also acts as silt control for the blue ribbon fishery on the Bighorn. The impounded river is more like a wide river set into a deep canyon. Next time we come through I want to rent a pontoon boat and drive it up the canyon. It would be a gorgeous trip.
The Bighorn damThe immediate downriver dam for power and silt controlPretty nice marina!
We are now in the Helena, MT KOA. The trip here was unusually busy, but then again it WAS the Friday before the Independence Day holiday! It seemed like all of Montana was on the move in RVs, cars, and SUVs. There was every type of outdoor gear imaginable – tents, OHVs, boats, etc. We stopped at the rest area in Bozeman, and traffic to get on I-90 was backed up almost a mile! I think people are so excited to get out they are going no matter how bad the fuel gets. As we went through Billings I finally got the motorhome washed. It was past dirty. And then we got 8 miles of gravel an hour later. Sigh. My pretty motorhome looks awful again. An hour past the gravel section our windshield got a big divot from a rock! We were 30 minutes from Helena, but too late for Safelite there. We ended up arranging to have it fixed in Great Falls next week.
As we pulled into the Helena campground, I got this adorable picture of both cats sleeping together. They aren’t usually cuddly with each other even though they are sisters, but this was so cute!
Luna is in Minnie’s favorite travel spot
Luna is normally on Kevin’s lap during travel while Minnie is almost always in this specific chair. She definitely prefers this specific quilt too. The picture is a bit misleading about their relative sizes. Minnie is actually significantly smaller than Luna.
Today we went on a scenic boat tour through Gates of the Mountains, named by Lewis and Clark as they came through on the Missouri. The area is part of the Missouri River dam system now, so the very narrow entrance is partially hidden by water these days. It was a fabulous trip, almost 2 hours long, with a great captain. He gave lots of information about the history, the geology, and the flora and fauna. Here is a picture dump.
A lot of the area around the marina is gently rollingBut then the bluffs startSee the eagle nest?This boat was built in the 1950s, but we went in the modern version with a roof.Gorgeous viewsMostly limestone cliffs with lots of caves and crevassesAn unusual eagle nest on a rock. It was stolen from an osprey a few years previously. See the babies?Do you see the tow boat?Imagine the water 20’ lower. This is the “gate” the explorers sawMix of Ponderosa pines and Douglas firSee the tiny window?
I actually took about 80 pictures, but that would have been a bit excessive!
We are finishing up the day with laundry and shopping, all the fascinating stuff of long term living. I admit (again) that I LOVE my stackable washer and dryer. They are smaller than home units, and the dryer takes a long time because it works on 110v. However I love not going to the laundromat and never knowing how hot the washer or dryer is.
The campground looks like Tiffin convention, and we are the small folks! There are numerous Bus and Phaeton models in the park. The folks who pulled in next to us are going on the same caravan we are, and they are headed to Great Falls on 5 July, just like us. I am betting some of the other rigs here are part of the caravan too. Guess we will find out on Tuesday.
