Halfway point

After spending a great week with our friends we headed north again, with rain off and on.  Still not a bad day driving, just tiring.  Spent the night at a county park in Shelley, MT then on to Great Falls.
While in Great Falls we went to the First Nation Buffalo Jump.  Interesting to see how they would herd the buffalo into a stampede and guide them over a cliff to their deaths.  Indian hunters would wear buffalo skins to guide them then jump off the cliff to a small ledge where they would wait until the herd would fall.  Then the tribe would process the carcasses for their use.

Cindy standing at edge of cliff

Back side of cliff

Cindy walking along edge of cliff

After spending a couple days in Great Falls we got an early start and left about 9am in the rain.  We stopped in Shelby to fuel up then stopped at the Sweet Grass, MT border crossing.  After a few quick questions we were on our way into Alberta.
First stop was at the info center.  Gotta be careful walking around the grounds.

The rain cleared up after a few Kilometers.  We drove into Vulcan and found a spot in a city park with full hookups for $25/night Canadian ($18.60 US).  After a short rest we drove to the grocery to pick up a few items then went to the Vulcan Star Trek museum.  The entire town has Star Trek themes, a car repair shop has Shuttle Bays 1-3, there is a pet store named Porthos, the street lights are shaped like the Enterprise.  There is an Enterprise replica right in front of the town.  Neat place if you're a trekkie.  

Tomorrow we might drive in the truck to Drumhellen to see more dinosaurs.
Oh BTW, we're about halfway now to Anchorage, AK!

Cove Fort Historic Site, Utah

We pulled into the campground on Thursday morning after 4 10 hour days of driving.  We had beautiful sunny weather for our drive but that was fixin' to change!  The wind started blowing about 15-20mph on the last 20 miles of our drive.  20mph isn't too bad unless you're driving a bus, then you get pushed around some which makes the drive pretty tiring.  We were met by Tom who guided us to our site then we had a nice short visit before he had to return to work.

This campground is typically for the volunteers working at the Fort but we were able to stay here thanks to Tom.  The Fort is owned and maintained as a historic site by the Church of Latter Day Saints.  It was built in 1867 and like most sites fell into disrepair.  But it was purchased by the Church and restored and is really nice.  The USA flag has 37 stars which was the amount of states at the time the Fort was built.  It was a Post Office and telegraph office also.  You can see the telegraph wires on the 2nd picture below.  The mail was delivered by the Pony Express!

Tom and I went on a Rzr ride on Saturday which turned out to be the only day it didn't rain.  Nice day for riding but a bit cool.  We came across a geothermal plant in the mountains which was kinda neat.

Then we drove out to Fremont State Park to tour the museum and did a short walk to see some of the easy to access petroglyphs from the Fremont Indians.

Then yesterday the snow started.  We tried to drive up to a ski lodge near Beaver but turned around as the snow started coming down pretty hard.

Then when we got back to the turn off to the Fort and campground there were quite a few 18 wheelers and cars parked along the road waiting for the snow plow to clear I-70.

 

It was supposed to snow more last night but didn't so hopefully it will clear since we hope to head north again tomorrow.

Today we'll cook a chicken and andouille gumbo for our friends.  With this weather and snow it'll be good gumbo weather!  Oh, I heard it will be 95º today back home, our high temperature today will be 45º.

Once we cross into Canada I'm not sure how often we'll have internet so may not get to update the blog too often.

Until next time!

On the road again

We left Monday morning at 7:45 from Paincourtville after spending a nice day at Cindy's mom's.  Very little traffic along the way, except for the love bugs!  Spent about an hour in Nocona, TX washing them off the front and windshield of the coach.  Spent the night at the Veranda Inn which has a nice smaller campground in back with full hookups and pull-throughs.  It's nice to not have to unhook the truck to back into a sight.
Tuesday morning left early again and drove up through Amarillo then across I-40 to Albuquerque then up I-25 to the Sandia Casino.  Huge parking lots, free to park overnight but no hookups.  Walked into the Casino and had dinner, Cindy had a green chile meatloaf and I had a big bowl of green chile stew.  Unfortunately no Navajo fry bread.  
Slept with the windows open and woke up to 52º outside but nice inside with just a blanket.
Hopefully today we'll find a roadside stand with a guy cooking some fry bread.  Usually around Farmington there is someone cooking burgers and fry bread.  We plan to drive up through Cortez, CO then up to Moab, UT and stop at Green River, UT for the night.  Tomorrow we'll get to Cove Fort, UT where we'll spend a week.  Thursday afternoon I have an appointment in Riverton, just south of Salt Lake City.
More to come later.

Almost ready

Our time left here in Louisiana is getting very short.  We’re still leaving on Monday but found out our dear friends  Clarke & Elaine have had to cancel their trip.  We’ll miss having them along but understand.

Last week we drove over to Bella Terra RV resort at Foley, AL to visit with our Newell Gurus friends.  Had lots of fun and made new friends!  We did have a few hot air balloons float low overhead.

The trip over was uneventful except for the rearview camera.  It has an intermittent problem that I thought I had fixed.  Nope, so I’m waiting for Amazon to deliver a new camera system and I’ll be working on that this week.  

Cindy was able through her extreme persistence to get an appointment for tomorrow for the 2nd epidural injection for my back.  I might have been OK with the first one but usually it takes 2 to get 6 months or so of relief.

Yesterday we drove to Thibodaux and surprised Ella and Eva at their school to have lunch with them.  It’s always a joy to visit their school and see a few of the teachers there from when our sons went there.  The staff is always so welcoming and the food is pretty darn good.  Eva was jumping for joy when she saw us, Ella being almost 11 going on 16 was a typical pre-teenager.  But she did manage to hug both of us.  After her friends left the cafeteria of course!

So the rest of this week we’ll be finishing packing the coach and getting the house ready to close up.  We'll spend Mother's Day at Cindy's mom's with our sons, then probably spend the night in the coach so we can be ready to leave Monday morning.

Until next time!