Saturday August 10, Osoyoos BC to Stavely AB
The day started rainy and overcast and stayed that way. The farther east we drove, the colder it seemed to get! The roads were beautiful despite the weather, and we enjoyed taking a different road through the mountains this time, going through the famous Crowsnest Pass. Most of the roads here have huge gates that can be closed during bad weather, and I'm sure they are needed in the winter. The driving through the pass was intimidating, even in the summer, as the grade is super steep here as well. We went through a time change, losing an hour, before crossing into Alberta again and heading for a Visitor's Centre. It was freezing cold!!! The mountains had faded away and we were in rolling hills and huge farm acreage again, with no towns for ages even on the Trans Canada. We were intending to drive a long way off the TC to stay at Waterton Lakes National Park for the night, but the weather was bad, and once we had found out that the park had experienced a devastating fire only 2 years before and much of it was closed for regeneration, we decided to carry on farther east and north. The next destination was a small town that we had heard about while we were in Drumheller the week before, and was an add on to the trip, so we worked our way in that direction. We struggled to find somewhere to stay, and ended up in a coulee off the main road that strangely had only a pit toilet, but had hydro and wifi. We had the heaters roaring away all night, it was so cold you could see your breath. 700 kms today.
Sunday August 11, Stavely AB to Dinosaur PP
A cold misty morning, but the flocks of birds in the nearby coulee sounded wonderful. We had not brought any binoculars with us, and this was one day I really regretted forgetting them. We packed up, dressed warmly and headed off to be geeks for the morning, in Vulcan AB. What a fun stop! Named after the Roman god of fire long before Star Trek, it has embraced the whole Star Trek connection and proudly displayed it everywhere in town. We had fun in the Visitor's Centre, and sent a postcard home.
Once the geek fest was over, we drove on through tiny towns and minimal services to Dinosaur PP. I have never been in such a remote campground, the nearest gas station was a half hour away, and groceries were at least an hour away. Luckily we still had enough food in the trailer to keep us going as the park had nothing much for sale either! The park was incredible. The badlands were all around you, and up high, was the wide open fields of the rest of the province. I can only imagine what it was like when people traveled here for the first time across the prairies and somewhat stumbled upon this huge expanse of canyon a hundred feet below them. We set up and then Devon started climbing up and down the hills, he had a blast. We all took advantage of the shower in the campground, it was $1 for 2 minutes, but hot and lovely. Our first real shower in about 5 days.
Monday August 12, Happy Anniversary in Dinosaur PP!
Today it rained. And rained. All day. The big excitement of the day was doing laundry in the Visitor's Centre. This park was so far away from everything that it didn't make sense to even go out in the truck and go into town. We are down to minimal supplies for meals, have run out of milk and eggs, and have only a bit of bread left. I mixed up some meat, salsa and rice together and called it Dinosaur park hash, and luckily it was edible! Today was the first day feeling homesick and so travel weary. Knowing that the house was in a mess at home having the drywall and electrical work happening helped as things would be dismal and messy at home too! We watched a couple of movies on the laptop and I tried my hand at some crossword puzzles.As you can see, even the birds were trying to stay out of the bad weather in the Visitor's Centre.
Tuesday August 13, Dinosaur PP to Redcliff AB
The rain finally stopped, but the mud! The bathrooms were full of discarded muddy kid clothes, there was mud everywhere from kids falling and coming in to wash off some of it in the bathroom sinks. We did our best to clean out the trailer of mud, dust and grit while we waited for the sun to come out and see if hiking some of the trails was going to work. We decided to try some, and drove around and did some exploring before returning to hook up the trailer and head on down the road again.
We stopped at a Burger King just outside of Redcliff for lunch, and gave Lily a small bit of the end of an ice cream. Bad idea, she vomited it all over the back of the truck and Devon. Poor guy, that was the last straw as he had fallen in the mud on a trail and had some of the 'stuff' from the trailer tank spilled on him already today. Next stop was a laudromat in Redcliff for Rob and a grocery store for me. Devon and the sad dog waited in the car. Once the laundry was done we headed off to the museum in town for some research on my paternal grandfather's work history here at the Dominion Glass factory back in the late 20's. We found out the lead researcher was not in until Wednesday so we checked in to the campground in town and relaxed in the sunshine and watched the gopher/prairie dogs in the grass. The bathroom here was amazing, super clean, well lit and the showers were hot, endless and free!
Wednesday August 14, Redcliff AB to Grasslands National Park SK.
It was a rough night, the campers next door were fighting in the middle of the night and the husband took off in his truck and roared around the neighborhood a few times. I locked the door and hoped that they would settle down. It was intimidating being so close with only vinyl walls around the beds. Eventually fell asleep again. We had beautiful weather again today so opened the trailer windows up to dry out the last of the dampness while we went to some of the local greenhouses that also sold their produce on site for a good price. After having minimal fresh food it was such a treat to have fresh picked veggies to eat. Once the local museum opened we went in and talked to the researchers and they offered to look up my Grandfather and email anything they could find. It was a strange experience being in a town where my family had been many years before, esp. as I knew nothing about it until last winter.
We carried on down the road, stopping in Medicine Hat for a ton of groceries at a beautiful Safeway, and back on the TC towards Saskatchewan. The scenery in this part of Canada to me is stunning.
We eventually made it to Grasslands National Park, 5 minutes after they closed the centre, but we were let in the back door to use the bathroom and answered some questions about where to go to get into the park. The roads all across this area are so lightly traveled, and most of the towns looked dead, with no gas stations or services for miles. I don't know how people function, except obviously by driving for hours everywhere!
Once we got into the park, we discovered they had no campsites left, but they put us in a field near the visitor's centre and pit toilets. We just got into the field when a huge storm blew into the area, and we cowered in the trailer until it passed before setting up the beds. The poor dog was terrified, it was noisy. They had a lovely common room with hydro, a kettle, microwave and BBQ for anyone to use, so we cooked our dinner in the common room BBQ and ate on their picnic tables while the rain started up again. I was hoping to watch the stars as the park is a dark sky preserve, but heavy cloud cover obscured everything except the full moon. It was still a lovely night, and I fell asleep listening to the coyotes. 380 hard kms today.
Thursday August 15, Grasslands NP to Echo Valley PP SK
After a soggy night, we woke to better weather. We opened up the trailer again to dry everything out, and went for a drive south to see some of the points of interest on their driving Ecotour. A large part of this huge park is closed to the public, but it is so big you would never feel like you had nothing left to see. Unfortunately the Black Footed Ferret reintroduction into the park had a huge setback a few years ago and the whole group in the park died off after a major drought and loss of the prairie dogs in the area. I'm not sure what the future plans are, but if there is anywhere remote and protected enough to try again, this place has to be it. We saw tons of prairie dogs at each stop on the tour, and the poor dog was losing her mind watching them from the car. They recommend keeping pets in the car in these areas to minimize disease transmission, and after watching her go crazy for the gophers in Winnipeg, I was happy to leave her secure! We even managed to find one of the bison in the park, a rogue bull who hangs out alone just close enough to the road to be a dot on your photograph.
We went back to the campground, hooked up the trailer and headed back north out of the park. It was almost an hour to find fuel for the truck, luckily we made it OK. The roads here were really rough, it was quite an experience!
Eventually we came back to the TC1, and carried on east into the Qu'Appelle valley to see the scenery here. We ended up in Echo Valley PP where it was nice to have hydro and showers again. 430 kms today on really rough roads for hours.
Friday August 16, the end of our 4th week, time to think about home.
This whole trip was planned to take close to 5 weeks, which was how much time Rob was able to take off work at once. There were so many places we wanted to see, but after doing two other trips down east of 4 weeks each, we knew that 5 would be tough to do as it is a long time in our little trailer!
Last week Rob got a call from a co-worker telling him that they were losing their office space and they would all be working mostly from home from now on, with access to a small desk each in another building if they needed to work from the office. He needed to go in before they closed up shop on the 23rd to retrieve his personal items. So, from that point on, we knew we had to be home a bit earlier than the origional plan. We worked backwards from the plan to be home by Thursday so he could go in to the office that day.
The side trip into the Qu'Appelle valley had not been as pretty as we had anticipated, so we decided to cancel the next side trip into the same type of area and start working our way home. We were hoping to do a side trip to Quetico as Rob had not been there since the 90's, and I had never seen the park.
We packed up the trailer and worked our way back to the TC. We got onto the TC in Indian Head SK, turned the GPS on to home, and found out we were 2600 kms from home. Piece of cake!! The plan was to head towards Winnipeg and see where we could camp east of there. Ideally we would do about 500 kms per day, getting us home by Wednesday with stopping for a two night stay closer to home to relax and wind down. The GPS stayed tuned to home for the rest of the drive. Somewhere near Winnipeg we crossed a milestone and had to take another picture!
Saturday August 17th, Kenora to Quetico
We woke to the sound of rain starting on the trailer, so rushed to close up the beds before they got wet. What a panic! Dealing with damp bedding is not fun. We drove through the rainy weather to Quetico, where the sun came out and we got a lovely campsite right by the bathrooms, and went and enjoyed a lovely swim in the lake (well, Devon and I did anyhow.) We got back to the campsite before it rained again, carrying on all night. 470 kms.
Sunday August 18th, Quetico to White Lake PP, Mobert ON
Another rainy morning, we packed up a soggy trailer and got going again. Drove through Thunder Bay for lunch, and ended up past Marathon, staying at White Lake. Another rainy night, cold and damp. Luckily hydro site again so we could put on a heater. 535 kms.Monday August 19th, White Lake to Chutes PP
The weather finally cleared up today, and as we left the park in the morning, we crossed another milestone on the GPS so had to take another picture. When you spend all day driving thinking about home, weird things become important!
We had a stop in Sault Ste. Marie around lunch time where we decided to try for something different for lunch, and ended up heading to a Thai restaurant that Greg found for us online from back home. I drove us there, and while working my way around a huge construction detour, I accidentally ended up going the wrong way on a busy one way with the trailer along of course!!! OMG, I have never done that before. Luckily there was a big parking lot that I could fly into before being hit by the oncoming traffic, and got turned around fairly easily. We thoroughly enjoyed the Thai food, and had enough for dinner that night as well. We got another good site at Chutes PP and set up the trailer, opening everything up to dry out as we relaxed in the sunshine. The weather was so much better we went for a walk on a trail and saw one of the many waterfalls here.
Oh well, at least the floor repair has held up.
Here is what the trailer floor looked like in the spring when I went out to start preparing it for the season!
And after being repaired by Jacquie, thank you!!!! Devon and I added the peel and stick tiles to the plywood and it has held up fairly well, considering!
Tuesday August 20, Chutes to home!
We woke up to another lovely day and packed up fully intending to stop again tonight at a campground hopefully near Parry Sound. Once we got into Parry Sound however, we started hearing weather reports of rain starting tonight and continuing for most of the day tomorrow. That ended the plan of another night out and we just went home. We landed at about 7 pm after doing 450 kms today. So good to be home, despite the fact that everything was torn up! The scaffolding on the stairway was great for helping me paint that section, but a pain when you needed to go downstairs. Luckily we have another entry point in the basement!
All together, we drove 12,540 kms in the 4 1/2 weeks of the trip. We spent a total of $3228 on fuel, for those that are curious.
I now feel so much more Canadian, having seen so much of the country for myself. I would say if anyone is considering doing the trip, you will not regret it. There was so much we didn't do, I wish we had more time, but living in a trailer is a challenge for more than a couple of weeks.
Thanks for reading!
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