Casino Stopover

August 29 – 31 – North Dakota looks like Kansas, as did Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I need to get to Oz. We are heading towards St. Paul, but discover if we drive just 50 miles out of our way to Welch, MN, there’s a huge casino/hotel complex with an attached RV park. Oz here we come!

The Emerald City isn’t as green as we’d hoped. Actually, more like asphalt. But there’s a big casino and what looks like a decent hotel. We check in for just one night.

We’re tired, don’t feel like cooking, change our clothes and walk over to the casino for dinner and games. We have a very mediocre dinner in what is supposed to be their best restaurant. No clothes, paper napkins and plastic glasses for the wine. We lose a little money and head back to sleep having already decided that we’d stay a couple more days because we are just tired of traveling every day.

Felt really good to just sleep the next morning with no schedule. Spent the day cleaning inside and out and doing the laundry. Getting things back in order felt terrific. Head out to the grocery store in Red Wing, MN and find the Super WalMart is it. Was fine on the packaged goods things, but couldn’t get the tuna steaks I had been looking forward to. Bought tons of food, then decide to go to the Seafood Buffet. I have never seen so many people eat so much food! We settle for salads and king crab legs. Not bad! Lose more money.

Planned to play golf today, but just didn’t have the energy. Took a lovely morning walk to a tributary of the Mississippi River. There’s a nice marina associated with the casino also. Wish they had taken such care in their RV Park design. There are actually trees there and a terrific water view. Watched some migratory birds (we think cranes, but need to check Sibley’s) battle for lead positions on their road to somewhere.

Planning on going to the hotel pool and get some sun. Find out it is inside. So, Rick futzes with some mechanical Tor stuff, I take a chair, find some grass and some sun and settle down to read for a while.

For some bizarre reason we go back to the casino for more mediocre food and to lose more money. But I’ve found another destination we’ve got great hopes for….near the Wisconsin Dells. Have very fond memories of the Dells from my childhood. Christmas Mountain Village…golf courses, restaurants…we’ll see.

Hay!

I’ve had it with hay fields. That’s all there is…all day long. To relieve the tedium, we pull off at Moose Jaw where there is supposed to be a casino. We figure we’ll grab some lunch, play for an hour and get back on the road. We can’t find a place big enough for us to park…we get lunch for Tor and get back on the road.

More hay. We’re passing Regina (long “i”, called the Queen City). It rises out of the prairie with what looks like skyscrapers from the highway. We keep going. Trying to put a lot of miles behind us today as we work our way back to DC

We’ve been to Moose Jaw and now stop in Moosomin. If you’re really into the camping thing, the park we stop at is perfect. Its sites are very secluded in the woods. I haven’t liked when we’ve been packed in like sardines…this on the other hand is a bit too quiet…my imagination gets the best of me!

Haven’t been able to find a grocery store. Make do with what we can find in the refrigerator. Have a steak salad…tastes terrific after a very long day.

August 28 – We are bound and determined to make it back to the states today. Haven’t had the internet in 10 days and the cell phones are on some kind of international roaming which I’m sure is costing a bloody fortune!

More hay.

I’m really hating the hay now. We are only 20 miles outside of Winnipeg and there’s smoke all across the road. The traffic is stopped dead in its tracks. You just can’t see up ahead. An ambulance and police car go by. Dorkette (our GPS) says if we take an unpaved road to the right, we can skirt this. We check with the flagman who is holding the traffic. He says they are burning off the hay stubble and he thinks the fire caused an accident ahead. He says we can make it down the unpaved road. It’s at least 8 miles. We make it…find the Winnipeg bypass, and move along. Trying to make it to Fargo..not going to happen. Hopefully there is just something across the border.

We get busted at customs! They pulled us over and went through cabinets, the refrigerator and pantry. The guy actually opened every food container, everything thing that was wrapped in the freezer, pulled out the chorizio and quizzed us on what it was. He then found a leftover piece of salmon from a restaurant. He confiscated the lemon slices they had packed with it!!!!! I’m so glad our borders are so well protected!

We’re exhausted and just want to find somewhere to stop. We find Drayton, ND and low and behold a city park with RV hook-ups. We’re told there is a very good restaurant in town and set out to order take out from them. It is a cowboy bar and it’s still happy hour. We are in sweats and are overdressed. We have a drink..eavesdrop on some interesting conversations and head back to the park. There is no one there to pay for the site. Lenny from Winnipeg is parked near us and says someone usually comes around. He says if we give him the money, he will give it to the guy. We figure Lenny manages to stay for free by offering this service.

Canadian Kansas

We leave the glory of the Rockies heading west across the Canadian Prairies. I think we’re back in Kansas, Toto. It’s interesting for a very short time. We are in the middle of nowhere and stop at a RV park that advertises it has a coffee bar, hot tubs, a pool and a tiki bar. It is actually very nice…situated in a grove of trees. The tiki bar is adorable, though they don’t use it for anything…the hot tubs are inoperable…there is no pool…and the coffee bar is a pot of coffee in the office lobby. Seems the owners built this with great intentions, but perhaps didn’t have the traffic to make all the amenities feasible.

Anyway, we enjoyed the evening. Pulled out another purchase from Bass Pro…an injection needle for Cajun roasted garlic marinade. Have never tried this technique…shot thick boneless pork chops to cook on the grill…roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus and a watermelon/feta cheese salad rounded the meal out quite nicely. After a brief rain, it cleared and we took a walk and rather enjoyed all the surrounding hay fields.

Columbia Icefields

The Columbia Icefields is one of the major destinations we’ve included. And today’s the day. We take the Icefields Parkway for about two hours north through landscape that you’re absolutely convinced cannot be real. It’s a bit of a scary drive in Gigantor, but Rick has really honed his driving skills and does a yeoman’s job.

It’s cold, about 45 degrees and starting to rain as we arrive at the base of the Athabascar Glacier visitor’s center. The exhibits inside are interesting. Our intention is to take the snow bus up onto the glacier where you can walk on the ice. We have a nice buffet lunch overlooking the glacier waiting for the rain to halt.

It’s pouring now. We figure it’s about 25 degrees up on the glacier and while we are layered for all we’re worth, we just know it’s going to be miserable up there and take a pass. The ride back to Lake Louise is stunning and doesn’t seem as frightening the second time.

Lake Louise

It’s time to load up with groceries again. We drive Tor through the Banff "refreshing area" to a Safeway. While it feels vaguely familiar, it is odd that at 9 a.m., many of the delivery trucks have yet to arrive…many shelves are bare. What is there is enormously expensive. Milk is over $6 a gallon. Spend close to $100 and don’t have all that much to show for it. But we are now stocked with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.

We head up to Lake Louise about an hour away. Another famous Fairmont we can’t get reservations at, but we will have lunch! We pull into another National Park…this time the Rockies are not only snow-capped, but we have our own glacier to look at.

The village of Lake Louise consists of only a very nice visitor’s center and a strip mall. We venture up to the lake via cab. We are warned that a 40 foot motor home should not make the climb. You simply cannot prepare yourself for this view. I do believe it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I can only come up with five of the great wonders of the world…if I had the internet available I could look it up…if this is not one of them, someone has made a vast error.

I find it difficult to describe it without being sophomoric. The soaring pines meet the brilliant blue waters without a shore line. The mountains are spotted with pale blue glaciers and the caps are covered in snow. We learn that the glaciers are blue because they contain no air bubbles. We learn the water is so dazzling because it picks up “rock flour”, a sort of silt, as it pours down the mountain. We’re not sure that these two theories are compatible, but I’ll look it up when I can.

There’s a guy dressed in a leiderhosen-like outfit playing an alpine horn…and quite badly at that. But he adds to the ambience.

We enter the Fairmont, again quite smartly dressed, and are told that only hotel guests will be seated for lunch in the dining room overlooking the lake due to the great numbers of people. Rick presses them…we are seated at a window table. I’m very grateful. Terrific lunch, but not nearly as intriguing as the one in Banff. But this view wins hands down. After lunch we walk to where the water meets the land and just stare for a very long time.

Back at the village, we pick up fresh croissants for breakfast (not bad at $1.79 each) and some wine and beer. Truly outrageous prices. $20 buys a very mediocre bottle of wine. Did find a local sauvignion blanc that I had had for lunch in Banff …still tastes good…wasn’t just the view.

Way back In Columbia, MO, we stopped at a place called Bass Pro…kind of a LL Bean on steroids for the outdoorsman. Bought a couple of interesting food things that I thought would be good for simple dinners. Pulled out a gumbo mix, sautéed some chicken and chorizo…thought I had some leftover shrimp, but we must have finished it off…added some leftover Spanish rice and couscous…it was terrific and made enough for reruns.

Oh, Canada

As we head out of Spokane, we decide to do a major grocery shopping as we are not sure what we will be encountering as we head to Canada. Rick and I have been having a debate for 3 weeks on what identification is needed for crossing the border. He’s convinced we need passports or birth certificates. I’m confident they have relaxed those requirements because of application backlogs. There is some concern because as we left on this trip, I discovered my passport had expired. We reach the border and we’ll find out! We stop and go into talk to someone. We pose the question…a driver’s license will do…I high-five the border guard and we cross into Canada.

It’s drizzly and cloudy, but that cannot mar the stunning scenery. We had been through much land scorched by fires and lack of rainfall…this landscape is a solid mass of forest, mountains and stunningly beautiful lakes. As much trouble as we have had on this trip, I still think this is an awesome way to travel.

We take our chances on another Fairmont Hot Springs Resort RV Park . This time we are gratefully surprised....while crowded, it is surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, has a relatively nice hotel and hot springs pools. Best of all, it also has two 18 hole courses. We arrive late in the afternoon, make a terrific Mexican dinner and the margaritas convince us we need to stay here for a couple of extra days.

Hot Springs to Banff

August 20 - 22 The morning dawns pretty gray and cloudy, but we take a long walk, cross a beautiful stream with cascading waterfalls and feel pretty good about just staying put for a few days. The sun comes out and for the first time…we cook breakfast outside. Bacon, eggs and hash browns cooked on the grill, gazing at the Canadian Rockies is a definite keeper in the memory bank. It sprinkles most of the day, but it’s a great time to catch up on housekeeping. I tackle the inside, Rick washes the outside and we take turns running to the on-site laundromat.

We find out our roving internet does not work in Canada because we have failed to get the international plan. They tell us we must sign up for two years. Sorry, it will take us at least another week to answer your e-mails! Our cell phones do work, but we seem to be on some roaming network. Sure we can look forward to a huge cell phone bill.

The next day dawns beautifully and the hotel shuttle takes us to play the Mountainside Course. Very well maintained and utterly gorgeous. Not particularly difficult, but our excuse for lackluster scores is it’s too hard to concentrate with the jaw-dropping views! We go to dinner at the hotel and while the menu looks enticing, the chef is very heavy-handed with seasonings and chooses very odd accompaniments that don’t blend with the entrees very well. Spend the remainder of the evening watching the sunset over the mountains. A faint rainbow appears. This is good stuff!

We’ve been trying to “take the waters” and vow to do it in the morning before we head off to Banff. Wake up ready to go….it’s 33 degrees. Decide to skip it. Head out towards Banff.

The sky is brilliant …then we have our first encounter with Canadian petrol…about $4.50 a gallon for regular…we have a 100 gallon tank…do the math! We have also found out that since our exchange rate is now so similar…about 95 cents, the Canadians have decided to round up to equal American dollars…add 5% to all purchases!

We’re on the road to Banff and stop at a Visitor’s Center to get an idea of what kind of roads we’ll encounter through the mountains. We find out you must go through Banff National Park..which sounds great…and you must buy a park pass for everyday you are in any national park. Every possible destination is within the confines of either the massive Banff or Jasper Parks. Add $17.83 a day. At Yellowstone we bought a year’s pass, good for any of our parks for $80.

The drive through the park to Banff is totally unbelievable. Priceless, as they say. While quite harrowing, the splendor outweighs the fears of cascading over a cliff. We find a pull-off overlooking a gorge with a fast running stream. Make a sandwich. Watching that scenery, nothing has ever tasted so good.

We were supposed to stay at the Fairmont. But given our multiple Tor “spa” days, we were no longer able to get reservations. I am totally bummed . For the first time we stay in a national park facility…no private parks seem to exist here. It’s very primitive. They supply electricity and that’s it. We’re pretty self-sufficient so we can last for days with the water and propane gas we carry. While the facilities are a bit lacking, the views make up for it…we have cocktails staring at the Rockies.

Banff

I’m bound and determined to at least have lunch at the Fairmont. We dress chicly, but with multiple layers… It’s very crisp out…33 degrees when we awoke…but the sky is sparklingly clear. We call a cab and go to town to shop and dine. Banff is charming, though now a bit of a mess. They are “refreshing”, a lovely word for tearing up the main street to repair pipes! The “Georgetown Project” could have perhaps used better verbage! We find a lot of little treasures and walk up to the hotel for lunch.

It is grand. They are serving lunch on the terrace overlooking aquamarine water and a golf course. The Rockies soar all around. We order drinks and just stare at the beauty of it all. I couldn’t possibly resist the truffles and morel macaroni and cheese! It is served with a half grilled gruyere sandwich on rosemary bread and what they are billing as homemade ketchup, which turns out to be akin to a tomato soup. It’s a totally indulgent lunch and we loved every minute of it.

We head back to Tor and appreciate the surroundings all over again. It didn’t seem so bad that we couldn’t stay at the Fairmont…we kind of get the best of both worlds.

Though I’ve always loved to sit the garden and watch our resident animal population, I’ve never been into bird watching. Just saw three huge black and white birds hopping through the woods. Pull out the Sibley’s and identify them as magpies. Rather interesting…our mode of entertainment is definitely shifting.

The Wedding

August 14 - 18 – There is no big sky right now in Wyoming…wild fires dot the state and the smoke travels forever..clouds the view and burns the eyes. Driving through Coeur d’Alene, we drive through the RV park we were supposed to stay at…website looked beautiful, gorgeous lake and beach. Well, the gorgeous lake and beach were there, but they failed to shoot the corroded factory you were forced to look at if you looked at the water. I know there is a market for “high road” parks…if they are out there, we are not yet finding them.

The reservations we have at the Cheney, WA park also looked great on their website. It was situated on a beautiful lake with gorgeous mountain cliffs. Also had a very cute restaurant on site. Only problem is they built permanent cabins right on the lake and RV spaces don’t get the view. Also it’s in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception. With wedding activities beginning, we have to be reachable. We check out in the morning, take Tor into another spa and check into the Hilton. We stayed there for four nights as more and more problems are discovered with Tor…the tow guys bill keeps mounting.

We finally get to meet Matt’s fiancée, Rachelle. And then, her very large extended family. They graciously invite us to dinner…lost count at about 30! Wedding goes off as planned with very few hiccups.

Not an Excellent Adventure

August 11 –13 Heading out of Megan and Tod’s, Rick notices a drip coming out of Gigantor. He determines it’s power steering fluid and can’t be driven. After filling it a couple of times, it is just a sieve! Very long story, kind of short, hours later the insurance company determines it cannot approve a mechanic coming in from Jackson Hole (30 miles) but must be towed over the mountains to Idaho Falls. First tow truck comes and determines he cannot make it up “Seel Mountain” and Rick should drive it down! So he does! The tower then decides he cannot tow it at all and we leave Tor by the side of the road to spend the night. The second tower arrives the next morning. We rent a car and head off to Yellowstone.

We have a fabulous time…see Old Faithful go off twice…see an elk and extraordinary scenery. Arrive Idaho Falls about 5pm…tower arrives about 6. The good news is they got there….the bad news is they did more damage than the $2,000 tow cost! They dropped Tor! I spent a lifetime in Idaho Falls that day. We sleep in Tor in the parking lot at the RV repair shop. Next morning they work rather grudgingly for 5 hours…get it going, but now we have an appointment in Spokane for the rest. Tor is 3 weeks old and looks like an embattled veteran.

Coeur d’Alene will have to wait. Our detour has put us far behind schedule. Maybe stop on the way back. Must get to Cheney for the Rick’s son’s wedding festivities and get Tor to the “spa”. Stop for the evening along the way in Wyoming. Park is supposed to be next to Fairmont Hot Springs Resort and Hotel…definitely a different Fairmont. Another scraggy field with hook-ups…cute playground with teepees and the mountains. Here, however, the mountains are encased in smoke from wildfires. They amazingly have USA Today and I get my first glimpse of a newspaper since Boulder.

Jackson Hole

August 8-11 - Rise before dawn and catch a stunning sunrise over the mountains…no lake. Out of here…heading to Jackson Hole to visit Megan and Tod Seel..friends of mine for over 30 years. It’s wonderful to be able to slip easily into old friends. Wonderful time…amazing scenery… got caught in a buffalo jam…they just wanted to cross the road and no one seemed willing to tell them not to! Shopping in Jackson (great gifts coming, kids!). Tod taught us to fly fish and while no fish was ever in danger, what a fun day it was.

On to Boulder

August 2-7 –Arrive in Boulder for a nice long visit with Rick’s Dad; and brother Jim, sister-in-law, Linda and kids. It’s Linda’s birthday and the festivities continue for the next few days. Have a wonderful time, mostly just visiting. The most dramatic part is getting Tor in their driveway. Nephew Jason saves the day by guiding Rick in. Getting out was quite a show…Jason was at work..Rick was on his own!

We drive to Lander, WY and arrive at a godforsaken RV park whose website showed a beautiful lake view with a setting sun in the mountains. There are mountains…and the sun does set. But the lake is only visible if you stand on Tor maybe with a 20 foot ladder on top. This is Rick trying to get a cell phone connection!

Finally the High Road?

Hopefully the High Road starts here. We stop at Castle Rock outside Boulder to play golf. I had the good fortune of making reservations on the phone at the RV Park with a man named Ian. He offers to make a tee time for us and calls back to confirm our reservation and golf plans. What we didn’t know until we arrived is that Ian Steyne happened to be a very elegant, extremely successful businessman who, through an odd series of circumstances, found himself the owner of an RV Park. He settles us in a site with a view of the mountains and takes us to Bear Dance Golf course making sure he introduces us to the developer and others who can make sure we have a terrific time. We have a lovely lunch on the terrace and head to the range.

Always wanted to play in the altitude. Didn’t seem to make as much distance difference as I had thought. It’s a beautiful, well-maintained course nestled in the mountains. Darkness and Rick’s wracked up knee send us in after 14 holes. After the traditional gin and tonic on the terrace, our new, best friend, Ian, picks us up to go back to Tor.

Ian takes Rick to a local businessman’s breakfast at 6 the next morning. The speaker is the preacher that has logged 37,000 miles on foot dragging an 8 foot cross! Very interesting, I’m told. Ian has huge plans for his RV park and surrounding acreage. He’s coming to DC in October…planning on having dinner. We look forward to a continuing friendship

The Nightmare in Kansas

I didn’t think anything would be worse than that place in Terre Haute. Oakley, KS wins hands down! It is nothing but a patch of prairie with water, electric and sewer hook-ups. Across the street is the home of the “world’s largest prairie dog”. We pass on that one. I do find the cow migration back to the barn at dusk interesting. A bad storm rolls in. But that is quite okay because we're locking ourselves in tonight anyway! We are out of here at dawn.