Sault Ste Marie to Guelph

     One thing I forgot to mention in my last post,,,and is worth mentioning.  Before we got to Wawa we had to gas up the truck.  In Northern Ontario the gas stations are few and far between.  So when you see a station and are at a quarter of a tank, then you need to top up the tank.  Ray has learned this on our previous trips here.  We pulled into the first station we saw.  The cost of diesel was an astonishing $157.9 per litre!!!  Even I had a hard time choking that one down.  Gasoline was about 10 cents less.  I haven’t quite figured out why since leaving BC the price of diesel is 5-10 cents more then regular gas.  In BC diesel is cheaper.  So you will know that this is a bee in Ray’s bonnet!!!

     Still following along side Lake Superior we left Wawa making our way to Sault Ste Marie.  A few things about Wawa that I wasn’t aware of.  Up until 2007 Wawa was known as “Michipicoten” (which is a river in the area).  In 2007 Michipicoten was officially named Wawa.  I lived in Ontario in the late 70’s and only knew the town as Wawa, so I was very surprised when I read this.  As you drive by Wawa on the main highway, there is a 28 foot Canada Goose statue on the hill.  I knew it as the Wawa Goose.  The original goose was built in 1960 but was replaced with a new goose in 2017.  The new one is probably earthquake prove?? .  The name Wawa comes from the Ojibwa word “Wewe” meaning “wild goose”.  There must have been a large number of Canada Geese in the area to be given that name.   According to the internet Wawa was initially developed for fur trading.  But in the 19th century iron ore was discovered in the area and was soon mined.  The Helen mine had the highest production of iron ore in Canada from 1900-1918.   The iron ore would have been transported into Sault Ste Marie which has a huge steel industry, Algoma Steel. Sault Ste Marie is the next stop.

     Ray had called his friend Danny who lives in the Soo (Sault Ste Marie) and also happens to work at the steel plant as mentioned above; the night before.  We had a campground picked out just outside of the Soo, but Danny had other plans.  He wanted us in his driveway.  We have “camped” in his driveway before and knew that it is very long, wide and flat.  Perfect for parking our 5th wheel in, even with both slides out.  So we headed to his house.  Danny has done a lot of work on his house including residing it.  I remembered it as a brown house, so didn’t recognize the blue house we approached.  But that driveway?  That is what I recognized!!  We got all set up an met Danny’s fiancé, Angel.  Her name totally suits her.  She is a sweet, kind young lady and with her fair skin and white blonde hair truly does look like an Angel.  Within about 20 minutes of arriving, Danny said to Ray “should we wash your truck”?  He as well as Ray doesn’t like a dirty vehicle and since it had not been washed since before we left, one can imagine the amount of dead carcasses (and that is not moose) on the front of the truck and the 5th wheel!!! We had a great visit with Danny and Angel, including a trip to the Lock Dairy where we had some ice cream “to die for”.  It is from the local dairy and you can choose a cone or a dish, which they put on cold stone and mash your choice of a number of different ingredients.  It was awesome!

(I have tried numerous time to download a photo of Danny and Angel, but it won't load.  I want to get this posted so may try to modify this later)

     The population of Sault Ste Marie is about 79,000 so is a very large town for the north western part of Ontario.   North western Ontario is still waiting for the deciduous trees to fully develop their leaves.  Along the highway the trees look grey, except of course the evergreens.  Lots of birch trees, which look funny with the white trunks and grey branches.  I am sure that on our return trip, the leaves will all be out and things will look quite different.  After leaving the Soo behind we headed towards North Bay.  We were heading to Minden to see my sister Joann and her family.  To get to North Bay we had to go through Sudbury, which is home of the big Nickel.  Now this nickel used to be on the side of the highway and could be seen for miles.  We did not however see the nickel anywhere, so I believe it has been moved,,,,or maybe the highway moved.  With a population of about 162,000 Sudbury is an even larger city then Sault Ste Marie.  Nickel ore is mined in Sudbury (was the giant nickel a hint?) and there are several mines in the area.  The top employer is the nickel-copper mine, Vale (formerly Inco). Sudbury is not only a mining town, other employers include Health Services, Federal Government, Municipal Government and Education (Laurentian University and local school districts).  Anyone who watches the game show Jeopardy will know Alex Trebek.  He is from Sudbury as well as Alex Baumann (Olympic swimmer and double gold medalist).  Sudbury has a large francophone community.  I always feel that Sudbury is the start of the beautiful Georgian Bay.  Driving down towards Parry Sound you will have glimpses of the smooth rocks and wind blown trees of the bay.  But alas, I did not get to see that part of Ontario as we were going through North Bay.

     The drive south from North Bay to Jo’s place in Minden was beautiful.  We had left the funny grey trees behind and had come into beautiful rolling hills.  This area in the Fall is breathtaking with the red and orange leaves of maple trees covering the hillsides.  If you every come to Ontario, the Fall is the most beautiful time of the year to visit.  We arrived in Minden after about 8 hours on the road.  We were tired as this was the longest time we have spent on the road this trip.  In years gone by Ray would think nothing of being on the road for 8-10 hours.  But he promised to slow down this time and he has done very well.  Minden (or Minden Hills) is in the township of Haliburton which is in the heart of cottage country.  The population is about 6000, but in the summer would rise considerably with all the cottagers. It is a quiet town, but has grown quite a bit since my last visit.  We were able to camp in Jo and Tom’s driveway as it too is long wide and flat.  They have a beautiful piece of property!  It was so good to see my sister Jo as we haven’t seen each other for about 4 years.  Time is slowly creeping by and we are both aging.  I wish my other sister, Christine could have been with us as we reminisced about old times.  Jo’s husband Tom, works in the local lumber yard while Jo owns her own cleaning business called “The Cleaning Fairy”.  Her daughters Talitha and Christina live in Minden as well.  Tabitha works for a company that sells herbal products.  Christina is an ER nurse in the Haliburton Hospital, and her husband Pete is an OPP member.  Christina and Pete have 6 kids, and a huge dog.  Their house is a very busy house!  Their youngest daughter, McKenna, called me her new Gramma.  She is a really cutey,,,,don't cha think??

Christina, Jo and I left Ray at the house to “putter” while we went shopping.  I thought we were going to Minden, but after 40 minutes we arrived in a town called Bobcaygeon.  We went shoe shopping of course, because they have the biggest shoe store I have seen in a very long time!!!  Christina is very much like me and knew that I would like that store.  We had an awesome couple of days but had to get down to Guelph for the weekend as the kids are still in school.

My niece Christina

That is Jo hiding in the back.

     Something we have seen a lot of in this part of Ontario are “chip trucks”.  They are food trucks but all their signs say “chip truck” and I believe they sell fries and poutine…..but nothing else.  Might have to stop at one and see what the fries are like.  No poutine for us,,,,ugh!  Tried that in 2012 in Quebec and almost had a heart attack just looking at it!! Heart attack in a bowl!  Tim Hortons is also something we have seen more of in Ontario then anywhere else.  It is after all, Tim Hortons country.  There are approximately 4,613 Tim Horton locations in nine countries and I think that 3,000 of them are in Ontario!  They employ over 100,000 people and is Canada’s largest “quick” service restaurant.

     As we were leaving Minden, we saw two young moose on the side of the road.  They were beautiful!  We arrived in Guelph on Friday (May 25th).  I had put the address into our GPS of the Guelph Lake Conservation Park but it led us up someone’s very long driveway!  We had to get this 5th wheel turned around and out of the driveway.  I swear, Ray can turn that thing around on a dime if he has too!  I finally had to call the Park to get someone to direct us in.  We have been having problems with the GPS not accepting addresses or cities, so will ave to check into that when we get home.  I have had to use my phone map a number of times and even had to buy more data!  Anywho,,,,we got all set up in our campsite and then headed over to Riki’s.  She hadn’t told the girls the we were arriving and we wanted to meet them at the school bus.  Needless to say they were very surprised and excited to see us.  We met Riki’s new man, Paolo who is very nice and easy to talk to.  The girls camped with us over the weekend and we all got to watch a mother groundhog move her babies from one home to the next.  It was cute watching her fat little body running with a baby hanging from her mouth!

We only spent two nights in Guelph as we still have to get down to PEI and then Cape Breton.  We will be stopping again on our way back to camp with the girls again.  Short visit but lots of fun!

 Riki and her Goyles

Alisha, Madison, Riki and Paolo

One thing I have to say about our travels.  The conditions of the roads thus far have been worse in BC then anywhere east.  Our line painting, or lack of is pathetic.  As a traveller, if you are not familiar with the area, you don't even realize there is a merging lane, or more then one lane for that matter.  Something should be done about this.  We have terrible potholes all over the highways.  The prairies are awesome and so is Ontario.  Get with the program BC!!

Next up will be our adventures in points east of Ontario!

Lori and Ray

From Regina to Wawa

    Leaving Regina behind we headed to Manitoba.  We had decided to drive as far as Portage La Prairie and settle in for the night.  Of course it was the long weekend, and it did cross my mind that perhaps I should call ahead and book a site, but as we like to take our chances and we really never know where we will stop.  I call it “flying by the seat of our pants”.  This has served us well in the last two trips across Canada and umpteen trips south.  Traffic was light and the weather was warm and just a bit windy, but not nearly as bad as Alberta and Saskatchewan.  So far the condition of the Trans Canada Highway has been the best in Alberta.  Probably because they have more money then other Provinces to spend on their roads,,,,because they are gouging us in fuel costs!  As we were coming into Brandon Manitoba, a thick black smoke could be seen for miles.  In the Saskatchewan we had seen farmers doing some burns on their fields, but the smoke was not as black as what were we seeing.  I found a local radio station to discovered that the streets in the downtown core were shut down due to two structure fires.  One was an office supply building and the other was an apartment building.  We later heard that both building were completely destroyed leaving hundreds with no homes.  Very sad situation.  We continued our way to Portage La Prairie and pulled into the Miller’s Camping Resort, which was just off the highway.  Pulling in I noticed there were many trailers already parked.  Yes a long weekend with beautiful weather will bring people out camping.  We went into the office and asked if they had a site for the night.  The lady behind the counter asked if we had reservations. I’m thinking “oh crap they are full”.  When I said not, she kind of looked a little shocked.  But she did have a site, actually there were several sites available.  The site she assigned to us was beautiful.  Flat, wide and treed on both sides.  Anyone who has camped with us knows that Ray doesn’t like parking in the trees for a variety of reasons.  One reason is low branches can tear the vinyl on the roof (this happened in Guelph in 2014).  Sometimes you just have to suck it up and take what you can get.  I happen to like the trees as they provide shade for my pearly white freckled skin.  

    This was quite a large RV park with a lot of permanent summer campers.  We took a walk around checking out the area and getting some much needed walking in.  It was very much a family place so therefore we knew that it would be quiet.  Unfortunately I had a horrible time getting to sleep and it had nothing to do with the wind, nor noisy campers as it was very quiet.   I think it was a Tim Horton’s coffee that I had drank around 2:00 in the afternoon, which I rarely do.  I am not sure what time I fell asleep, but when I did, I fell into a deep sleep.  We like to get up around 7:00 so that we can relax with a morning coffee and have a bite to eat before we hit the road.  But because I was in such deep sleep, we didn’t wake up until 8:45! We never sleep that late!!  So we got up and basically packed up without taking the time for coffee.  We had showered the night before, but needed to dump our black/grey water tanks (no sani at the site).  So we get everything packed and start to pulled out to where the sani dump was.  As we were pulling out of the site and making the turn into onto the laneway, a tree jumped out and snagged onto the ladder that goes to the roof!! We now have a partially broken ladder on the back of the trailer.  You can imagine what the words were coming out of Ray’s mouth.  It took a number of attempts of backing up back into the site to be able to make a right enough swing to get into the laneway.

     So that was the start of our day.  A late start.  A mishap with an angry tree.  And me not having my morning cup of coffee.  I am not a morning person.  I like to get up, have a coffee and slowly start my day.  I am not a jump out of bed kind of person.  Yes when I worked, I had those 4:30 in the morning wake up jolts which I detested.  But that is all behind me.  Since retirement, I like to take my time because I have “nothing but time”.  Off we headed eastbound towards Winnipeg.  Ray had told me that he wanted to take highway 100 that would detour Winnipeg altogether.  But I said that driving through Winnipeg was not like driving through Toronto or LA.  Winnipeg is not that big, I say.  Remember, I haven’t had my coffee.  Ray listened to me, the navigator,  and we stayed on Highway 1 right into downtown Winnipeg.  At one point I missed the sign that showed Highway 1 turning right.  We ended up having to find a street to turn left on to get back onto Highway 1.  But this is an effort when you are towing and the streets are narrow! Oh my, this brought back memories of taking an exit off of the Golden Gate Bridge and driving in downtown San Fransisco, followed closely behind by Vonnie and Russ!  To say the least, I was not in Ray’s good books and I think he wanted to fire me as his navigator.  But I do make a better navigator then a driver pulling a 30 foot 5th wheel.  Needless to say, Ray makes sure that I get my morning coffee before we head out! On a positive note, I did get to see the Royal Canadian Mint, which I thought was in Ottawa but is in Winnipeg.  And when I say "see", I mean while driving past it!!

     Now we are heading into Ontario.  Ray said that he would like to stop in Sault St Marie (The Soo) for the night as he has a motorcycle buddy that he would like to see.  This would be fine, but he thinks it will happen on the same day.  Sault St Marie is a two day drive at least!  We had to make it to Thunder Bay first and then drive around the beautiful Lake Superior.  Using my new App that someone told me about, Park Advisor, I found us a spot called Davy Lake RV Park in Ignace Ontario.  Well the GPS took us down the wrong road (it wasn’t my fault this time).  I ended up calling the campground and spoke to a lovely young lady who gave me the proper directions, which wasn’t too far away from where we were.  We had the place to ourselves.  No other campers.  There was free wifi, which really was crappy.  I had tried to finish my previous blog page and get it posted, which I did after much frustration.  Funny thing was, when I took my iPad up to the bed (front end of the 5th wheel) we had full bars and great service.  So my lesson that I learned is when I don’t appear to have good wifi, start moving around the trailer!

     Today is Monday, the holiday.  I seemed to have missed a wedding this weekend, from some of the comments on Facebook.  I think my invite was lost in the mail or something, because I surely would have been there if I had received it.  So today we drove around Lake Superior.  Not quite all the way as we have stopped in Wawa for the night.  Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes and appears to be the size of an ocean when you get glimpses of it as driving by.  It is the 2nd largest lake in the world.  The first one being the Caspian Sea (not sure why it is referred to as a lake if it is called a "sea").  Lake superior is 350 miles long (31,700 square miles) and 1330 feet deep.  The Ojibwe refer to the lake as "gichi-gami", which means "great sea".  

     We are camping tonight in the Wawa RV Camping Resort.  It also is a very nice spot with large sites and not many people here.  The wifi appears to be working for me,,,,,,but not for Ray????  How can that be?  Anyway a word of warning, to who I am not sure.  But there are trees surrounding our site, so keep your fingers crossed that we don't lose the other half of our ladder.  We might drive 4 hours tomorrow to the Soo and are hoping to be at my sister's house in Minden by Wednesday.  

Until tomorrow,,,or the next day!!!

Lori and Ray

Moose Jaw Tunnels

     Holy Batman!!!  That was some windstorm we had in Fort MacLeod!  It was so loud that yours truly didn’t sleep a wink!  The trailer was rocking (and not from what you think), and it sounded like the wind was swirling through the walls.  I think it possibly was a stampede of buffalos reminding me once again of the atrocities done to them thousands of years ago. EEK!!!  As I am lying there listening to not only the wind howling, but also to Ray softly snoring (of course he was), I started thinking that maybe we hadn’t closed all of the windows.  I got up and sure enough the back window was wide open.  Even after closing it, all was not quiet.  I think I finally fell asleep about 3:30 .  Ray was feeling quite refreshed in the morning (grrrr) when he woke me up at 7:00 so that we could have a coffee and a bite to eat before hitting the road at 8:00.  Are we on holiday???  We wanted to get on the road early as we wanted to make it to Moose Jaw Saskatchewan.  I was soooo groggy, but only for about an hour and then I seemed to perk up.

   We crossed into Saskatchewan (So-Scratch-Me-Once,,,,as my high school geography teacher called it) at about 1145.  We stopped at the information booth for a bit of lunch.  One great thing about having an RV, is you can prepare and eat your own nutritious food without having to eat in a restaurant all the time.  And even though I was tired in the morning, I did manage to fix something so that we just needed to open the fridge to retrieve it when we stopped. I had sliced up some turkey sausage and some cheddar cheese.  So gave that to Ray along with a bag of Hawkins Cheesies, that I threw at him as we were getting back into the truck.  Did I tell you that I am a fabulous wife!  Oh yes I sure am!!!  (That is me patting myself on the back….lol).  Saskatchewan is known to be miles and miles of flat straight roads.  Well the majority of it between the Alberta border and Moose Jaw was rolling hills.  Yes there was some flat parts, but not as many as I recalled.  We went by a couple of lakes, Reed Lake which is just outside of Morse and it is parallel to the highway.  It is a shallow saline lake and is 14 kms long and about 3 kms wide.  It is classified as a wetlands with apparently thousands of birds migrating there each spring.  Although I only saw about 6 ducks, or geese there.  Not too much farther down the road we came to another much larger lake, called Chaplin Lake (near Chaplin).  It also is a shallow saline lake, but much larger.  It is 35 kms long and about 10 kms wide.  There were huge piles of sodium sulphate that looked like piles of snow, on the edge of the lake next to the highway.  This lake also has 10’s of thousands of migrating birds in the spring and summer (again, I only counted a handful).  Both of these lakes are listed on the IBA Canada website if you want to read up on them. It is a very interesting site.

   The wind storm today has not let up.  The stampeding buffalos has followed us all day.  Driving head on into the wind, the truck was getting 30 litres per 100…..which normally when pulling the trailer we get 16-17 litres per 100.  I know this because Ray only told me three times, and kept bringing it up!  We pulled into the campground in Moose Jaw at about 3:00.  This campground had a laundromat, so even though I was a tired girl, I thought I may as well use the facilities while they were available.  The two ladies in the office even offered to do my laundry for me, as they had new washing machines that took two hours to complete a cycle.  I declined their offer, but good grief what machine takes two hours???  Some high energy efficient one I am thinking, because our dishwasher at home takes that long.  Oh wait,,,,that is me!  I am the dishwasher at home!!!   Ha ha ha……..    We had decided to take it easy, hang around the campground and then visit the Moose Jaw Tunnels in the morning.  

Moose Jaw Tunnels

     Anyone who has been to the Abbotsford Airshow will have seen the Snowbirds performing their amazing aerobatic stunts.  Moose Jaw is the home of the Snowbirds, I always thought that Cold Lake was where they were based from.   It is also the home of the flight training centre for the Canadian Air Force (CFB Moose Jaw).  There are a number of attractions in and around Moose Jaw, like Mac the Moose who lords over the the tourist information centre right beside one of the Snowbird planes.  

Mac the Moose

Well we all know what this is....

Some of the other attractions are the Moose Jaw Trolley Company (where you can take hour long tours of the city, or take a ghost tour and hear tales of murder), Temple Garden’s Mineral Spa (which is one of the largest natural geo-thermal hot springs in the country),  History of Transportation Western Development Museum and of course the Moose Jaw Tunnels, which is the city’s most popular attraction.  

     The network of tunnels connecting buildings in the downtown core, were originally built in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s as an underground steam system.  The tunnels were later used to hide the entire Chinese families of the railroad workers who were unable to pay the government head tax.  Terrified members of these families raised their families in the rat infested tunnels and only came above ground to go to their places of work.  Access to the tunnels was gained from the basement of the buildings above. But probably the most notorious history of these tunnels was in the 1920’s.  During the United States prohibition the tunnels were used for rum running, gambling and prostitution.  Because there was a tunnel right under the CPR railway station, the illegal alcohol was easily shipped from the tunnels to the United States via the Soo railway company. There has also been evidence that Al Capone (a Chicago mobster) had interests in the bootlegging operation.  Apparently even the local police of the day, including the chief were in cahoots with the bootlegging business.  Right up until the 1970’s the local authories denied the existence of any tunnels.  But that changed when part of the Main street collapsed.  They could no longer deny it.

     They offer two different tours of the tunnels.  Each tour is guided by actors providing you with the history of the the life of the Chinese folks who lived in the tunnels, and Al Capone’s prohibitions days.  As we were a little concerned about the underground air quality and my lungs, we opted to take only Al Capone’s prohibition tour.  The actors did an amazing job of re-enacting the bootlegging operation and the corrupt police chief of the day.  No photos were allowed to be taken inside the tunnels, which was very unfortunate because it would have been nice to show you how low and dark it was down there.  I can’t imagine how they managed to smuggle the alcohol into the tunnels and run their illegal operation, never mind how the Chinese lived there with there children.  To get the whiskey down into the tunnels, it was shipped up from America on the Soo railway.  And as the corrupt Police Chief and the Mayor knew about this, secrecy was important.  And I can't tell you anymore, or I would have to kill you!!! lol

     After the tunnels we went back to our site and packed up to head to Regina.  This drive was only about an hour down the road, but we wanted to visit with Rob and Rondi Grieve and their boys.  Rob is Jim and Marline’s son.  He moved his family from Chilliwack to Regina last year because he was offered his dream job.  He is a pilot for STARS  (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service) air ambulance servicing Saskatchewan.  Piloting a helicopter can be stressful in any situation, but I can only imagine being the pilot of an air ambulance and having to fly in all types of weather to transport victims from crash sites  and critically ill patients to the nearest trauma centre.  From what I understand, the communities and individuals serviced by STARS are so proud of their pilots and crew and make no bones about showing how they feel.  We had an awesome evening with Rob and Rondi and their two sons.  We surely will stop on our way back if we are coming through Regina.

Lori and Ray

Golden to Fort MacLeod

     Ahhhh Golden BC.  One of the most beautiful small towns in the Province as it is nestled between the Columbia Mountain range and the Rockies.   It is on the edge of Banff, Yoho, Kooteney, Jasper and Mount Revelstoke National Parks.  For the outdoor enthusiast there is no end of things to do.  Mountain biking, hiking, skiing at Kicking Horse Ski Resort, kayaking and even river rafting (levels 1-5).  Janet Chalmers, do you remember our frightening trip down the Kicking Horse River about 8 years ago?  Having already rafted down the Kooteney River a few years earlier, I thought this would be a piece of cake.  I just didn't fully understand the different levels.  The part of the Kicking Horse we had chosen to raft on was a level 3 and 4.  Yeah,,,,that was it for me!!  Good thing that I passed on the lunch they were serving us prior to the trip!

     This trip was much more laid back.   The town was very quiet, not a lot of people around, as it is only the middle of May.  We of course needed to get some fuel for the truck before we did anything else.  We went to three different service stations looking for diesel and where Ray felt that $148.9 for diesel was the going rate.  He was none to pleased about it, because it was only one cent more for gasoline.  Not like on the coast, where it would have been 5-8 cents cheaper.  I reminded him that we are not supposed to be caring about the price of fuel on this trip.  He grumbled some more, and was still grumbling (somewhat louder) when we drove back towards the campground and saw a tiny "no named" station selling diesel for $131.9!!!!  When we were driving passed this station originally, it didn't indicate they were selling diesel, it was on the return trip seeing the opposite side of the sign that said "diesel".  Oh well.......high fuel,,,,,we don't care!!!

     Our campsite backs onto the Kicking Horse River.  Usually at this time of year it is the colour of glacier water, but with the Spring run off it is quite grey looking.  The sound is so soothing though, so we didn't mind taking a glass of wine and sitting watching the rapids flowing past.  At the end of yesterday's blog I asked "what is with that broom"?  And you are probably wondering what the heck I was going on about.  Well across the river from the campsite is the CP Rail line.  A very long train had stopped directly across from us.  The train sat there for a good 15 or 20 minutes.  The two engineers got off the train and wondered around.  I was checking them out with the binoculars because I was trying to figure out what they were doing.  Well I noticed a broom planted in the ground on the side of the tracks.  I looked up and down the tracks and could count 4 of these brooms which were sitting a couple of feet away from the switching arms.  I said to Ray and our neighbour "what is with the brooms"?

This photo was taken on my phone is and not all that clear, but you can certainly see that it is a broom.  This is what I think the brooms are for.  Coal is transported through Golden as well as other towns and even though the coal is sprayed down to keep it from flying all over.  The brooms are used to sweep the fallen coal off of the switching arms.  But if this is true, then why have I never noticed brooms anywhere else?  If anyone else has a better idea, please let me know.

Me enjoying the 29 degree weather watching the muddy Kicking Horse River.

Oh, check out this cute pair of mushrooms.  They were all wrinkled!

     When we left Golden we were going to drive through Banff to Calgary and then down to Medicine Hat.  But I talked Ray into going south to Fort Macleod first because I wanted to see where the buffalos were forced to jump over the ridge.  We had never been this route and I thought it would be "interesting".  The drive from Golden to Canmore was so beautiful!  I just never get tired of looking at the mountains, especially the Rockies.  There was still quite a bit of snow on the tops of them, which made them even more beautiful to look at.  The closer we got to Calgary the farther away the mountains got.  It made me sad because I won't see them for awhile.  Oh well, suck it up Lori, you are going on this fantastic trip and will see all sorts of different things!  We skirted south of Calgary on Highway 22 and then connected up with Highway 2 heading south.  The drive was beautiful and the weather has been better then great!  

     I did not know that Fort MacLeod was founded as a North West Mounted Police (NWMP) barracks.  There is even a NWMP field of honour cemetery.  The fort is now a museum (no I didn't go into it, too musty for me) which tells the early days of the NWMP in the 1870's.  Another tidbit that I didn't know is, Joni Mitchell was born here in 1943.  The population is about 3100 people.  It has a very cute business section with well maintained historic buildings.   The town is supported by farming (grains, oilseeds) and ranching (dairy/beef cows and even some goats).  I hope they don't eat the goats!

     I was not sure how to write this part of the blog as I felt so disturbed and was overcome with sadness when we visited this site.  I will use some of the information from the Fort MacLeod's Visitor Guide to describe the important parts:

Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump is about 18 kms from town, up in the "hills".  Driving towards it, you don't see the visitor centre at all, it blends in so well with the grasslands and rocks of the hillside. It is a UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization) world heritage site as one of the oldest, largest and best preserved buffalo jump sites in all of North America.  I never knew that there was even one site!  That is why I needed to come and see it.

View from the front of the interpretative centre

View from the lookout point

The cliff to Ray's left is where the buffalo were led to their death...called the "kill site"

This custom was practiced for nearly 6000 years.  The natives of the day would kill hundreds of buffalos by forcing them to run off the side of the 36 foot high cliff into the ground below.  The ones that didn't die instantly where then slaughtered.   The Blackfoot natives using young buffalo pelts would make the call of a baby buffalo in distress, while a couple of others wore the pelts of wolves scaring the herds causing them to panic and run.  

"According to legend, the name "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" comes from a young boy who stood under the cliff during one of the hunts to get an up close view of the buffalos falling over the ledge.  The hunt that day was particularly large and the young boy was crushed under the pile of dead buffalos".

Now you can see why I was overwhelmed.

Sitting outside thinking of anything but buffalos jumping.

That is it for tonight.......I need to go and meditate.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a funnier story!!

Lori and Ray

Family Time in Kamloops

     Hi all!  We left Mission on Sunday the 13th which was Mother's Day.  First stop was in Kamloops of course to see Tanya, Dean and Keaton.  Kamloops claims to be the Tournament Capital of Canada, holding many different types of tournaments there from golf, volleyball, tennis and the list goes on.  They have a fabulous facility (where Keaton just happens to take his swimming lessons) for holding some of these tournaments in.  But what Kamloops could improve on, is nice RV campgrounds.  People coming to the tournaments need places to stay other then hotels??  Yeah!!!  In our previous trips to the Loops, we stayed in the RV park near the Game Farm, but it is almost 30 minutes to Tanya and Dean's house (which isn't a big deal????)  I have probably described it in different blogs so won't go into detail about that particular park.  This time we booked into Silver Sage RV Park, which is almost downtown.  It is on the North Thompson River, which as all rivers in the Province is rapidly rising.  The sites are small, with only electric and water hookups.  They do have a very nice shower area, which is clean and doesn't cost anything to use.  But we like our own facilities, which is why we have an RV to begin with.  There is laundry facilities which I didn't bother to check out because I didn't need that service right now. There is no playground area for those travelling with small kids......or those who may have small children visiting.  There is a nice sandy beach, but as the water was fairly high and the beach is slanted, it was not useful to us with little Keaton.  He might have had a fall and rolled down into the river, which would have been very scary for all of us.  Kamloops needs to put in a decent RV Park that caters to tourists.  Put in a nice pool because it gets so hot that it would be great to cool off at the end of the day in something cooler.

     When we arrived at Tanya's, Keaton was just waking from a nap.  So of course I went and brought him out of his room.  As soon as he saw me at the door, he said "Nana,,,,Papa".  But it really was not me that he wanted to see.  He almost jumped out of my arms when he saw Ray.  He had to sit between him and Gramma Kathy and hold their hands.  Kissing his Papa on the arm. Ray had to play trucks and read stories to Keaton while sitting on his little sofa.

It was like, I wasn't there.....lol.  I know he loves me too..  I did get to bathe him and put him down for his naps,,,,I guess that counts for some love.

Oh well,,,,he did eventually warm up to me as well.  I had a great Mother's Day, spending it with my beautiful daughter, Tanya and her family (including mother-in-law Kathy).  Dean cooked burgers on the Bar-b and salads and we all just hung out in the back yard, playing with Keaton and Cooper.   Perfect Mother's Day as far as I am concerned!

     On Monday Tanya took us on a drive up to Paul Lake and Pinitan Lake.  The terrain is so different then in Kamloops.  No sage brush, but more like the Salmon Arm area with lots of coniferous trees and so many rolling green fields.  I absolutely love Salmon Arm!!!  Tanya has a friend who lives out in Pinitan Lake and I can see why she loves it so much.   We saw this cool old International truck with blackberries and weeds growing out of it!  Had to take a photo!  While I was taking this photo an ant crawled onto Tanya and didn't realize until we drove away.  She almost drove us off the road screaming!  It was pretty comical.

     We spent two nights in Kamloops.  Tanya and Keaton came for breakfast before we left on Tuesday morning.  We introduced Tanya to avocado toast.  I think she might be as hooked on it as we are!!  We said out good-byes about 9:30 and we headed east.

One more shot of my little Stinker hanging out in the RV... Love him so much!

     As this was a few days of family time,,,,Ray was well behaved with nothing of note to add.  But tomorrow's blog about our trip to Golden may prove a bit more entertaining.  I will leave you all with this gorgeous shot of the mountains in Rogers Pass.

Tomorrow's topic?  What is with the brooms????

Lori and Ray

Getting Ready

  We have been a little quiet with the travelling bug lately and feel the need to once again, hit the road.  After much thought about where to travel to, it is across Canada we shall go.  From the West coast to the East coast, visiting with family and friends along the way.  We have decided this time to keep our travel strictly within Canada.  You may wonder why on earth would we do that with the gas prices climbing as high as they are.  Every time we have made a trip across this vast country, we have dipped down into Montana and continued East from there.  Yes the prices of fuel have been considerably lower south of the border.  But honestly, the coffee down there sucks!!  Those of you who know me well, know that I love to have my non-fat lattes, and I really am a Starbucks girl.  Maybe when we get back from this trip I should consider applying for a part time position with Starbucks.  At least I would get a bit of a discount on that hit of caffeine that I seem to crave.  But you know, those employees are run off there feet!  I watch them making the many different beverages, and just don't think that I have the stamina anymore to work in a stressful job like that!  So I will just scrap that idea and just continue to live the life of a retiree, doing whatever I want, whenever I want.

     Having ventured south of the 49th parallel in the past, we missed the flat wheat fields of  Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and not to forget north western Ontario.  As far north western Ontario  that Ray has been is Thunderbay.   Ray's motto in the past has been, "drive like you stole it".  In other words, get from point A to point B as quickly as you can.  So on this trip he is going to try very hard to stop and smell the roses, or wheat fields, along the way.   We want to see what each Province has to offer along the way, some of which are:

• Hell's Basement in Medicine Hat (sounds very interesting)
• Moose Jaw Tunnels to see Al Capone's bootlegging days
• World's largest coffee pot in Davidson Sask (ok,,,maybe not)
• Bad axe throwing in Winnipeg (not sure what that is all about?)
• Everywhere in Ontario to see my family and old friends
• Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec
• Acadian Coast and Shediac in New Brunswick (for lobster)
• PEI to see the Kirkwoods!!
• Nova Scotia and Cape Breton (Cabot trail of course,,,,and my brother Jimmy)

So with Ray in the Drivers seat and yours truly being in charge of the navigation,  we will attempt to  see all of the above and more.  I will certainly keep this blog going to share our adventures and will provide some local history as we go and also hope to make you laugh along with us.

So follow along if you dare!

Lori and Ray