June 28th and 29th

We have just been driving on our way to Missouri and will be in Missouri tomorrow.  Last night we stayed in a city campground in South Sioux City, NE and it was great.  Our spot was close to the Missouri River so we had a great view.  Only problem was the campers next to us were having what must have been a fun party from the noise they were making.  You would have thought they could have at least invited us!!!  Anyway we got to see our first sunset in quite a while (I took a picture).

Today we drove through a really hard rain storm with lots of wind.  When we stopped for the night we discovered a leak through the air conditioner so it appears that there may be more damage than we originally thought.  The good news is that the air conditioner still works and Wayne climbed up on top and put tape over the leak.  He thinks the front end of the air conditioner just got pushed up a bit.
That is it for now.  More once we are in Missouri.

A view of South Dakota

Our campsite last night

Our first sunset in 6 weeks!

We are back in the USA!!  We are now in Grand Forks, ND and are very glad to be back in the USA.  It is so nice to have secure internet and phone service.  Crossing the border today was not without drama.  The border agent decided she would like to look in the back of the camper as I had told her we bought some tomatoes and potatoes (we think - don't really know why she wanted to have it checked).  Anyway she instructed us to go to door #3 and wait for someone to open it.  We did and after a few minutes an agent opened the door and waved us to come in.  About halfway in we heard a terrible scrapping noise and the agent was screaming at us to stop ( which we had already done).  Turns out he had not opened the door all the way (we know from our fire training that you also open any door all the way) and it got our TV antenna on the top of the camper.  It was completely ripped off ; luckily it was at the front of the camper because we got stopped and there was only a dent on the air conditioner which was next in line.  They had us get out of the truck and go into the "waiting room" which we did and watched through the windows as they took pictures; looked on top of the camper and talked to each other.  Finally, the agent who did not open the door completely came in and asked Wayne to write down what he thought happened.  After a little while longer they asked us to come out and gave us paperwork to file a claim with "Homeland Security" and recommended that we also contact our insurance company.  They did let us check the top of the camper and take any pictures we wanted.  They then gave us our passports and all the other paperwork back and told us to have a great day - never did check out my produce!!  Wayne did figure out a way to hook up the antenna so we can get a couple channels if cable is not available.  Looks like the camper will be in the shop for a bit after we get home.

Other than that it was a good day.  We went to a Texas Roadhouse here for dinner which was great.  Here are a couple pictures.

Our view as were driving today

The damaged door at Customs

Where the TV antenna used to be

The camper under the door

Tuesday and Wednesday, June 25 & 26

 

Yesterday and today we have been driving through Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Tonight we are staying at the Minnedosa Beach Campground in Minnedosa, Manitoba.  We noticed quite a difference between SK and MB.  SK is all flat, plains and farmland while MB is hilly with lots of trees.  Today we took an off road trip to see the Inglis Elevators.  I will post a picture when I have internet.  This is the only row of original grain elevators that still remains and is still being used.  They were pretty neat and we learned that Manitoba is the barley capital of the world.  Our little trip ended up putting us on gravel roads for about 30 miles and then took us through a national park (which was pretty nice).  South central Canada is having some major flooding problems and we saw lots of evidence of that today.  There is water everywhere along the road.  You will see a fence and all of a sudden it is underwater for a ways and then reappears.  We saw lots of closed roads and one highway that had actually caved in.  We have been missing most of the rain and all of the roads we have been on have been in good shape.

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Inglis Elevators

Enjoying a campfire on our last night in Canada

Lake Minnedosa - we camped by this lake

Tomorrow we should cross into the USA and hope to stay in Grand Forks, ND tomorrow night.  We checked with the campground host and he says we should have no problems with the weather or the roads tomorrow.  We are enjoying some cool weather, the high today here is 23 (Celsius which is about 75 F).  It seems weird to hear the high is 23 and the low will be 17!!

We spent today in Edmonton, Alberta.  We tried to find a place to get the tires rotated on the truck but did not have any luck.  We spent most of the day at the West Edmonton Mall.  This is one amazing mall.  It is supposed to be the largest mall complex in the world and I would believe that.  There is an amusement park, water world, casino, bingo hall, zip line, sea life adventure, casino in addition to something like 800 stores and many restaurants.  What a fun way to spend a day with your family.  I took a couple pictures and will post them.

That was pretty much our day.  Tomorrow we plan to drive to Saskatoon and if things go according to plan we should be back in the lower 48 sometime on Thursday.  I did learn how to download pictures from my phone today - and how to zoom in when I am taking pictures with it!!!  I will have to try that out tomorrow.

Water park inside the mall

Amusement Park inside the mall

Today is Sunday and we find ourselves in Edmonton, AB, CA  We had a long day of driving and the roads were not as good as we had hoped.  A lot of them had 4 lanes but were very bumpy so it was a little slower than we had hoped.  We did drive through some pretty country.  Lots of fields, cattle, etc.  We are staying at a campground outside of Edmonton and it is wall-to-wall campers, trailers, etc.  We do have internet, TV and all services so it is not too bad.  The largest mall in the world is supposed to be in Edmonton (West Edmonton Mall).  Our plan for tomorrow is to go check it out.  We are set to stay here for 2 nights and will then decide where to go for here.  We were planning on going through Winnipeg but are now thinking we will go south sooner and go through Regina instead.  Nice to have some flexibility.

Yes, I did forget to mention the cinnamon rolls.  We did find the place and the roll was very good - didn't have white frosting on it but it was very good.  Not nearly as good as what we get at the Yarnell Bakery - they may have to change their sign!  Also, while we are on food we did have sourdough bread pudding in Whitehorse, YK that was great.  The Ranch House has great bread pudding and the Whitehorse version was very close to theirs (of course we only had to drive a few thousand miles to get there).

Not many pictures from today but I will post one or two.

Really big beaver along the side of the road

Our view for most of the day

This is actually yesterday's blog (Saturday, June 22) I am doing this morning.  For some reason last night I couldn't get the internet up but this morning it came right up.  We drove from Toad River to Fort St. John yesterday.  The roads continue to be much better, however, we are getting into more traffic.  We are so used to being the only vehicle on the road it is a little strange to see other vehicles.  We saw bears yesterday - we saw a momma and two cubs playing.  They were so cute one of them was trying to climb up a tree and kept falling off.  Wayne tried to take a picture but we were too far away and the pictures didn't turn out so well.  We also saw lots of mountain sheep with babies, a porcupine and another moose.  We are staying at a Rotarian RV park and it is pretty nice.  It is gated from 10 p.m. till 7 a.m. and you can't get in or out during those hours.  We went to a pub last night for dinner and they were, of course, watching the Stanley Cup.  Wayne and I were having a hard time just figuring out who was playing.  I have been keeping track of the Diamondbacks through the internet and they are doing great.  We are missing some really good games.

Today we will finish backtracking and start traveling down some new roads.  When we came we came up through south Alberta (which we heard yesterday is having some flooding and the highway we were on was closed).  We are going back through Winnipeg so we now start going east instead of south.  Our goal today is to get to Edmonton, Alberta (more north).  Alberta doesn't have the gas tax that BC has so our fuel will be a little cheaper.  We are excited to see some new territory.
I will have to post pictures tomorrow as they don't seem to be working today. 

Our view while we were driving

Mountain Sheep and baby

Porcupine

Today we drove from Teslin to Toad River.  We are now in British Columbia and have left the Yukon.  The RV park we are staying at tonight is really nice.  We are looking at a pond (I know our campsites have had a water theme lately) and it is pretty nice.  We looked all day for moose and did not see any, however, as we were backing the camper into our spot I looked at the pond and there was a moose (with antlers) eating grass from the pond.  He hung around for about 20 minutes than left for a while and came back with a friend for another 30 minutes or so.  Amazing.  We did see lots of wildlife today - a bear, lots of bison, lots of mountain sheep and of course the moose.  We have a ways to go on this particular road so are hoping to see more wildlife tomorrow.  We also have not gone by the place with the world famous cinnamon rolls - tomorrow.

While we were going through Whitehorse yesterday we stopped at Wal-Mart for some essentials and found a mosquito tent for $55.  We put it up tonight when we got to our site and it works great.  It is big enough to fit over the picnic table and there are no bugs.  It was in the sun and was pretty hot so we opted for the air-conditioned camper for a while.  We again drove through some really nasty road construction today.  You cannot even tell what color the camper is but we have decided it is a wasted effort to clean it until we are out of the bad roads.

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Nick - hope you are having a great day.

We will head south again tomorrow - don't know where we will end up.

Horses that were beside the road today

Baby Bison

The moose in the pond behind our camper

Another picture of the moose

Our room addition