Week ending May 14, 2015 Grande Prairie and area

Friday we took advantage of our location and went for a walk along the city pathways around the pond. 

After a bit of laundry and lunch we walked over to the visitor information to get some guides that will be helpful in planning our next few stops.  We have found that many of the small campgrounds don't have web sites, so we have trouble finding good info about them. We came back to the trailer and put the booklets to good use and found a campground for the May long weekend. As we have noted in past blogs, May, July and September long weekends seem to be the most difficult times to find campgrounds.  We have discovered that going to small centres, where they don't take reservations has always been our best bet. We called the Spirit River municipal park and, although they don't take reservations, the nice lady is saving a site because it is one of the only ones that we will fit in and we can get satellite TV from.

Saturday was exploration day. One of the booklets we gathered up had driving tours in it, so off we went. After a stop to get bread at the farmers market in Grande Prairie we went to Kleskun Hills, a park and historic site on the Edson to Grande Prairie Trail.  Our short walk went to an Indian burial site from the early 1820's, then through an area that has been rich in dinosaur finds which looks very much like the area around Drumheller but on a much smaller scale. We decided that spring has arrived in the Peace country because the fields were abundant with crocus. The area has a small replica historic village and in the summer the houses are manned with people putting on various demonstrations. 

Next to the park there was a large herd of buffalo. Joan wondered if it was part of the herd that belongs to the lady that she used to buy buffalo meat from at the farmers market in Calgary who had a farm in Peace River country.  

Our next stop was Bezanson, for lunch at Lefty's. It was supposed to be a coffee and pie break, but we spent too long walking in the historic site and it was lunch time. Lunch did not really live up to its billing, but we must have been missing something because the place was really busy for a town of 121. We then stopped at the historic Bad Heart Straw Church.

Our final stop was Sexsmith to walk down its main street which has been restored to 1920's splendor.  

Then it was time to go back to the trailer and watch the Saturday evening Nascar race.

Sunday was another sunny warm day.  After taking care of a few chores we went for a walk.

Monday was the day to install the new batteries that we purchased when we first arrived here. Prior to installation we cleaned out the storage, sorted out a bunch of stuff to go to recycling.  How can we accumulate so much junk? We eventually got the new batteries installed and they seem to be working just fine, Our next step is to see how the new batteries work when we are off the grid and using our solar panels as our source if electricity.

Tuesday after taking our old batteries to the RV dealer for recycling we stopped by Rona to buy John a new ladder, a lot longer and more stable than our old one. We then got rid of a lot of junk we had cleaned out of our storage by making a trip to the recycling centre.  In preparation for our move tomorrow, John swept the tree tips off the slideouts. We are parked under a tree that has continually been dropping bits on our roof. The new ladder is great, solid and tall enough that John doesn't have to climb onto the roof to sweep off debris.

Moving day on Wednesday. After we were all packed up and almost ready to go, John swept more tree branches off our slideouts, and then we retracted them.  Our destination was Spirit River , an hours drive away. The campground host had called us to let us know we would be in site 6 and she would not be there when we arrived, so just set up and she would collect when she got back. Before setting up we made a stop at the truck wash across the street and finally we have a clean trailer, removing the dirt we picked up driving through the snow storm north of Prince George. After paying our fees for the week we explored the town of Spirit River. Surprisingly there are 2 grocery stores here, and of course this is Alberta so at least 4 liquor stores. We found the library, which is only open 3 days a week.

Thursday morning was spent spring cleaning inside the trailer. The afternoon we went to the library to use the wi-fi to check out campgrounds and golfing, and to post the blog.