Week ending Apr 28, 2016 Three Hills to Edmonton

On Friday morning, we took pictures of the maps we have finally put on the slideout.  They show all of the provinces and states that we have been in with the trailer. 

On the way out of town to visited with Mom and Dad, we got a picture of the three hills which the town is named for. 

We had a nice lunch finished off with rhubarb ice cream.   John helped Dad with a couple of computer issues.   Dad fixed a problem we had with our tailgate.  He saw that the tailgate was open.  When we arrived in Three Hills on Thursday, the tailgate latch wouldn't release.  We had to take everything out over the tailgate.  Then, without us even noticing,  it had come open while we were driving to Bowden.  Dad took the latch assemblies apart and made a few tweaks, and put it all back together.   It is now operating smoothly.  On the way back from Bowden we stopped at Keiver Lake Rec Area County of Kneehill Park.   It looks like it would be an okay place to camp, although the size of the playground indicates it might be used by a lot kids, so could get quite noisy.

Saturday morning had a bit of rain, the first we have seen in quite a while.   We filled out our IRS 8840 forms before returning to Mom & Dad's for the afternoon.   On the way, we drove through a bit of snow at Torrington, but by the time we got to highway 2, it was dry.  There was a little rain while we were in Bowden.   On the way back to Three Hills,  it was snowing lightly around Torrington again.  We stopped to check out the Torrington Campground.  It has a few nice gravel sites, but no services, but is only  $10/night.   The town mascot, Clem T. GoFur is on the corner of the campground.

Clem T. GoFur

On Sunday, we watched the Nascar race and did our taxes.

Early Monday morning, we headed for Edmonton. We stopped at Rainbow Campground, but none of the available sites long enough for the trailer had satellite access.  We carried on to our regular Edmonton park, Glowing Embers.

On Tuesday morning, we arranged to get together with everyone we have come to visit.  John finished cutting all the wood into 1ft lengths for the stabilizers, and assembled 3 more.   George came out in the afternoon.  We got his taxes submitted, and reviewed his application forms for CPP and OAS.  

Wednesday morning, we assembled the last of the stabilizer blocks. In the afternoon, we went to Fern and George's for coffee and cookies.   A couple of years ago they moved from a small one bedroom in their retirement residence to a large one bedroom with a dining room, good sized bedroom, and deck with a better view.  We had a nice visit with them, catching up on what has been happening with all of us in the last two years.

Thursday afternoon, we went to Joan and Alf's to visit.  John looked at some research that Joan had obtained on Grandad's service in WW I, and did a quick browse of Wade's blog of a motorcycle trip to Alaska.  We enjoyed a nice supper, topped off with a nice bread pudding that was based on Gran's recipe.  Joan gave us a shilcraft rug that Grandad had made for John when he was young. 

Week ending Apr 21, 2016 Picture Butte, Arrowwood, Three Hills

Friday was laundry day.   We phoned Arrowwood village to see if their campground was open.  They said they would turn on the water, and let us know if they couldn't.  We didn't hear back from them.

On Saturday, we moved to Arrowwood.   While we were getting set up, we talked to the town maintenance guy who said they had to fix a couple of taps to turn on the water.  A while later the campground operator dropped by to pick up our money and check to see if everything was good.   We watched the gophers and robins in the campground, and in the evening a black cat came by check out the gophers.  It didn't have any luck catching any.
  
Sunday we went in to Calgary see kids at their new (since Nov) house.  It is a big step up from the basement duplex they were living in last summer.  Then we took them to Phoenix Grill.   Afterward, we walked around the Sundance Lake neighbourhood park.   This is one of those parks that only members of the community and their guests can use.

After lunch we headed to Sue's work in Okotoks to visit with her on her lunch break.   

On Monday, we went to Calgary for teeth cleaning and optometrist.  We ordered glasses which won't be ready for a week, so we will pick them up sometime in May.    On the way back to Arrowwood, we detoured to Nature's Hideaway Campground on the south side of Calgary close to where the Highwood River flows into the Bow River.  It was badly damaged by the Highwood flood in 2013, and they are just getting it back in service, with only part of the campground open.   We found that the sites which would fit our trailer are in the trees, so we wouldn't be able to get satellite service there.

Just outside the park, there were a couple of historical markers for the Dunbow Industrial School, and the associated cemetery.   The government of Canada and the Catholic Church opened the school in 1884, away from the reserves and Metis settlements.   Father Lacombe was the first principal of the school.  About 430 Aboriginal children were trained in the school, which was closed in 1922 in favor of residential schools on the reserves. 

Tuesday, we picked up some lumber to make stablizers for the trailer.  Then  John had problems with the skilsaw.  The trigger lock was broken.   Couldn't remove the guard because one of the screws on the handled stripped.

We spent Wednesday hanging around and cut the lumber into 8 foot lengths with a hand saw so they would fit in the truck bed.

Thursday morning, on our way to Three Hills, we stopped at Strathmore to pick up some groceries and a new Skilsaw.   Once we settled in the campground in Three Hills, we got one of the stabilizer blocks built to work through the process.

Week ending Apr 14, 2016 Picture Butte and area

On Friday morning, we watched Kevin Koe win the 1-2 game. We walked around the campground a few times, and along the grass edge between the trailers and range road, across from the driving range, we collected 10 golf balls   Later that day, a golf ball thunked into the back of trailer.  John went down to   chat with campground operator.  They can't do anything as the golf course preceded the campground, and they can't afford to put up a high fence.   While I was talking to the host, Joan chatted with our neighbours, who are a family of Mennonites from Mexico who are here while working in the feeldlots for the winter. 

Saturday after watching the USA beat Japan in the 3-4 game we did a tour of some campgrounds south of Lethbridge for possible future use.  There was an unusual cloud formation this morning that looked sort of like a field that had been swathed

A small section of the rows of cloud

Covered Wagon in Mcgrath had a friendly host.  There are at least 5 km of hiking trails accessible right from the park.  McGrath Stake CG was still closed.

It took us a while to find Perrett Park in Raymond.  The street that it is on, which is a new gravel road wasn't in our GPS.   It is better price for full service, but has a limit of 7 days.  It doesn't open until May long weekend.  We continued on to Stirling were we found an interesting historical display.

Stirling National Historic Site

 The town was founded by Mormons who came in 1899 to work on the St. Mary's River Irrigation System, which opened up the south of Alberta to agriculture.   The town is an excellent example of a plan that Joseph Smith had laid out for Mormon agricultural villages.  It called for a one mile square town with 10 acres blocks with 132 foot wide streets.  Each block was divided into 20 half acre lots.  The farm buildings were located on the farms that surrounded the town.   We walked down to the campground at the west end of town.   It has 10 pw sites, similar to Raymond, but they are open at this time of year, but the water is not on yet.    Once back in Picture Butte, we drove down to Coyote Flats Historical Village, which is still closed.  It looks like it would be worth an hour or two if we are back in the area when it is open.  In the evening, we watched the rain delayed Nascar race from Texas.

Monday after we returned to the Keho Lake Golf Course for the afternoon.  This is the first time we have golfed since we left Alberta last fall.    We have the golf bags in the truck, and forgot to dig the carts out of the storage under the trailer.   We could have rented pull carts at the course, but figured we would remember to bring the carts next time if we carried our bags.  They got pretty heavy by the end of nine holes.

In mid-morning  on Tuesday we went into Lethbridge to do a 4 mile walk along both sides of the Oldman River from highway 3 to Whoop-up Dr through Helen Shuler Nature Reserve, Indian Battle Park, Bull Trail Park and Elizabeth Hall Wetlands.   After walking along the east side of the river, we chatted with a couple by Whoop-up Dr to confirm that we would be able to get back to the east side of the river on the bridge on highway 3.  Along the way, we saw a couple of woodpeckers.

Fort WhoopUp

Wednesday we had lunch at the Cactus Bar and Grill in Picture Butte, which is owned by the campground operators.  We had a good meal, steak sandwich with French onion soup, and a large caesar salad.    Then we updated the Garmin  GPS maps at the library.   

Week ending April 7, Idaho Falls to Picture Butte

On Friday, we got up early to drive north.   On the drive we saw some sandhill cranes, snow geese, and antelope.  We stopped for a lunch break at Twin Bridges in Montana.   It was named after a couple of bridges built around 1865 across the Beaverhead River that flows from Dillon toward Whitehall.  The little town park we stopped in had a sign about the 'Road Agent Trail', that went just south of here on its way from mines in Virginia City to Bannack.   After carrying on, we stopped in Helena to pick up some pasta and a large bag of shredded cheese, since they are much cheaper here than at home.   Since it was only shortly after noon, we decided not to stay in Helena for the night, and carried on toward the border.   Going through the Missouri canyon area, we saw a little herd of mountain sheep.  Can't stop on the freeway to take pictures.  We stopped in Shelby to fill up the tank with the last of the US priced diesel.  They get good business at this time of year, as a few other Canadians were doing the same.  We arrived at the border about 4:30 to get into the April 1st lineup of snowbirds returning to Canada.   We were significantly behind the '800 feet to customs' sign.  It took just under an hour to get through, even though there were 3 agents handling the line. 

We managed to get a spot at Under 8 Flags Campground in Milk River along with a few other RV's who had been in line with us.  Couldn't get the satellite signal, despite lining up based on the next door neighbour's dish, so we played Wii for the first time in quite a while.  We phoned the lady at Countryside RV in Picture Butte, and got the okay to start our stay earlier than the planned arrival date of April 5.

On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we headed into Lethbridge, were we picked up some Canadian cash at CIBC, a mouse and Turbo Tax at Best Buy, and groceries at Walmart.  Then we went to the visitor info to use their wifi to update our phone plan to include some data.  We arrived in Picture Butte shortly after noon, got everything set up, and quickly got an excellent satellite signal.  Even our hi-def signal was about 20 points higher than we have been getting for a long time. Unfortunately, we just missed the world men's curling.  The RV park here has power and sewer, but only a few fresh water taps.  Fortunately, we have a tap close enough that a combination of our hoses and one of the parks hoses reached to fill our fresh water tank.  The weather here is living up to its windy reputation.    

Monday morning we drove to Cochrane to pick up mail, and prescriptions.  We also found a replacement hammock at Canadian Tire.  We had checked out various places in the States with no luck.  We had nice lunch at Bullhorn Saloon. 

The winds overnight were strong enough to blow the satellite dish onto its nose for the first time in ages.  We thought it was sheltered by the trailer, but that wasn't good enough.  We didn't get much sleep with the trailer rocking a bit.  Tuesday morning it was still a bit windy.  We got the satellite dish back up, and hung around doing a few chores and watched one curling game.  We got confirmation form the neighbours that the wind overnight was unusually strong, even here.

On Wednesday, we drove into Picture Butte.

It is a decent sized town with a population about 1700. The Butte that the town is named for ceased to exist by 1947.  It was used for street and highway building, and then finally for the dyke on the reservoir on the north side of town.   We cashed our Calgary Co-op cheque at the Scotia Bank in town.  We checked at Home Hardware for a Kuraidori induction cooker.  They actually had one in stock.  Then we picked up  bread, buns and a poppy seed ring at Koster's Bakery and Deli.   Enough shopping for the day, so we went to the Reservoir, a did the 'Walk on the wild side' trail along the south side of the reservoir around the west side up to the Lethbridge North Irrigation Canal.

There were lots of geese, some coots, a couple of gulls, some ducks with white middles, black heads and tails that we think are greater scaups.

After our walk, we drove up highway 25 to Iron Springs (pop 93) and then to Turin (pop 106).  There were a lot of large feedlots along the way, including some with Holstein's, explaining why Picture Butte's nickname is the Livestock Feeding Capital of Canada.  

On Thursday, we took the truck to Davis GMC in  Lethbridge to get a glo plug replaced, which got diagnosed back in Gila Bend, and an oil change.  Interestingly, the dealership has a bistro, so we had  a pretty good breakfast right there.  Then we had the shuttle drop us off at the nearest BOM, which turned out to be the driver's branch, to get our pin problems resolved.   We walked the 3.5 km back to the dealer, and just as we were sitting down, they called to say the truck was ready to go.  Perfect timing.   We headed to Michaels to look for some cord to repair blinds.  No luck.  Either not the right width, or not strong enough.  Then Joan got a haircut, while John picked up a few groceries.  We returned to Picture Butte through Coaldale (the long way around).  The Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation Centre in Coaldale doesn't open until May 10th.   We checked out the Coyote Flats Pioneer Village in Picture Butte.  It doesn't open until the May long weekend.  Guess we're in the area a little early to tour these sites.