Week ending Jul 27, 2017 Coronation

Friday, the weather was cool and too windy to take the inflatable out, so we played WII tennis and golf with Karen and Dominique for a couple of hours before supper. 

Saturday morning, we all packed up and headed to Aniah's Family Restaurant in Stettler for a late morning breakfast.  This is a nice restaurant with good food.  After breakfast we went our separate ways, Karen and Dominique heading to the Lions Campground in Leduc, and we headed to Coronation Dam Campground on the reservoir at the north end of Coronation.

Canada 150 display in Coronation Dam Campground

  We had a long chat with the campground operator.  In the afternoon, we walked into town.  We had noticed that our plug-in connection at the utility had gotten a bit too warm in Alix.  We were able to pick up a replacement 30Amp head at Golby Hardware in case we have a problem with the plug-in.

There are several nice murals in town.   Coronation was created on September 27, 1911 with the sale of 24 blocks of land.  Many buildings were moved six miles from Haneyville as soon as the lots were sold.    It became a town by April 12, 1912.  The town was named for the Coronation of King George V of England.

Sunday morning, we did the walk to town and back before the car race.  We got a picture of a Loggerhead Shrike, which we find is a species in decline (3% per year over many years resulting in  76% overall decline).  

On Monday we did a little trip from Coronation  to Castor,  looked for a couple of museums mentioned on their welcome sign, found a couple of others instead, but being Monday, they were closed.

CP Rail logo and namesake of Castor town

Then we stopped at Huber Dam County Park, northeast of Castor on a wee reservoir, a nice site with good rates for 30Amp service.  We headed north to Alliance, whose campsites are buried on the edge of the rec grounds.  The trees are between the trailers and the satellite, except for one of the four sites which parallels the entrance road.    Then we headed west to Burma County Park on the Battle River north of Coronation.  It is a nice little site, if you like being surrounded by trees but no cell service or satellite access.  The road through the campsites might not have been wide enough for the trailer.

On a short walk along the river to a decommissioned bridge, we saw a large owl (we think) fly down the river below us.

 From there we headed to Brownfield, which just happened to be on the road south to Coronation.  Just a school, a rec center, and a few houses.

Shortly after leaving Brownfield, the windshield wipers quit working.   When we got back to the trailer, John dug out the manual for the truck, and read the manual to find the location of the fuse for the wipers.  The fuse looked good.

On Tuesday, John took the truck into McKenzie Motors to get the wipers fixed.  McKenzie Motors was the one of the first GMC dealers in Alberta.  The garage opened in 1936.  When the owner returned from WW II in 1945, he got the GMC dealership.  His son is now operating the business. Unfortunately, when GMC  restructured in 2009, it dropped many of the smaller dealers, including this one.  They still have a GMC certified mechanic on staff, and operate in conjunction with Hanna Motors.

It turned out that there is something wrong with the fuse box.  The mechanic was able to verify this by replacing the fuse box with another defective one, and the wipers worked.  However, the problem with their fuse box was that the fuel pump didn't work.  They checked on availability of a new fuse box, and found it had to come from Montreal so would take 4 business days to get here.  We decided we will stay in the area until next week when it comes in.  We have to leave the Coronation Dam Campground, as they have people coming in for the site we are in.

On Wednesday, we moved to the Huber Dam County Park.   It about 40 km northwest of Coronation, and 7 km west of Castor.  On the drive out, we checked the wipers and they worked.  When we got to the park, we phoned McKenzie Motors.  They figured that the problem is a loose connection in the fuse box, and it they will probably quit working just as easily.  

The sites in the campground are nice and wide with a multi-row caragana hedge on the west side, and poplars along the north side.  For $20/night, we get 30 amp power.  We set up the chairs and hammock outside and enjoyed the sun for a while.  

On Thursday morning, we walked around the campground, which didn't take long.   Quite a few units left by noon, including one that had come in last evening.   By noon, the temperature was up to 30C.  We are definitely within the area with a heat warning today along the east half of Alberta.

Huber Dam County Park

Week ending Jul 20, 2017 Alix

Friday we did the nature walk around Alex Lake.  Except for a couple of streets on the town side of the lake, the trail is through poplar forest along the edge of the lake.  The walk is about 6.8 km. 

 

 

 Saturday morning, we did the walk again, but this time counterclockwise.

Sunday morning, we did the walk again.  We started about 8, so by the time we got back around to town, the bi-weekly pancake breakfast, from 9 to 12, was well under way.  For $6 we got pancakes, eggs and bacon, made to order and brought to our table.   There were about 26 people there, including us, probably the first group since we finished up about 9:50 and most of the others were in three fairly large groups.    When we got back to the campground, everybody was gone, or almost ready to leave.    In the afternoon, 4 new trailers came in.  One of them was a truck pulling a motorcycle on a trailer, with no visible camping unit? 

Monday we drove into Red Deer to do some shopping.   We stopped by Burbank Park at the confluence of the Blindman and Red Deer Rivers on the way back.  

Tuesday morning, we drove to Rochon Sands Provincial Park and did the climb up to the viewpoint over Buffalo Lake, and walked out to the beach.   Then we checked out The Narrows Provincial Rec Area on Buffalo Lake, on our way back toward Alix.

Beach at Rochon Sands

Our last stop was at Haunted Lake Golf Course and Campground about 5 km east of Alix.  We found out that we could park in the overflow camping area at the east end if we want to use our inflatable on the lake.  Motorized boats are not allowed on that lake, so it might be nicer.

George stopped in the afternoon, to stay for the night as a bit of a detour on a trip to Jasper.  

Wednesday afternoon Karen and Dominique arrived.   George stayed long enough to visit with them for a while before heading towards the mountains. 

On Thursday, we went with Karen and Dominique to Delburne.  The Anthony Henday Museum was closed from 12:00 to 1:00, so we went to the Delburne Bistro where we enjoyed a very nice lunch.  We then returned to the museum.   Anthony Henday, a servant of the Hudson's Bay Company was the first white man to see Alberta and the Rocky Mountains.  He travelled with a party of natives from York Factory on Hudson's Bay to the Rocky Mountain House area.   In the station building, there were typical displays of early 20th century artifiacts.  Behind the station house is the CN water tank building.   In the building there were additional displays of blacksmith tools, harness and shoe repair and a hardware. One area illustrated the coal mining industry in the area.    Then we went through the CN caboose.

View from the chair in the caboose

Week ending Jul 13, 2017 Rocky Mountain House to Alix

Friday morning, we did a short walk through Riverside Park on the north west corner of Rocky.  Then at Warehouse One we found a tee-shirt we had seen a man wearing in Rimbey.  Its slogan is "I know I'm not perfect, but I'm Canadian.  That's close enough".   We look forward to wearing it when we go back to the USA in the winter.

Saturday, we did a recon mission to a boon-docking spot we found on-line.   There are a couple of spots, on Abraham Lake near the Bighorn Dam.   Our preferred one is just past where Allstones Creek flows under the highway.  Even on a summer weekend, there were some spots available there.   

Abraham Lake from Allstones Creek 

Memorial for Silas Abraham near Bighorn Dam

 On the way back, we drove up to Crescent Falls, which is in a Provincial Rec Area.   We stopped at the overlook of the river downstream from the falls, then continued to the upper campground parking area.  There was no signage there indicating how to walk to the falls viewpoint, so we went down the hill toward the lower campground.  On the left hand side we found the viewpoint parking lot, but it only holds about 10 vehicles, so we parked along the right hand side of the road, which is marked for parking.  From the viewpoint, we could see people on the flat area at the bottom of the falls, so headed up the much-traveled trail figuring it would get us there.   After climbing for a while (should have been dropping to get to the bottom of the falls), we asked a group if we were going the right direction to get to the bottom of the falls (at least that's what we thought we asked).  They told us to carry on the way we were going, and at the end of the trail we would see a trail going down to the bottom.    We carried on a while more, but just kept getting higher and higher.   Since this wasn't making much sense, we asked a woman coming down the trail whether she had been at the bottom.  She said no.  She had come the couple of km from the previous viewpoint, and had not seen any trails going down into the canyon.    So we returned to the  truck.  We figure we had missed a trail, much less traveled, that went slowly down from the viewpoint.  Unfortunately, we could not see far enough along it to tell how steep it got.

Crescent Falls

Sunday morning, we walked from Riverview RV Park to Highway 11, then about 1 1/4 km to a trail-head going into Crimson Lake PP.  At about 2 1/2 km on this trail, we go to the boat dock on one of the Twin Lakes.   The round trip was about 9 km. 

Twin Lake

Monday, we did another recon trip, up Sunchild Road to the Brazeau Reservoir Rec Area.   The GPS did not want us to go that way for some unknown reason, despite the fact that the road is paved, and it would be twice the time to go north to Drayton Valley to get there.   We were hoping to see animals, as it is undeveloped country.  Power service in the rec area, and lots of boon-docking nearby.  Then we drove through Lodgepole, and  by Drayton Valley, where we finally saw one deer, then back down 22 to Rocky Mountain House.

Tuesday we did a bit of shopping before leaving the next day.   Due to smoke from the BC fires, we decided to head east instead of boon-docking  on Abraham Lake.  We checked with the campground at Alix, on its lake.  They didn't have a lakeside site, the only ones from which we could get satellite, available until Sunday.

On Wednesday, we headed to Alix on our way to Stettler.   When we talked to the caretaker, she said that she had tried to confirm one of the sites with a woman who had booked them, but couldn't get hold of her, so she said we could have site 2   It was interesting, because it had some low hanging poplar branches that were too low.  The operator is not allowed to prune trees, and figured it would take a while for the town guys to find time to do any pruning, which they might decide not to do.  However, by coming into the site from the opposite direction, we were able to get around behind them into the site, with some wiggling back and forth.  There is no water or sewer at the sites, so John decided it was easier to fill the tank with our 7 gallon container instead of taking the trailer to the fill building.   Fortunately the caretakers had a couple of hoses to add to our 50 & 25 ft water hoses that would reach to the building, so we didn't have to fill from containers (we have used the containers a few times while boon-docking, and it takes a while to transfer the water from the containers since they are quite heavy.   There is a small lake here with a little beach.  Motorboats are allowed on the lake, so it could be interesting if we want to use our inflatable.
 
The first 'Campground Regulation' is interesting.  It reads 'Enjoy your stay and let others enjoy theirs.'  We think this is the first time we had a regulation to enjoy our stay.    After the regulations it says that 'Violations of any of these regulations will result in eviction with no refund.'


On Thursday morning we woke to see the calm lake.   There were several pelicans fishing on the lake.

A calm morning

Pelican on Alix Lake

Mid morning, we headed to the Pheasantback Golf Course, about 7 km north of Stettler.  It was much busier than most courses, but it is July now, but we were able to get into the back 9 holes.   It is a pretty little course, but has a lot of water.  The tee boxes for hole 1 and hole 10, which are side by side, give an idea of the challenges.  After driving a couple of balls with unwanted topspin straight into the pond, we headed around to the other side of the pond and played from there.   We found it frustrating as John lost at least 5 balls into the water or trees, and even Joan lost a couple of balls.

Hole 10 fairway on left across the water

Week ending Jul 6, 2017 Rimbey to Rocky Mountain House

On Friday we went on an exploratory loop north and west of Rimbey.   Our first destination was Dick Lake, which we had seen on our backroads atlas.  We had seen references to fishing on it on the internet.   The atlas showed two roads which come close to the lake, so we picked the north road.  However, when we got within sight of the lake, the road was closed.    We then drove through the hamlets of Hoadley, and Winfield, then on to Calhoun Bay Prov Rec Area on Buck Lake.

Calhoun Bay Rec Area

  No services there (or at any rec area), but it looked like a few sites would work but at $21/night.     Then we headed west through Alder Flats, and then a few km south and west to Em-te-town, a 'dude' ranch with some historical displays, cabins, an RV area ($41/night with power) and a restaurant.   We had an Em-te-town burger and a soft taco wrap.  The burger was good and the wrap so-so.   It was pretty quiet there for the day before the long weekend, with lots of empty space in the campground and only a few people wandering through the site. 

Em-te-town

 Weeds on the roof

Across the road, we popped into Ponderosa City, which has a mercantile shop carrying western clothes, boots and gifts.  There is also a restaurant there.   South on highway 22,  we headed cross country on Medicine Lake Road to another prov rec area.   Interestingly, there were lots of trailers, with ATVs, boon-docking just off the main road near the intersection that heads into the rec area. 

 On Saturday, we went to the Canada Day pancake breakfast.  We started preparing to head out about 9:30, and walked up to Pas-ka-poo Park. We got into line shortly after 10, and reached the serving window at 11, when the event was supposed to end.

Pancake Breakfast line-up

One form of entertainment waiting for breakfast

the band

After enjoying a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage, we went to the farmers market.  Usually it is at the park, but due to the Canada Day events there, it was moved to a street just off the main business avenue.  We picked up some new potatoes, carrots and radishes from one of the vendors.    At 11:00PM, we watched the fireworks from the comfort of our trailer, as they were launched from the ball diamond behind the trailer.  They had a nice long display.

Monday, John replaced the leaky water pump.   Later in the day we did the walk that goes around the campground.  From the back of the campground, it heads towards town where new long term care facilities are being built.  However, it stops there, at least while the construction is active.  

Tuesday, we went to Eckville to golf at the Dark Horse Golf Course.  Tuesday the rates are half price, which made it $21 for the two of us.    The Medicine River wanders through the course, even crossing the fairway on hole 7. 

from Google Maps satellite view
with fairways marked in red
and paths to next tee in purple

approach to the 7th green

There are sheep in the trees between the fairways.   It is quite a confusing course, which requires signs at almost every hole pointing the way to the next tee.     One of the strangest designs is that  hole 2 is between hole 3 and hole 4.   If you play the black tee boxes (which we don't), there are several spots where you have to clear stretches of the river to get to the fairway.

Wednesday, we moved to Rocky Mountain House, to Riverview RV Park on the west side of the river across from RMH.  We stayed here in May 2016, but it is a lot busier in July than it was last year in early May.   However, we still managed to see a deer run through the grass between the trailer and the roads.  We also picked up The David Thompson Highway Hiking Guide while we were checking in.  We hope to do a some hiking in the area in the next few weeks.    We had a bit of trouble running the front jacks up to level the trailer.   Once we had lifted them enough to get the truck off, and unplugged the power from the truck, there was no power to the jacks.  When we plugged the power back into the truck, they moved slowly.  Seems like the batteries in the RV were dead, and the batteries in the truck were getting low.  When we plugged the trailer into the utility stand, and the jacks worked just fine.   We have no idea why the batteries were dead.

Later in the afternoon, we went for a walk along the North Saskatchewan beside the park.

golden banner flowers

On Thursday, we put our RV batteries into box bottoms that are the right size, but we left the old battery box tops, because they have vents for the hydrogen gas given off by the batteries.   After posting the blog, we are heading into Rocky to the Farmers Market, which is on from 5 to 8 pm.