Week ending Apr 4, 2018 Caliente to Vulcan

Time to head for Alberta. Our week was mostly one night stops.  

On Friday, we left Caliente around 7, to head for Wells.  There looked like lots of interesting things to do around Pioche, north of Caliente.  There was a bit of wind but it wasn't too bad.  The climb over Connors Pass wasn't bad as we only had to go up about 2000 ft to the 7700 ft summit.  We stopped in Ely for fuel, then carried on.  On the way we saw a couple of antelope.

North of Ely, near Schellbourne, we stopped at a rest area.  It had information on 'trails' that crossed near here.   The first was the Pony Express trail. Our Nevada Road and Recreation Atlas has the route of that the Pony Express took through Nevada.   Just east of here  there were passes of 7885 ft, and 7650ft.    The other 'trail' that went through near here was the Lincoln Highway, the first paved highway created across the United States, from Times Square in New York City to San Francisco in California. Construction began in 1913, but the costs were underestimated.  It took about 10 more years until state and federal funds were invested.    By the 1940's all references to the Lincoln Highway were removed.

Lots of snow on the mountains (about 11000 ft elev) south of Wells.

We got to Wells about 1:30, so we decided to carry on to Jackpot about an hour away.  We had checked the road conditions before we left, and it showed 'Adverse conditions' for about 25 miles north of Wells.  It looked like they had laid some salt on the highway in that stretch, but it was dry, and the sides were too.   We stopped at the Spanish Gardens RV park in Jackpot.   The manager's boyfriend pointed out the best spot for us.  We setup without unhooking the trailer, or setting up the satellite.  Sloped a bit to the back, but not terrible.   The trailer was about 49 F, but our heaters got it warmed up as we played a few games of WII golf before supper.

Saturday, we headed to Fort Hall, about 3 hours north.  We stopped at a historic site for the Oregon and California Trails west of Pocatello.  

Ruts from wagons on the Oregon Trail with Snake River in the background

Sunday, we had a basic breakfast at the Fort Hall Casino before heading north toward Dillon, Montana.  We stopped at the lava fields and walked the long loop (.5mi). 

Collapsed lava

Tree on the lava

Monida pass was clear, although it had snowed the day before there.  We arrived fairly early at Southside RV in Dillon, but weren't anxious to get to Alberta too soon, given the weather waiting for us there. Usually we drive through to Helena.   We picked up some soup at Safeway for supper.

Monday morning we headed to Helena. On the way we saw antelope, a few eagles nests, and lots of calves, and two separate pairs of cranes, in the fields north of Dillon.  We stopped at Wheat Montana Bakery again, picked up a loaf of whole wheat bread, and whole wheat pancake mix.   We had Big Belt wraps, one with ham.   At first, we assumed it stood for Bacon, Egg, Lettuce and Tomato, but Wheat is in the upper Missouri Valley between the Elkhorn and Big Belt Mountains.

When we passed the Walmart in Helena, there was a fire truck at a mid-sized trailer in their parking lot, and the ambulance was just heading in.   
It was overcast in Helena, and damp on the highway, but the rain held off.  At least it wasn't freezing, although the forecast was for around freezing overnight.  The water at the sites was still off in the RV park, even though the winter rates end on April 15 (yesterday),   so we filled our tank from our blue containers in Helena, and refilled one.   We took advantage of the data remaining on our Verizon plan to bring our GPS up-to-date.

Tuesday, we went shopping for wine in Helena.  Not much success.  We did pick up 3 5l boxes, but instead of the us$14 we have been paying for it, we paid us$20, due to the Montana liquor taxes.   Note: pick it up in Arizona, or Nevada before we head north next time. 

Wednesday morning was 26F, but everything was fine.  The temperature in the water line area of the trailer got down to 36F, so we ran the furnace for a while.   Outside, it warmed up near freezing by about 8:00.  We  put the temperature sensor for the water lines in the truck to keep an eye on it.   We had a bit of a scare when we saw the temperature rising underneath the trailer fairly quickly.  We stopped at an exit to check if the furnace had come back on (it (or we) can be a bit flaky).  It had not come on.  It turned out that monitor was showing the truck cab temperature, not the cabinet.  Oops.
We stopped at the border to pay for 20l of wine ($48).  Still only about 3/4 of Alberta rates.   We setup at Milk River.  The campground has a bit of problem with soft sites due to the snow, but we found a dry site, but only 2 over from one that another truck had sunk in a bit.

Milk River

On Thursday, we drove to Vulcan.  We had been told that the campground at the PetroCanada station had one site available.   After our experience with soft sites at Milk River, we walked through the campground to see what the sites were like.  There was a lot of water running through the campground.   We thought that the site which was deemed available looked pretty soft, but there was one a few sites over that looked better.  The manager told us we could have that one.   We carefully backed the trailer in, making sure we didn't get off the firmer gravel pad into the soft sides.   The disadvantage of this site is that the water doesn't work here.  We decided we could work around that.   It is a bit damp, but hopefully will dry out in a few days.   We paid for 2 weeks, had lunch at the A&W and went into Okotoks to buy meat, vegetables, fruit, etc that we don't like to bring across the border.  Then we picked up our box full of mail, but they did fit it all in the one box, so now we have our insurance documents, the new US Mastercards and our tax stuff.   Also included was a small amount of advertising stuff.