Category Archives: Montana

Alberta and back to the states

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We left our friends, the Chens, and went our separate ways.  We were in Jasper in 2004 and thought about taking a day trip to Edmonton to see the West Edmonton Mall.  At that time it was the largest mall in the world.  We thought it might be interesting.  However, after thinking about the 350 miles round trip in one day, we thought better of it.  We found out the next day that a severe storm hit the mall with hail, wind, and rain (maybe even a tornado) with flooding and roof collapses.  Glad we didn’t go!

This time though we did plan on going.  We stayed at a little campground north of Edmonton in Morinville.  Here is a view from the trailer door:

This was a Passport America site so we saved a bit of money but still had to fight mosquitos!  They also had a lake and we thought we might use the kayaks but never did.  We stayed 5 nights, did household things (read laundry) and went to the mall one day.

The mall is pretty big.  It has the waterpark, amusement park, and a small hockey rink.  It has about every store you would need, some even are doubled!  We put on a few miles walking around.  It was interesting but now we will have to compare it to the Mall of America when we get there in the future.

We left Morinville, heading back to the United States, and I didn’t want to even mess with Calgary as the ‘stampede’ was starting.  We skirted around it but stopped at a Lowes for a bathroom break.  During the stop, a Canadian Postal worker came up and started talking to us about the Airstream.  She has a friend that has a few Airstreams and she always takes pictures of them and she did so with ours.

We ended up after a pretty long (330+ miles) at a Casino in Lethbridge, AB.  It was a nice little stop and FREE!

The next day was crossing the border into Montana.  I didn’t know what to expect.  The last time (2004) we brought the trailer back into the states, the agents went into our trailer and took a bunch of our food.  This crossing was much quicker.  A few questions (that I can’t even remember now) and we were back in the USA.

We ended up in Great Falls for 4 nights.  This allowed us to see our friends the Erpelding’s who pastor a church there.  We also saw another friend that used to go to the church in Visalia but is now in Great Falls also.

We had a great time in Great Falls (new slogan?).

2 Nights, 2 Countries

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We have a long haul ahead of us on this day, and it all happens within Montana!  We had to make a stop for supplies in Missoula which took a bit of time.  I also had to get some forms printed out for our second day.  We drove through some very beautiful country and a lot of heavy rain!  We drove around Flathead Lake and ended up going through Columbia Falls to our next campsite.

The road to the next campsite was very picturesque, very woodsy and very remote.  When we were within 7 miles the road turned to gravel.  Ugh, with washboarding!  There was no easy way of knowing that this was coming but we had reservations so we kept moving, slowly.  It took about 45 minutes to travel that distance and we arrived at the remotest campsite we had ever stayed.  There were vehement signs warning us to the bear influence in the area and it sure seemed like a bear area!  It was very quiet though.

The Chen’s blocking the road!

Our spot in the forest

 

The view of the river from the Chen’s spot

If you want remote, come here!

The next day was more driving north.  We took a different route from the remote campground that only had about 3 miles of gravel but it wreaked havoc on the inside of the trailer.  As we drove around this loop we found this:

We were going through Glacier National Park!  I didn’t realize we were that close but we didn’t have time to drive it and the Road to the Sun road was not open yet.  We headed off to our next reservation.

The significant part of today was crossing over into Canada.  We were not carrying a handgun because I know of the regulations and general disdain for handguns in Canada but we did have our shotgun that we were taking.  This required one form for the US (to declare that I am taking it across the border and I own it so I can bring it back to the US) and a form for Canada.

We pulled over on the US side and went to the CBP.  We showed the form to the agent and he went to the trailer and looked at the gun.  Easy but it took some time.  We pulled through the line on the Canadian side and George had already told the agent about my shotgun so they had us pull over.  I went inside with my form, paid the fee and we were on our way.  Pretty easy, but without preparation, it would have been much worse.

We were now in Canada so we had to start looking at things in a metric way and what the monetary conversion is.  I am glad I like math!

Our next stop was Dry Gulch Provincial Park near the town of Radium Hot Springs.  We had spots together this time but they were pretty steep.

I remember coming to Radium when I was much younger with my parents.  Radium’s big draw is the hot springs.  We had to go there and we did.  It was so relaxing and the setting was beautiful.

George trying out his camera underwater

Just west of the hot springs is a canyon that is the way in and out of the area.  It was this way during horse and wagon days.  Here are a few views of it:

The first two days were 540 miles in total but we made it to Canada.