Canada and the Alaska Highway

It has been a few days! We left Montana and entered Canada on July 2nd. We originally planned to go through Roosville port of entry but, decided to forego the more mountainous route to Carway. We expected to be detained slightly as they went through the camper but, the officer asked where we were going, and then asked if we had any wood or boating equipment. We did tell him we had a blow up kayak. He asked when was the last time we had it in the water. When we told him it had been 2 weeks he said ok, have a nice trip. It was that easy. He didn’t confiscate our dairy, veggies or meat.

We were so excited to be in Canada and to keep our food!! Our next stop was in Okotok where Judy was to meet a friend she met in an online photography class. John and I went to Rumple Quilt Skin quilt store and then we went to Tim Horton’s to meet up with Mike and Judy and her friend.

After lunch we headed to our campsite at O. R. Hedges Lions Campground. It is a piece of land owned by the city and run by the Lions Club. A win win if you ask me. We had power and electric. We got all set up and went into town to a Walmart to replenish some supplies when we received a text from Judy saying they sprung a huge leak in their roof and had to go to a hotel. OMG! We grabbed a large tarp and headed back to the campsite. John and Mike worked on it a bit and thought they fixed it—but they didn’t. Judy and Mike headed to a hotel and told us to keep going and they hopefully they will catch up.

We drove for a few hours and stopped for gas somewhere around Edmonton. John went in to pay for the gas (you have to pay up front here) and I went to the bathroom—because I never miss an opportunity to go. I walked out and looked up at the camper and thought it looked weird. As I got closer I realized the window had been blown out. John was pumping gas and never noticed.

Luckily we were right next to a Rona’s which is like a Lowe’s. John an in to get some plexiglass and caulking and tape and whatever he needed, while I cleaned up all the glass. We don’t know when this happened but we were really lucky that it must have happened after it stopped raining. It set us back 3 1/2 hours but all is well that ends well.

We made it to Dawson Creek and took our picture at the infamous Alaska Highway sign! We drove another 35 miles up the Alaska Hwy to Peace Island Park and spent the night. We didn’t even disconnect. I have more to tell of the past couple of days but the internet is still kind of iffy right now. Will continue hopefully tomorrow.

July 6, 2024 2

Glacier Again

John and I headed out to Glacier again. Judy and Mike had some things to do so we went without them. I was able to get reservations for today so we did not have to wait until 3:00 to enter. We didn’t get as early of a start as we had hoped but we arrived about 8:30 this morning. Our main goal today was to hike Avalanche Lake trail. By the time we arrived all the parking lots were filled including some that were a mile away. So we decided to head to St Mary’s Lake and take a hike to Baring Falls.

We stopped at Logan’s Pass Visitor Center to use the facilities and as soon as we got out of the car we saw Big horn Sheep in the parking lot. The bladder can wait!!

There were 3 of them and they just sat and posed for everyone. What more can you ask for? Maybe a Grizzly or two or three or four? Well that is exactly what we got just after we left the parking lot. We started from way across the valley and then we drove to the other side to get ahead of them.

The top left is when I was on the other side of this ridge. The others were after we drove to the other side. I know these are not great shots, but they wouldn’t look up. John made me get back in the truck because he said I was too close. I had a really long lens on my camera–I wasn’t that close.

We finally got to St. Mary’s Lake and hiked to the falls. The lake is beautiful, the hike would have been better if it wasn’t so wet and cold.

After leaving St. Mary’s we headed back toward Avalanche Lake to see if we could get a parking spot. We circled around a few times and found someone backing out. Yay! We set off for what was to be the highlight of our day. (Actually the bear did it for me). We got about .5 mile in and it started to rain. We decided to keep going. It rained, it stopped, it rained and then it poured. We were about 1/2 way there. John thought it best we turn around because there was already a stream running down the trail. I am sure he was more concerned that I would fall. Anyway, we turned around and suddenly we heard thunder and knew we made the right decision. Though we were disappointed and cold and wet, we had a great time.

Tomorrow we set out to cross the border. It might be a while before I post. Not sure what internet service we will have.

July 2, 2024 2

Montana and Glacier National Park

We left McCullough Peaks in the evening before we were supposed to because we knew we had a long drive and thought we would knock a few hours out. We had a fabulous time in McCullough Peaks but, we were ready to move on. We spent the night at a rest area in Greycliff Montana. Leaving the night before and putting a few miles/hours behind us was a smart move–in our opinion. We still didn’t arrive at our campsite Three Bears RV Campgrounds until 5:00. Whew! It was a long haul.

After getting things set up we took a ride to Flathead Lake to take some pictures and chill.

After a restful evening we had a nice breakfast and headed to Whitefish to meet up with Lori and Kelly for lunch. We hung out for a little while downtown then went to Whitefish Lake and had a little photoshoot with Kelly, Lori, me and John.

After lunch at Food Truck Park we headed off to Glacier. Oh wait, John forgot his wallet so we had to head back to the campground to get his wallet–or I would have had to pay. lol Just kidding, he still had money but he wanted his license and credit cards–in case. In the meantime, Judy and Mike headed to Glacier and we planned to meet them at the top of the Road to the Sun. They had no service in the park and missed part of my message so they waited at the visitor center near the west entrance. John and I took some very misguided directions from WAZE and took more than an hour to get there. We did not realize the Road to the Sun is really the entire road that leads from the west entrance to the east entrance. We “guessed” the top would have been Logan’s Pass visitor center, that seemed to be at the “top” of the road. We got our park stamp–yes we have National Park Passports. After getting our stamp, going to the bathroom we decided to head down. On the way down, we saw Mike and Judy heading up. Everyone turned around and we missed each other again. So we all went to Glacier but we didn’t hang out. Regardless, we all had a good time. And our GPS took us out another way and it only took us 30 minutes to get back to camp. Oh, on the way down-the second time- we saw a grizzly cub.