Day One – Sunday
Sept. 1st 2013.
Finally on the Road - The 2013 - 2014 Winter Trip!
After a week of getting ready we finally hit the road.
One forgets even when doing this annually how much work it
is!
Getting the house ready and all the things that goes with
that plus add in Insurance, 6 months of Prescriptions, getting the RV and the
Toad (the car towed behind the Motor Home) serviced and ready to go and a lot
more.
On Sunday Sept 1st we finally hit the road after
a stop for a surprise Birth Day party for our friend Gerry. We left Calgary at about 130pm and headed east
towards Medicine Hat, which is in the SE corner of Alberta near the USA border
and Montana.
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| Loaded up and ready to finally hit the road! |
After driving through Medicine Hat we headed south to
Cypress Hills Provincial Park and camped for the nigh at Elkwater right near
the lake.
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| Cypress Hills Camping - At Elkwater Lake |
I must say that for years I have wanted to go down there and it was
well worth stopping! A great park with a ton of camping and one would never
know you were in the middle of the bald prairie of Alberta!
I highly recommend
this place and we only saw a fraction of it.
The area is surrounded by its own forest. The lake offers a
beach or two and a marina. Not knowing much about the place it looks like there
is a small village there with year round homes, hiking trails as well as a store
and visitors center. I’m sure there is much more to see as well.
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| Barb & Romeo out for a walk at Cypress Hills |
I had my doubts that we would get in as it was a Sunday of a
long weekend (Labor Day) but they had two spots left and one was just perfect
for us. We pulled in, unhooked the Toad (remember what that is?) and got set
up. Now when RVing like boating you can always expect a glitch or two.
As we were setting up I hit the button for the “slide out”
section of the living room. It went out but for some reason I checked to see if
it would come back in and it wouldn’t! It was stuck!
Not knowing if it was the electric motor or a lack of
lubrication we began to pray! I can’t imagine what it would cost to have a RV
Repairman come all the way out there to fix this thing! So we continued our set
up. Lawn chairs out and relaxation!
The weather was very warm likely into the 80’s F (30 C for
you younger folks).
I couldn’t relax so I got my trusty bucket of lubricants out
and crawled underneath the motor home and sprayed some penetrating spray into
the slides, wheels and crank areas hoping that would free the slide up. I
decided to let it sit over night and check the next day to see if it would
close again.
Barb cooked up a great meal and we spent the evening under
the dark skies with a star show that you just do not see when close to the
city. In fact that’s another thing about this park. It’s a night preserve so
they protect the nighttime star shows from the lights in the park at night and
wow! We could even see the Milky Way!
As with most campgrounds we took out a second mortgage and
bought some firewood. As dry as it was, there was no campfire ban! Barb for
some reason over the past couple of years felt that she needed to instruct me
on how to build a proper campfire?
No matter how many times I remind her of all my years spent
in Cubs and Boy Scouts (all the way until after I was 18 years old!) she still
seems to doubt my ability in this regard. So I told her she could build the
fire! She finally relented and did the dishes and I built the fire. I must say
and she finally agreed it was the best campfire that I have ever seen! The fact
that the wood was nice and dry sure helped me to win that battle ha-ha!
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| Years of experience as a Boy Scout helps to build the perfect camp-fire! |
Day Two – Monday
Sept 2.
Slides, Tomatoes and Passports!
After one of the best sleeps I had in months it was time to
rise and what a morning!
I stepped out the door at 8 am and it was cooking hot out!
Another nice day!
At about noon we finally packed up. I had earlier gone out
and lubed all the gear for the stuck living room slide. Knowing that leaving it
stuck open would be a bad thing while we drove down the roads.
Can you imagine going down the highway seeing a Class A
motor home with his living room slide open! Add to that it would make poor gas
mileage even worse!
Well after lubing it all up with copious quantities, guess what?
It worked and came closed as instructed!
At 2 pm (check out time) we headed over to dump the tanks.
We decided not to leave early as there about 5 billion campers lined up all
morning in the RV Dump line up. Besides other than flying home for a wedding on
October 8th we have no schedule all winter long, so why rush.
Our camp spot from a distance at Elkwater in Cypress Hills.
We hit the road and continued straight south on Hwy 41 to
the USA Border and that’s when Glitch 2 occurred. As seasoned travellers
(our 4th
winter away) you would think that we had looked after this?
Barb was pulling
out our Passports and Nexus Cards when she noticed my Passport expires in
February! Now it could have been worse… but! Yikes!
The problem will likely occur when we fly home in October
for a wedding. On our return flight back to Charlotte, North Carolina they will
see that the Passport expires in less than 6 months. I’m not sure how they will
react but experience has told us that many countries do not allow air passage when
this happens! In fact they will see that I don’t have a return ticket booked to
come back to Canada and that will make it worse I am sure.
So the problem is, we are in the USA now and how do we go
about getting a new Passport before October (in 5 weeks)? We’ve decided we will
make some phone calls and try to apply for one when we get to eastern Canada in
a few days. Hopefully they can put a rush on it and mail it to our home and we
can then use it to get back to our motor home and car, which we will leave in
North Carolina?
Most times when we cross the border we just show our Nexus
Cards and many times they don’t even ask us for our Passports. Today they did.
What happened next was sort of funny. He asked us the usual questions and then
came the fruit and vegetable questions. I think I know what his wife will be preparing
for dinner tonight, as we had to turn over a few onions and tomatoes etc.
Likely a nice salad ha!
Once we got an hour into Montana we started to notice the
heat. At one point when we had stopped the gauge read 115 F! Don’t even ask me
what that is in Celsius, I don’t know. We decided its likely reading hot from
the pavement. Even so we determined that it was over 95F and likely 100F. The
lady in the store said she heard it was going to be at least 95, I’m sure it
was 100!
Well, being from Calgary we are not used to that kind of
heat. I’m happy to report the motor home did just fine and at least we know the
cooling system and air conditioning works well!
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| My view on the boring road - The Highway of Heat! |
We stopped for the night at 8pm Calgary time and it is still
cooking hot out but at least there is a slight breeze. You will see in the
picture below that we chose to “Boon-Dock” (RV Lingo for not being in a camp ground). As there is no truck stop or Wal-Mart in Glasgow,
Montana we parked behind a car wash with two Semi Truckers who are sleeping
here too.
I had to laugh when I got out for a walk and looked back to see our
motor home tucked in between these two big Semi Trucks. It reminded me of Thomas
the Tank Engine (a children’s show)...
“I Think I Can, I Think I can!”
“I Think I Can, I Think I can!”
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| Parked behind the car-wash in Glasgow "I think I can - I think I can!" |
So as we tuck in for our 2nd night here is our
plan. We will continue east bound in the USA and then south down around and
past Chicago until we get to the Buffalo, New York area. Barb would like to see
Niagara Falls, so we will do a day there. Then we will continue NE inside the
USA and then cut north to Quebec City. Once done there into New Brunswick, PEI
and Nova Scotia. Any thing could happen and change but that’s the plan for the
next few weeks.
After that south to New England (Fall Leaves) and see New
York City. Continue south and see some sights staying as close to the east
coast as we can, heading to Charlotte, North Carolina. We will stay in the Rig (motor home slang) at a friends place for a few days and quickly do our trip
home by airline October 8th for one week. After that slowly make our
way to the Florida Keys, as far south as we can go. Unless of course the slide
gets stuck again (bad joke)!
Day 3, Tuesday
Sept 3rd.
3387 Bugs and One
Bird!
You got it! That’s what’s on the front of the motorhome!
The people around here should be happy that we reduced the
bug population by so much and by the way we are sorry about the bird!
We started the day off after a dreadfully hot night. Barb
slept on the couch next to an open window and I’m sure we both lost weight in
the heat last night! After a quick walk around to check things out we moved
into the car wash we were parked behind to wash all of yesterday’s bugs from the
windshield. I’m sure it’s as bad again tonight.
Travelling east through Montana is about as exciting as
southern Saskatchewan but as we got farther into the eastern parts of North
Dakota the scenery and the roads improved immensely. It was a bit cooler today
at only around 90F.
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| My Navigator has a nap on the never ending highway of boredom! |
Yesterday we averaged about 7.3 miles per US gallon and
today we got up to 8 Mpg! Yahoo! I bet you are all as excited as we are about
that piece of information.
All went well today with only one little glitch. We almost
burnt the motorhome down! More on that in a minute.
Our highlight was stopping at a little town called Rugby ND.
If they are telling the truth and as the pictures will show it is the
Geographical Center of North America! To me that must mean that it’s half way
from the Mexican Border to the top of Canada and half way from the west coast
to the east coast. In other words we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere!
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| Once again we are in the center of it all! |
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| Wake me up when you finish reading all of this! |
We stopped for the evening at a small city called Devils
Lake. We decided to step it up a bit from last night and stayed at a Wal-Mart
parking lot instead of an old car wash. We are very impressed as usual with the
surroundings at this Wal-Mart and there are two other Campers here so far.
Most Wal-Marts allow camping over night in their parking lots,
as they know we will be in at some point to buy supplies. We appreciate them
for that and always try to pay back for this luxury. We have come across the
odd Wal-Mart in our travels that doesn’t allow this and our understanding is
that it’s the local city By-Laws (ordinance) that forbids it in some towns.
They do that in order to protect their campground businesses.
I’m OK with that but when on the highways late I don’t
really feel like paying their campground fees especially when leaving in the
morning again. Add to that after a full day of driving I’m not really all that
energetic and don’t feel much like hooking up the water, sewer and electrical anyhow.
We have a generator for power and carry enough water on
board for showers and cooking so we really don’t need it, which brings me to
our next story!
After we got into Wal-Mart this evening Barb began to cook
dinner and I did my usual walk-around to ensure all was good. I also lock up
the Honda (remember it’s a Toad in RV language) and put her to bed for the
night. While doing this Barb had the Generator (Jenny in RV language) running
to microwave some tasty beans for us.
I noted a smell of gas at the back of the rig (RV language
for motor home or trailer and no it wasn't from the beans!).
Now I had just filled up the gas tank right to the
top before we stopped here so naturally I first assumed it was from the fuel
tank. On closer inspection I noted a small puddle forming under where the Jenny (Generator) sits in the rig. I knelt down rubbing my index finger in the puddle hoping it
wasn’t from an previous dog visit. Low and behold it wasn’t a doggy puddle after
all! It was gas!
Upon opening up the lid to the Jenny I determined through
expert experiences of days gone by that the leak was in fact coming from the
gas line in the Jenny. There was one problem left.
Barb still had one bowl of beans to heat up in the
microwave.
So as we counted down the minutes I stood by the off switch for the Jenny in hopes of not having to use our one and only fire extinguisher. We made it! Hot beans for very hungry tummies and the rig didn't blow up!
So as we counted down the minutes I stood by the off switch for the Jenny in hopes of not having to use our one and only fire extinguisher. We made it! Hot beans for very hungry tummies and the rig didn't blow up!
One always tries to carry as many spares of everything one
can think of when travelling in a rig like this. As luck would have it I had
all sorts of spare hose clamps except for the proper size on the Jenny’s
gas line.
I will try to get up early in the morning and walk a couple of
hundred feet into Wal-Mart (our hosts) and purchase the right clamp which
will hopefully fix the fuel leak problem.
Never a dull moment when travelling or cooking with the
Messners!
As I write this... One more motor home pulls in off the highway.
My eyes are getting heavy from a long day on the road.
My eyes are getting heavy from a long day on the road.
I almost forgot! We almost expired (or so
Barb thought) heading down the freeway earlier today!
A very stoned (I say that because there is no other logical
explanation) young man in a pick up truck pulled out right in front of us this
afternoon. Being the trained professional that I am (again) I was able to avoid whacking
him with our 12 Ton Bullet whilst blaring the horn.
The horn didn’t even faze him, he slowed after turning in front of us to a near stop! Finally he pulled over to the right shoulder of the four lane to wave us by. Thank you to Fleetwood for putting ABS brakes on these rigs and I hope that's the one and only close call we have on this ten thousand mile journey of North America!
Not knowing where we will end up tomorrow... we will travel east through Grand Forks and down through Fargo, North Dakota.
We want to see if they really talk that way down there!
If you haven’t seen the
movie "Fargo" you must rent it!
Think of us when you do!
We hope you have a good night!
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