DAY EIGHT: Again God had a different idea of how our trip should work out…

Thank you, Piper, for forwarding yesterday's horoscope to us: " You will be tempted to wonder 'where did I go wrong?', but you're much better off because things did't work out as planned". It was perfectly apropos and made us laugh out loud. 

This morning we woke to a sunny sunrise peeking out from under the heavy cloud cover spreading over the area. And, as we got on the road we saw that our Hwy 2 route was washed out and barred from entry due to the flooding that is pouring forth from Calgary south. The road is intermittantly gone south of Calgary to Ft Macleod. We mulled over a few options and decided to go north on 23, dart to the east around Calgary and head for Edmonton via county roads. Talk about back road driving. What beautiful, but soggy land. 

So far the roads are dry, but the rivers are a-risin'. The first bridge we crossed had a policeman stationed there watching the water rise. Then we went over another bridge that put fear in our hearts as the water was racing towards the east and was well over the  banks. Giant tree trunks and logs, like white water rafters, were hastening to their final destination. Tho there was no white water, only muddiness.

Eight Hours Later:  The balance of our day has been, thankfully, uneventful. Rain followed us for a while in the morning, but the landscape and the storm clouds were dramatic and made for pleasant riding. Around noon the rain stopped, and the puffy white clouds and brilliant blue sky added to the pleasantness of the day. The winds were quite strong all day, until we got east of Edmonton. Our circumventing Calgary took us about 50 miles to the east and then turned back toward to Edmonton. We passed east of the city, went north above it, and then turned west. And, west is where we're headed to Whitecourt AB. It's the farthest north we have been in Canada thus far in our lifetime. 

Of all the animals we saw today, cows, horses, horses, horses, cows, 1 deer, 4 prairie dogs, the coyote among the horses  was the most interesting. The horses didn't care. And, the coyote didn't like having his picture taken.

The roads have been quite smooth until this afternoon, and now they are slightly 'lumpy' which I suppose is a foretaste of the permafrost damaged roads we'll experience on the Alaska Highway. Will stop now as it's difficult to write with the occasional bouncing. 

See you tomorrow.

DAY SEVEN: We finished yesterday evening dashing to Shelby MT to beat the ever darkening storm sky. We listened to radio reports of severe storms with golf ball sized hail. In our best judgement that meant we needed a place to store our Einstein if the hail was to be a reality. Zipping into Shelby we took a room at a motel that had an underground garage. And sure enough, later in the evening the skies let loose with a terrific thunderstorm. Don't know if the hail happened, but at least all our stuff was dry and not damaged.

We moved on today to Glacier National Park, and although it was a grey day, 30 degrees colder than yesterday, and still extremely windy, we made our way into the park as far as passage was allowed before being caught in a dense fog and snowstorm. The road through Glacier was open for 18 miles, and we ohhh-ed and awe-ed our way through some of the most magnificent mountains we've ever seen. Reaching up over 9,000 ft and snow covered, each was laced with ribbon waterfalls dropping down through deep gorges to the St Mary River.

Along the way we caught a couple of signs of wildlife: a prairie dog in the sights of a stalking coyote. Stopping to take photos interrupted his dinner. We also saw a red tailed hawk. And lots and lots of tourists. There were signs warning about grizzly bears, so we avoided those trails. We did, however, get out and check out a large roiling creek as it made it way down the mountainside, passed under an impressive stone bridge, and on through the forest.

Our 4 hour sojourn through Glacier was a blessing because we only made it as far as Ft Macleod, Alberta today, and again the weather was threatening. We went to a campground only to find out that the entire area is under a flood warning. Apparently, the snow melt-off somewhere west of Calgary was flooding out a local river, the dam was nearing overflow, the dam-minders didn't open the gates soon enough and when they did it was opened too much, and a large wall of water was washing its way through Calgary and down Hwy 2. The town of Ft Macleod is expecting flood waters to arrive  sometime late this evening, and the campground wasn't accepting campers for fear of the possibility of evacuation later tonight. So we moved to local higher grounds, and found a motel that didn't expect inundation (we hope).

Meanwhile, 10,000+ Calgarians have been flooded out, with many of those homes washed away. No reports of loss of life, thankfully. But the flood waters are rushing south and east with little let up. Locals say this has happened in the past, most recently in 2008.  

Now we are rethinking our route for tomorrow because it is the melt-off from Banff and Jasper National Parks that's causing all the trouble and has flooded the road going into the parks that was to be our route. Perhaps we'll go east, take a direct route to Edmonton and be grateful we didn't get caught in the Calgary deluge. 

Tonight feels like "Camp Disappointment"
but we are not discouraged - just challenged.

DAY SIX: We have sad news. Not through any fault of our own, there is one less sandpiper in the world. It made a kamikaze shot at our windshield and gave it's life for nothing - didn't effect our windshield or speed. Altho us passengers did duck.

The contrast differences between the states are unbelievable. Whereas ND was prairie, like MT is prairie, ND also had trees and bodies of water in abundance. MT is the horizon-to-horizon abundance of flatness. The fields of this state could certainly have been the inspiration for American The Beautiful's "amber waves of grain", except it's not grain it's grasses, and they sway in the breeze like the kelp beds tossed to and fro under under the sea. The wind blows incessantly. It's all so spectacular! 

This morning the azure blue of the sky against the greens of the trees in our campground nearly brought Keith to tears. He's so sensitive that way. 

We didn't see the big sky full of stars last night; it clouded over. But the sunrise was afire with color - so we were told. We both slept through it. Up at 6AM and packed by 7 we hit the road to get groceries, a new inflatable bed for the one that struck a leak. (It's amazing how God works. We walked into the sporting goods department just as the clerk marked down 50% the bed we were looking for. And when we got to the register, the cashier rang it up a dollar less.) 

Missouri River side of reservoir

Small portion of Ft Peck Reservoir

Ft Peck MT (where we'd camped) boasts the world's largest hydraulic earth dam - about a mile long. It controls the Missouri River which cuts through this part of the country, The was built in the 30's by the Corps of Engineers to assist with watering the NE corner of the state. The damming of the river produced one of the largest recreation lakes in the state. Ft Peck Reservoir boasts 1500 miles of shoreline, and plenty of walleye, smallmouth bass, and ling and chinook salmon. Too bad we didn't bring a boat!!

Semi-truck atop earthen dam. 

Eagle on nest.

Thus far, we've seen a moderate amount of wildlife - dead and alive. (Keith is an avid aficionado of these things and I've been keeping a spreadsheet of the tally.) The repertoire today consists of deer (3 live), antelope (1 dead, 4 alive), ring-necked pheasant (1 live) plus a variety of birds I spend a fair amount of time trying to identify with our bird book. But the day is early, and the big four ledgers tend to show up closer to the evening. Oh yes, thousands and thousands of cattle - black, brown, white and varieties in between. We see a lot of "harses" (yeah, that's how they say it here) and cowboys.

Doe and Fawn

Antelope feeding at roadside.

Still heading west. Traffic at a minimum. One construction delay thus far today. And just now, on the horizon, to the NE, is the first sitings of mountains. (They're a good 2 hours or more away.)

Mother Nature's promise of weather to com . . .

Overnight in Shelby MT

DAY FIVE: Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along, Merrily we roll along, across the Dakota plains. Another picture perfect day. Sound boring? Not at all. As we were about 3/4 the way across ND, we came to the part of the country that NatGeo recently reported is the new oil fracking site in N America. There is enough oil below the prairies to make the US oil independent, and there are signs all over of the "black gold" being prospected by major oilers. It's hard to imagine that these pumping stations, oil storage holding tanks, big rig truckers charging up and down the dirt roads, and the mile long trains hauling oil will be are future of this area. This production has helped to make ND have the lowest unemployment in the US. On the other hand, I imagine the people who live here can see their beautiful landscape change daily as more and more oil is sucked out of the land. The landowners do not have much of say in this matter. According to ND law, the property owners have rights to minerals, etc. a few hundred feet below the topsoil. Anything further down belongs to the state.

It's uncanny to see the haphazard arrangement of RV campers in the oil company worksites and flimsy modular homes that have been "lego-ed" together, all to house the workers who have migrated from all over the country.There are literally thousands of these temporary houses. The tankers racing to and fro along parts of Hwy 2 make MI's I-94 look like a pleasant country drive. Fortunately, the area of fracking does not cover too large a portion of the north western section of the state, at this time.

We don't mean for this to sound sourly negative. It's just a fact of life out here in western ND. It's much like the drastic changes that followed with the gold rush, e.g. in the 1890's San Francisco had a population of 800 pre-gold discovery and 36, 000 in the post.

Today we've traversed our first bouts of road construction. Only one section stopped us for about 15 minutes for road paving; probably a portent of the future in the days ahead. Some bumpy roads, but no permafrost.

There's lots of lazy black angus (can I say that?) cattle all over the countryside. They present a beautiful contrast to the emerald green of the fields and the topaz blue of the many, many small and large lakes that dot this highway. It will be interesting to see how far into Montana this prairie scenery goes . We will be spending the evening somewhere in "big sky country", and looking forward to seeing night's stars. Many years ago we camped in western MT and the star-scape was indescribable. Hopefully, we'll have a clear night.

Little Einstein scoots along zippity-quick like he
was made for the long haul.

DAY FOUR: With all the rain from yesterday, there was some concern in the  evening that we'd have a wet night. Although it was chilly we were dry. So we hunkered down in a quiet little RV park by a lake. Quaintly picturesque.

We hit the road about 9AM today, and began a morning's search for a McDonald's where I could connect to the internet and we could also find coffee. HaH! Little towns in MN are little.. That's another way of saying NO McDonand's, B-King,, or similar coffee stations. After about an hour or more of driving and bemoaning the morning java, we finally stopped at a very small gas/grocery store and got the coffee. An hour later we stopped in Bimidji and wired up to a McDonalds where we shared a Dulce de Leche shake (thank you, Alisa) and completed yesterday's posting. 

MN changed scenery on us today, and we went from a forest landscape as far as we could see, to the unending plains. Huge farms, all planted in a dense green unidentifiable crop. Trees only used for wind breaks. Very, very pretty. And the openness of the prairie only exaggerates the size of sky and cumulous clouds. Ah the fruited plain. We won't hit the purple mountain majesties for a couple of days. Within an hour or less from now we'll be in N Dakota. 

Time now for an afternoon break, a short nap. First day we've felt compelled to revive ourselves mid-day.

ND is much like MN with the grand prairie surrounding us. We rolled along with great ease, watching the weather on the horizon. The most signifiant moments of this day were the various people who approached us at the rest areas and gas stations, and at our overnight campsite, to talk about our journey and  the size, make, construction, fuel mileage, etc. of our little Einstein. Most are quite impressed, "It's a convertible!?!",  and share their journeys with us. Everyone has been so delightful to talk with.

 

Overnight we stayed at the Graham Island County Park on Devil's Lake. What a beautiful campsite. We are off now to see what adventures this day holds. The day is clear, with a blue-bird sky and a gentle breeze - bright and sunny. Wish you were here. Wish everyone could experience the serene and placid countryside. (So much better than traveling the interstate.) Surely we are surrounded with the peace of heaven. Thank you, God. 

DAY THREE - Such a beautiful morning. We were staying at Cathy & Mike Clawson's in Big Bay MI. Cathy is Keith's niece. We woke to a deer eating from the trees on the edge of their property. It then laid down for about an hour in the back yard before it was startled by something and headed back into the forest. What a great way to start Sunday morning. 

For the hunter's and animal lovers among us.
(You may be both, & that's OK.)

After breakfast we went church at St Mary's in Big Bay. The church was almost full - approx. 100 people in attendance, The music ministry consisted of a guitar player and an organist, and the congregation sang with gusto. The service was a faith-filled experience, and the associate pastor delivered an inspiring homily perfectly suited to Father's Day. (Either we're getting old, or priests are being ordained younger. This guy hardly looked 30.) His faith was solid and he shared it easily. We spent about 15 minutes after Mass talking to him about our journey and received his blessing before we left. The Big Bay community is very hospitable and we felt very welcome and comfortable there.

St. Mary's Parish - Big Bay, Michigan

Cathy and Mike made this first stop on our journey perfect. They are most welcoming and very hospitable. Their home is absolutely beautiful. On 37 acres, the house is 3 bedrooms, two stories, and (quilters, pay attention) her basement is a quilters paradise. The storage; the machines; the fabrics, threads, notions. . .it helps she used to manage a JoAnn's Fabrics in Marquette for many years. She and Mike built 90% of their home themselves over a period of 11 years. Unbelievable.

Mike's 1st and 2nd loves . . . not sure of the order!

 

In the early afternoon we left and had a spectacular day for traveling. The U.P. of Michigan was a visual delight of verdant forests and fields, and that kind of puffy-cloud-blue-sky day that makes you think of God's glory. We crossed over to Wisconsin with lush farmlands and cows that WI is famous for. The weather turned wet and we could watch the storms move towards us as we approached them. A few spat upon us, and these were followed by windy downpours that nearly obliterated the view of the road. This was an on-again off-again experience through the balance of the afternoon. We slid into Minnesota on blue skies, again, and the scenery looked more like the UP with deep forests lining the roadway. 

We're camped now at a lovely little campground in Grand Rapids, MN - yes MN has one of those towns, too. It's late so we'll see you in the morning on the road, again.

For those of you who are map-reading challenged, little Einstein is sitting on Grand Rapids MN. That big-city cluster --he yellow spot criss-crossed with red lines -- is St. Paul. 

DAY ONE - The journey beings with a great deal anticipation and nervous excitement. We can hardly fathom that we are making this trip. The days is beautiful, weather perfect. We arrived at our camping destination for the night and have nestled ourselves into our sleeping bags. 

Our best memory of the day was the German couple and a rest stop custodian. We met them at one of the rest stops near Mackinaw. When we first saw them they were fascinated by our car and trailer and were filming it. We spent about a half hour talking about their travels, and sharing our plans. They were so delightful to talk with. We got them to sign our travel book and shared our blog site with them. But neither of us remembered to take a picture of them. (Phooey!)

U.P. forests are "to die for" . . .

Bugs are always an issue. But, a cute
pump jockey is worth it!

Sleeping bag - like working
with a large wet noodle!

Keith's niece, Cathy, is our generous and most
hospitable hostess. Staying here was the
perfect place to be at the beginning of our trip.
She and her husband, Mike, made it all
worthwhile. Thank you, Cathy, for the all
the love and beautiful weather and
wildlife in your yard.

DAY TWO - Morning began about 8AM. The call of coffee was strong, but we had to pack up the camp first before we could head to the nearest caffeine provider. Replacing all the items we removed from the car the night before entailed an entire repack of the trailer and most of the car. But we were successful and moved on within about an hour. After a quick tour of Mackinaw City we found a gas station and Burger King across the street from each other. A good sign of the day to come. The view from the bridge with pristine and lovely as ever. Upper MI is one of the prettiest places to drive. Emerald forests surrounding fertile fields and verdant swamps. Quaint little specs of towns dotting the roadside. All edged with Lake Michigan, until we moved to the northern side and snaked our way along Lake Superior. Big Bay is a village of 250 residents nestled in the forests above Marquette about 25 miles. An extensive variety of homes settled along dead end dirt roads, all that lead to no where in particular except the last house.

Tonight my only frustration is that I can't get this computer to recognize the free Wi-Fi at this campsite, so my first nightly update is delayed by my lack of techno-savy. The clerks in the camp office were helpful and patient, but lacked more than basic skills. I'll have to wait to find help in the morning. Unfortunately, there are no Apple stores in the upper part of MI. It's like owning a Rolls Royce and unable to get proper care for the car while you're on the desert.

Here's where we landed DayTwo and began DayThree

We have seen a variety of wildlife - dead and alive. Keith has been keeping a list of how many of each. Will update you when we leave MI. He wants to keep animal tallies on all the states and provinces we traverse.

With any luck we'll land at a campsite where the WiFi connection is as easy as it was at Cathy & Mike's.