Pincher Creek, Alberta

Pincher Creek Countryside

We're in Canada, in a little town called Pincher Creek in Alberta. Pincher Creek is in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, just north of the International Peace Park which is comprised of Waterton Lakes National Park on the Canadian side and Glacier National Park on the US side. Pincher is known as one of the windiest places on earth, and has a huge windfarm to prove it.

We're parked at the home of our friends Art and Sharon Bonertz. They have been wonderful hosts, feeding us wonderful food and they have a full hookup RV site right in their front yard.

This is our second trip to Pincher, and we've lost count of how many times we've visited with Art and Sharon somewhere. They spent a month with us at Jekyll Island last winter.

Art promised to build a bike rack for Consuelo for her three-wheeler incumbent bike. We've been carrying her trike on the back of out VW bug on a standard bike rack. It will travel OK there, but it's heavy and rides off balance. The new rack will mount on the tow bar hitch on the back of the motorhome. He fabricated most of it after he got home from Jekyll, and has been waiting for us to arrive to do the final fitting. It will work well, but still needs a bit of modification to balance properly.

Cooperative back scratching

Yesterday we ventured out to find the local Wal-Mart (they're everywhere) to pick up some odds and ends and replenish our larder.

Our trip into Canada turned out to be a bit challenging. We left the city in shorts, as they were expecting highs in the 80's and were well on their way by the time we got on the road. We cruised up to Shelby, MT, stopping there to fill our gas tank. We then took US 2 over to Cut Bank, MT, and took the rural road up to the border crossing at Del Bonita, Alberta.

Soon after we got out of Cut Bank, the west wind started blasting across the open prairies in what I perceived to be 30-40 mph with higher gusts. It was strong enough to open the awning over our slide which started bouncing in and out. I went to the roof and was able to secure the latches with a couple bungee cords, which stabilized that one. The smaller bedroom window awning tried to unfurl, but only came out a few inches again and again. Fortunately, our large awning was on the lee side of the coach. The wind continued until we arrived in Pincher Creek, alternately a cross wind and head wind as we zig-zagged in a west then north direction across the high prairie.
Pincher Creek Windmills

The border crossing was easy this time. Whereas we had been told to leave our coach whit the border agents searched it the last time we entered Canada, we only had a visit from a nice customs agent this time. We did have to produce vaccination papers for our pup, not unexpected. And of course we had our passports ready.

We're about 1/2 way through our planned week long Pincher visit.

Montana

World Famous!?

I know my head has been under a bushel, but World Famous applied to the Bucking Horse Sale in Miles City, Montana escaped me somehow. Perchance World Famous can be applied to an event that one person saw, then he/she traveled all over the world? Or, maybe the folks out there have their tongue stuck into their cheek?

Aside from debating the superlative adjective, there were people attending this event from around the northwest states. The campground we found was full, so we eneded up in an overflow site with electric only. This confounded our plans to get some laundry done while we were there, so we adjusted our plan to stay only one night instead of two.

Miles City Hitching Post

I found this hitching post amusing, perhaps because my Yankee mind is not ensnared in the cliche which surrounds the western natives. I find it funny because it appears that the horses all got away and left their bits behind, but the tree was not so fortunate, humorously attesting to the lack of cowboy skills of the locals.

So, instead of Miles City, we spent two nights in Great Falls. That may have been a blessing, because Great Falls offered some views and interesting history not to be found in Miles City

Black Eagle Falls & Dam

Great Falls was the major challenge for the Lewis and Clark Expedition as they worked their way up the Missouri River. They had heard that there was a large waterfall on the Missouri from the Native Americans as they approached from the east. Their perception was one big waterfall which they could get by with a simple portage. After arriving there, they found not one, but 5 waterfalls, plus numerous cascades. They surveyed routes, and decided to carry their boats and gear around to the south of the river, over a distance of 18 miles. The portage took them a month to complete.

Rainbow Falls & Dam

Today, the 4 of the 5 falls are complemented with dams which channel the Missouri through hydroelectric powere plants to produce powere for the region. The 5th waterfall eneded up under the water behind one of the dams.

We parked in Dick's Campgorund in Great Falls. It's a little hard to find the entrance, but it had spacious pull through sites. Disk's was nearly full, to, but it was because the Canadians had a long weekend for Vicrtoria Day, and the Albertians were venturing south to escape the cold, windy days that were still lingering on up north.

North Dakota

North Dakota Capitol

Yes, that building in the background is the Capitol of North Dakota. Around Bismarck, it's called the skyscraper. They claim it's not the tallest structure in North Dakota; that honor goes to a 2000 foot TV tower. So, I guess it's just the tallest building in North Dakota.

We found time for a walk around the ground on a crisp May morning. The grounds are adorned with various statues, generally representing the historical development of North Dakota. The statue in front of the capitol is of the Pioneer Family. The settlement of North Dakota by Europeans is a story of hardship, working difficult land with few resources. The pioneers built sod huts, huddled together for warmth in arctic winters, and scraped meager crops out of the hard prairie. Somebody had to do it. I'm really glad it wasn't me.

Buffalo Statue

The buffalo is another important icon in the history of North Dakota. Plains Indians hunted them for food, clothing, bowstrings, dishes, and numerous other elements of life. The white men hunted them for the sheer sport of killing a big animal, nearly sending them into extinction.

Lewis and Clark ventured up the Missouri River in search of the mythical Northwest Passage. They hired a french trapper, Charbonneau, to guide for them. He brought along his Indian wife, Sakakawea (also spelled Sakagawea), which turned out to be a most fortunate event. Having a woman in the party suggested that the expedition was peaceful. In addition, Sakakawea's brother turned out to be a Shoshone chief that they encountered, and her presence pacified the skittish tribe.
Sakakwea

The statue of Sakakwea on the capitol grounds was sculpted by Chicago artist Leonard Crunell and unveiled in 1910, shortly after the 100th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's expedition. Crunell used a woman named Mink, also known as Hannah Levings, as the model for Sakakwea. Mink is a direct descendant of Sakakwea.

Killing the goose

We're in Rochester, Minnesota, our old home town, visiting friends and getting our annual physicals. Our physicals turned out well, everything under control. After our checkups, we partied with my old work friends, played some golf, and looked around Rochester for update and changes.

The dam at Silver Lake

One surprising change was the shores of Silver Lake, which was across the street from where we camped, the Silver Lake Travel Trailer Park. Silver Lake is a man made body of water, created by the damming of the Zumbro River. Having a lake helps Rochester feel as if it belongs to Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, since Rochester, and the surrounding Olmsted County has no natural lakes.

Up the river from the lake is the coal fired power plant of Rochester Public Utilities. The plant is run by a friend of mine, Wally Schlink, who I got a chance to play golf with, have lunch and visit while I was there. But I digress. The power plant has a history of warming thew water in the river, and consequently the lake, such that the lake never freezes in the winter. Even in temperatures of 30 degrees below zero F the lake doesn't freeze over.

Rochester's iconic geese

Now I'll be the first to admit that Canadian Geese aren't the smartest animals on the planet. They seem to be focussed on finding meals and perfecting flying around in V formations. They also seem to have a contest to see who can have the largest flock of goslings. Once the goslings can swim, the parents parade them around the lake in a line so that all the other geese can count them.

Notwithstanding their lack of intelligence, the have enough smarts to know when their tushie is warm. And a lake that never freezes has got to be a big attraction for them. Since they don't bother to fly Northwest Airlines south for the winter, a shorter flight appeals to them. Fewer frequent flier miles, but then there's that nice warm lake, which I imagine is almost as good as sex to them.

The beat goes on

Whatever is going on in their little minds, they found Rochester to be a great spa in the winter time. Reports of 30,000 to 50,000 geese camping out on the shores of Silver Lake were not unusual. To keep their geese happy, the city put out boxes full of corn for visitors to buy and feed to the geese. Hey, the geese like the lake, the people like the geese, the city makes a few bucks and has a natural icon in their fake lake.

But their is often a black lining behind a silver cloud when you try to fool mother nature. In this case, it was tons of goose poop. In the lake, on the lawns of the houses around the lake. Traffic jams. And perhaps disease in the Med City. So the city fathers and mothers took action before they got goosed out of office. They passed resolutions to ask th e geese to move on. They decided to forego the nickels and dimes from the goose food. They said that the geese must go.

Now, it seems to me that the most efficient way to get rid of the geese would be to shut down the power plant, since it's the warm water that was the attraction that got the geese there in the first place. But that really would have been killing the golden goose. So they decided to try ecologic measures to encourage the geese to spend their winters in Iowa, or maybe even Missouri. They took away the goose food. Bad restaurants, or no restaurants, is known to kill tourism. But the geese have a great time flying their big Vs to all the corn fields around Rochester and picking them over for droppings from the corn machines. So the food alone would be a marginal success. And convincing the farmers not to grow corn didn't look like a workable solution.

"Beautified" lake shore

The next steps, from what I see, were to put fences around the lake. In some areas, wires with dangling aluminum foil were strung between the fences at the shore and fences along the sidewalk. Prairie wildflowers were planted between the fences, to further make the shores unattractive to the geese.

And from what I see, most the geese either cashed in their frequent flier miles and had left town by now, or the measures are by and large working. A few geese lingered around the lake, probably the ones that had heard the stories from great grandpa about the wonders of the hot springs in Rochester and came to see for themselves. A few goslings were around the lake, some caught on the wrong side if the fence from their frantic parents.

So far, it seems to me that the ban the goose project has traded one sort of ugly for another sort of ugly. I suppose it took years for the geese to establish Rochester as a prime destination, they're not going to want to go down to Branson anytime soon. And besides, Branson has its own anti waterfowl program underway.

Something sucks!

There's an old joke in state A about how the wind always blows toward state B because state B sucks. Well, today we were traveling in Missouri, and the wind was bloing from the south. I'll leave it up to the imagination of any readers north of here as to which state is state B in the old joke.

60's Hits in Branson

We spent a couple nights in Branson, MO, parking in the Escapees' Turkey Creek RV Salon. They don't call it a salon, but I can't think of the whatg they do call it. It's a convenient location, just a mile or so from the Landing, and a few miles to the strip. We took in a show, #1 Hits of the Sixties. My expectations were pretty low, given that we chose one of the cheapest tickets on the list. But I was pleasantly surprised. The talent was excellent, both vocally and choreograhically. They said it's a new version of the show, which has been running for 7 years, so I thought some of the dance routines were simplistic. But they were very energetic, got the audience (mostly all our age) involved, even me. I got up on stage and competed in a trivia test, trying to remember the name of TV shows based on them playing theme songs. I won the contest, and a $20 gift certificate to a Branson restaurant, which we turned into a free breakfast.

Wow, $1.99 Diesel!!!

Leaving there, we mosied up toward Kansas City. On the way, at the junction of I44, we found diesel fuel for $1.99 per gallon, the first time back under $2 since... probably 2005. That will help in our journey to Alaska this summer, keep it up... er, down guys. It was just a tad ironic that the gas station was on a chunk of the old Route 66. Old road, old time prices.

In Preston, we turned the trip west. The south wind then became a serious cross wind, blowing us all over the road. My guess is that it was in the 25-40 mph range. A bit uncomfortable. We heard a couple of undetermined clunks on the roof. I think it was the TV antenna trying to get airborne, but it could have been a window awning getting itself out for a stretch. No harm, no foul.


Lunch in Nevada, MO

On the way, we stopped for lunch in Nevada. Nevada, Missouri, that is. We had been discussing earlier in the day what mountain ranges had towns in them by the same name, as we passed through Ozark, MO. We found Rocky, Colorado, and Adirondack, NY. But no Green in VT, or White in NH. Ah, well. While in Nevada, we pondered whether there are other cities named after states in other states. None came to mind, and we didn't think we had the right technology to research the question.

Vernon County Courthouse

Turns out that Nevada is the county seat for Vernon County, MO, and they had one of the prettiest court houses that we've seen in our travels.

We took a walk through downtown, a downtown that is in the throes of dying, like so many around the US. Sad. Are we unable to reinvent our cities to become at least a glimmer of their former vitality?

Along the way, we got a call from Ronnie Douglas, manager of the Jekyll Island Campground. He had a conversation with a guest about the wifi there, and my name came up. I calle the guest later, to see if there was another opportunity to consult, but it sounded like his problem was too far toward being solved elsewhere for me to make much of a difference.

Parked in Louisburg

We finally crossed into Kansas, and turned north in Fort Scott. The cross wind turned into a lovely tail wind, and we rolled north into Louisburg, KS, the closest we could get to Kansas City. The campground is attached to a theatre that does a show every Saturday night, and most of the campers come here for the show, I think. We have other plans.

Moving on up

On the beach in Carrabelle

Leaving Bushnell and hot, hot Florida days behind, we tripped to Carrabelle, FL, a little town west of the Big Bend in the Florida Panhandle. We found an Escapees discount park which just happened to have a site available right on the water's edge. We really enjoyed sitting in our captain's chairs, drinking coffee in the morning, watching the few fisherpersons go out in their inflatable boats, or watching the sandpipers on the beach just below our front bumper.

We also walked along the beach. It's quite a drastic change to watch tides only go up and down by a couple feet, after the 9 foot tides at Jekyll and the 11 foot tides in Maine.


Tricolored heron

One morning visitor we had on the beach was this tricolored heron that was dong some fishing of his own. He had an unusual way of stretching his neck out and turning his head on its side, presumably to see better in the light chop on the water. He didn't appear to be very successful catching fish, but then, he probably eats like a bird.



Saint George Island Light

On Saturday, we hopped into the car and tripped along the shore into Carrabelle, then on to Eastport and the new bridge to Saint George Island. There's a state park on Saint George that we wanted to stay in, but it was full, full, full. We had reservations to go there a couple years ago, and it's still on our list. Where the bridge lands on the island is touristy, but the state park is a wonderful beach park at the eastern end. Small campground, though, only 60 sites.

On Monday, we left Carrabelle with a plan to get the the Escapees park in Summerdale, AL. But we ran into severe thunderstorm, tornado and flood watches and warnings after about 40 miles. We hunkered down in Quincy, FL, in a ratty just-off-the-highway campground for the night. On Tuesday, we rolled into Summerdale, and ended up staying 3 nights there. We got some of our RV repairs and updates done, and Consuelo spent some time with other pine needle basketmakers.

On Friday, with potentially severe weather again on the horizon, we left Summerdale and got as far as Jackson, MS, where we snuggled into the corner of a Flying J parking lot for the night. Our plan had been to get to Vicksburg, but we had a late start.

On Saturday, we travelled to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Since much of this trip was to be on US roads, I was concerned that it would take too long. But the US roads were mostly 4 lane, and traffic was relatively light, so travel was nearly as fast as on the interstates.

Hot Springs Bath House

On Sunday, we toured the Hot Springs National Park. Hot Springs was the first natural resource to be protected by the US fereral government in the 1830s. In the 1920s, it became a National Park.

The park encompasses the hot springs themselves, producing thousands of gallons of clear, clean water at 143 degrees F every day. Said to cure ailments, hot bathing facilities were built to serve the tourists, and the town grew up around this industry. Famous people and gangsters made their way here to relax.

Consuelo in the shower

The luxurious Fordyce Baths were the most luxurious of the bath parlors built, and the building is now the home of the NP Visitor's Center. Catering to larger and larger crowds, the bath parlors added massages, medical devices, exercise machines, and fresh air to their regimen of treatment. The wonder drugs developed by the medical industry caused the decline of hot springs as a primary cure, but the National Park mission still includes managing the output of the springs.

April

Naples Wedding

It's April, and we've left Jekyll Island. The first thing we needed to do was go to a wedding in Naples, FL. Consuelo's nephew Gabe was getting married. Consuelo made origami boxes as favors, and little hand fans with the program info on them. That was a very smart thing to do, since it was an outdoor wedding in 85 degree heat.

My job was to take pictures for a digital guest book. I set up in front of a hedge at one side of the pavilion, and captured folks before they sat down. At least, that was the plan. Because of the heat, everybody stayed indoors until the time for the wedding, so I missed a few in the rush. But it turned out pretty well.

Sand Hill Crane

To avoid the cost of driving the RV to Naples, I parked it at the Escapees park in Bushnell, FL, about 40 miles south of Ocala. The park has a pair of sand hill cranes that wander around looking for food. They are beautiful creatures.

After the wedding, we returned to Bushnell and stayed for a few days since our friends the Lohrmanns were staying there. Otherwise, this park is pretty deserted at this time of year. Most of the winter guests have moved north already.

I managed to get our Internet satellite up and running, though it took me a while. I'm so out of practice after 5 static months in Maine, and never setting it up on Jekyll.

And I finally got our solar panels mounted on the roof, with Wayne Lohrmann's help. I have yet to find the wire that Alfa supposedly ran to connect them into the system, but they're out of the storage compartment, anyway.

We also filed our taxes while we were here.

Florida Butterfly

For diversion, we went to a wildlife area about 10 miles from the campground to hike and for Consuelo and Mary Jo to pick up long leaf pine needles to make baskets from. I expected to see some wildlife, but the small lake in the middle of the park was virtually dry, even though we had received an inch of rain a couple days before. The Southeast remains very dry, at least south of Georgia.

Today we pack up and begin our long journey toward Alaska. It's going to take a while.