Week 21

Monday, August 19, 2002

I ran out of propane during the night, so first order of business was to fill up again. The campground had this service, so I used it. My CD player that I had fixed in Palmer Alaska, went out on me again, so I tried to have that fixed too. The mechanic, who seemed like he knew what he was doing, was unable to fix it, so he recommended another place in town. I went there and they said they could get to it by a week from now. Forget it! I’ll play my CDs from the computer. Now that my chores were finished, I headed for West Edmonton Mall. Unlike Saturday night when I was there, the place was jumping today. The first thing I did when I arrived was to get a ticket to ride the roller coaster ($8.40). This is the largest indoor coaster in the world. It is more than 4200 feet long and 125 feet high. Top speed 60 mph; with 3 loops. It was a terrific ride. After that, I walked through the mall and bought a few things; went to the Marine Adventure Exhibit which was one level below the mall and had alligators, penguins, sharks, etc. It was small but pretty good. There is a life size replica of Columbus’s ship, The Santa Maria on display and they actually have a submarine ride in the large lake in the mall. I rode the submarine, which was similar to the one that they used to have at Walt Disney World. By this time it was dinner time, and I had a hankering for Chinese food. Would you believe that there are 101 restaurants in this mall, but not one Chinese restaurant? So I decided to leave and drive around until I found one. I drove around for nearly two hours without finding a Chinese restaurant that was open and that I would eat at. I finally settled for a Denny’s.

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

I hated to leave Edmonton this morning, there were so many things that I would like to have seen. I will have to come back another time. I headed South out of town heading for Calgary. I heard about a very interesting place near Calgary called Drumheller. There is supposed to be a very nice museum there all about dinosaurs. The area near Drumheller is called Canada’s Badlands, similar to the Badlands of South Dakota. From all that I heard about it, I decided to detour around Calgary and go to Drumheller instead. After all, I’ve been to Calgary before. I had picked out a RV park there called Dinosaur Trails RV Resort, but when I was passing through town, I saw a place called Dinosaur Trails Trailer Park, and I turned into it. Before I realized that I was in the wrong place, I had paid for two nights. This place is close to the town, but the other place is more in the Badlands. Oh well, next time I’ll read more carefully. They have a nice visitor’s center nearby within walking distance. In front of the visitor’s center they have what they claim is the world’s largest dinosaur. You can climb the 106 steps inside of the dinosaur and look out of his mouth at 86 feet high. This I did.

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Today is Eddie’s 29^th birthday. I called this evening, but he was not at home. The Royal Tyrell Museum is really great. Not only are they displaying skeletons of every kind of dinosaur known to man, but there are scientists all over the place working on bones. They stop what they are doing to explain every detail. It is a huge museum and it took quite a while to go through it all. After leaving the museum, I drove along the North Dinosaur trail to a couple of overlooks overlooking the canyons of the badlands. Then to the Bleriot Ferry, a small cable ferry across the Red Deer River, about a 5 minute trip, then along the South Dinosaur trail to more overlooks, then back into the town of Drumheller, then continued along the South Dinosaur trail to Rosedale. From there I took a side trip to Wayne, AB, which is a dead end road that is listed in the Guiness Book of records as the most bridges in the shortest distance. There are 11 bridges in 10 miles. At the end of the road is a near ghost town called Wayne. Wayne has a hotel and a bar called the Last Chance Saloon. It is a neat place. I went in and had a beer and counted the bullet holes in the walls. The owner told me the history of the place which dated back to 1913. It has been in his family since the beginning. After leaving Wayne, I returned to Rosedale and stopped at a suspension pedestrian bridge across the Red Deer River. It was about 100 yards long, and had quite a swing to it. My final stop for the day was at a Provincial park displaying Hoo Doos. These are large rock formations that are in the shape of giant mushrooms. I was surprised to see people climbing all over these delicate rock formations despite the fact that there were signs posted warning you not to do it under penalty of $50,000 fine or 1 year in prison. I left there and headed back to the Dinosaur Park Trailer Park and spent the night.

Thursday, August 22, 2002

I left the Dinosaur Park Trailer Park this morning and headed South on some of the back country roads of Alberta. I traversed a little bit of the trans-Canada highway, then turned again onto County roads at Brooks. Tonights stop is at Kinbrook Island Provincial Park. It is a beautiful park on Lake Newell. My campsite was overlooking the lake and lots of very friendly people there. No electricity or water, but that’s what’s nice about being self contained. I have a full tank of gas and a full tank of water.

Friday, August 23, 2002

This Kinbrook Island Provincial Park is so calm, peaceful and serene, that I decided to spend another day here. There is a beautiful beach on the lake and besides, they havew a nice laundry here, and I am a little behind in that area. I re-registered in the morning, did the laundry and spent the rest of the day vegging out on the beach. I never put my watch on this morning, so I had no idea what time it was. I figured, when the sun went down, I would return to the princess. It was really a do-nothing day.

Saturday, August 24, 2002

Reluctantly, I left Kinbrook and headed south toward the border. The county road that I was on suddenly turned to dirt. It was smooth but dusty. After about 5 miles, I got back on Alberta 36 and headed on my way. About an hour later I arrived at the border town of Coutts, Alberta, then through customs into Sweetgrass, Montana. USDA officials at the border came on board and confiscated 2 apples that I had. They said that they were from New Zealand, and although you can get New Zealand apples in the US, Canada does not properly fumigate them, I didn’t argue! After crossing the border, I headed directly into a plague of locusts and grasshoppers. I stopped for gas in Shelby, MT and the front of the Princess was disgusting with a huge collection of locusts, grasshoppers and dirt. After filling up with 75 gallons of gas, I had lunch and continued to Great Falls. There I had picked a campground called Dick’s RV Park. It was a very nice park in the center of town. After checking in, I drove to the nearby Wal-Mart and picked up a few things, then back to the campground. I decided that I would spend another day there, since I wanted to get the oil changed and thoroughly clean the Princess inside and out.

Sunday, August 25, 2002

I spent the entire day cleaning. Washed the Princess inside and out, took everything out of my storage bins and cleaned them good. Everything had a thick coat of dirt on it. By the end of the day, I was really beat. So ends week 21. Tomorrow, I will be heading South again to Yellowstone National Park.