THE “MOTHER” OF ALL TRIPS
We plan to depart on June 5th, 2025……return date – to be determined by the Gods……
Please don’t take me for 4 months………
The three Musketeers departed on schedule. Easy drive on the first day, slow traffic along Interstate 40 at TN border – so much damage from Helene. Spending the first night in KY at Grove Campground in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
“Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man, eyes like an eagle, balls like a beagle” …..that’s all I remember.
Slightly late start to our travels on the second day. Someone accidentally dropped a metal hook down the RV toilet, not something you want jamming the macerator pump so I had to remove the pump and drain the black tank manually. Such is RV life….
A slow day of driving, very heavy rain South and North of Lexington coupled with road construction everywhere but we arrived safely at our Harvest Host overnight stop – Howard School in Brownsburg IN.
Our next Harvest Host stay was at a golf course in Edgerton WI – good beer and food and a very animated host who gave us great advice for a scenic flight in Talkeetna AK.
Last night we stayed in a campground just outside St Cloud MN. St Cloud is a cool city with a river walk along the Mississippi River. We managed to coordinate a laundry wash and dry and eat a delicious breakfast at Jules’ Bistro nearby.
Tomorrow we cross into Canada 🇨🇦
We stayed at Buffalo River State park near Fargo ND. Very peaceful night and a beautiful riverside stroll.
ZuZu woke us up at 5:30 am – he doesn’t understand CST! It was worth it to see the sunrise though
The border post at Pembina certainly wasn’t a walk in the park. A lot of questions at the drive through window and then diverted to the search bays – I don’t think he liked my answers. More questions in the office, even “interrogated” us separately. I rescued ZuZu from the motor home before handing over the keys to both vehicles and waited in the office while 2 guys searched the motor home and tow vehicle. Thirty minutes later we were through the border and on to Winkler MB for motorhome maintenance.
Rather than go through another border crossing ordeal, we have now changed our travel plans and decided to stay in Canada and over the next week we will take the Trans-Canada highway all the way to Prince George and then onto the Cassiar Highway.
You see some interesting things on the local roads. I did not want to overtake this guy – relieved that he turned off.
Driving the Trans-Canada aka Route for the last couple of days has been great. Not much traffic, courteous driving and no speeding.
The only confusing thing is this sign below.
What exactly does this mean?
Are we to assume that the other unmarked intersections are un-important? I think the Farm roads and other County roads would be pissed to be thought of as “un-important” !
I think something got lost in translation – perhaps they meant to say Major intersection ahead. I am sure the little Farm Rd would be happier to be thought of as a Minor than Un- important.
We decided to drive the Icefield Parkway in both directions so instead of heading to Edmonton from Calgary, we drove to Banff. It is the quintessential ski town.
Lynne took this photo while we were buzzing along the Trans-Canada Highway at 110km/hr – amazing!
The only site we could get for the night was at Tunnel village – better than it looks. Tomorrow we head off to Lake Louise but here are some photos from our evening walk in downtown Banff and a stroll along the Bow River. The last photo is the view from our campground.
Before leaving Banff for Lake Louise we hiked the Voodoos trail on the Bow River and then rewarded ourselves with butter croissants from the Wild Flour bakery.
After setting up camp at Lake Louise campground it was off to hike around Lake Louise. We heard an avalanche but as y’all know with sound only traveling at 1,100 ft/sec it was over before we heard it.
We managed to get another night at Lake Louise so had time for a great walk with ZuZu along the river this morning.
We departed Lake Louise after our morning hike to drive the Icefields Parkway – supposedly the most beautiful highway in the world.
We started our Icefields Parkway drive in cloudy conditions but soon the sun came out. This is definitely the most scenic drive we have ever been on. Lynne found a great audio tour that she downloaded and it was so informative and interesting with great advice on where to stop.
Here are a few of our favorite pictures.
We found a great campground just before Jasper. No power but unlimited free firewood!
I woke up early to hike a few summits and took these photos
The Athabasca Falls were our last stop before heading out of Jasper. It is no wonder they say that glaciers supply almost all our water; the volume going down the Athabasca chute is phenomenal.
We stopped to refuel and stretch our legs at Mount Robson. At 3,945m, Mount Robson is the tallest of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and home to one of the largest caves in North America – the Arctomys.
We had made a reservation for Friday June 20th at Witset Campground just north of Smithers but our campsite neighbor in Prince George recommended Smithers municipal campground to us so we stopped by and found a FCFS (first come first serve) site on the banks of the Bulkley River and cancelled our Witset booking. Later we headed into town and stopped by the Smithers Brewing company (strangely drawn to breweries). Lynne didn’t like the look of the menu and started searching online for somewhere else and just then a local guy approached my window and welcomed us to the town and enquired if we needed any help or recommendations. He then provided us with multiple dining options from Sushi (Liam Neeson alleges is the best sushi he has ever had) to Tapas. He then gave us some sightseeing tips in the area and in the Yukon. We chose the Tapas option (The Roadhouse) and it was amazing!
If our camping neighbor had not mentioned the town we would not have experienced the unbelievable friendliness of a Smithers local and the exquisite dining experience.
How is that for Serendipity?
We are on the Cassiar Highway (Rt37)!!
We nearly didn’t make it though. We took a short detour to Hazelton to see the recommended suspension bridge and view and I stupidly tried to do a U-turn a few miles on to turn into a Rest area (did I say the wrong way).
Well – I didn’t make the turn with the tow and ended up on the edge of a steep ditch and the tow car still in the oncoming lane with a blind corner! You cannot reverse with a tow so I jumped out the van and ran to the corner to warn oncoming traffic.
Serendipity struck again – a very fit “70 something” lady cyclist stopped to help. She phoned the police and within minutes we had two patrol cars with flashing light stopping the traffic in both directions while I sheepishly unhooked the tow vehicle for Lynne to reverse and then I reversed the van and finally drove into the Rest stop where we hooked up again.
We then had a wonderful chat with our charming Good Samaritan about Canada and how damaging Trump is to both countries.
We explored neighboring Stewart today by car. After walking the extensive boardwalk we treated ourselves to delicious garlic prawn tacos at the only restaurant in town.
We are staying in Stewart BC and went on a day trip in the car to Salmon Glacier in AK. The mining company maintains the gravel road but it was still rocky and pot-holed but we made it there and back without any issues.
On our return we stopped in at the local fish shack and feasted on fried prawns and chips cooked to order by Diane. We were lucky she was there as she has an expecting mother goat named Molly.
We are still on the Cassiar Highway heading to Alaska. I will start a new page called Cassiar Highway to share the next portion of our travels as this page is getting a tad long. Unfortunately I can’t use the BLOG format and show recent posts first as all our other blogs are in there and page will take too long to load.
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