Month: June 2017

Hello from British Columbia!  We have made it to mile 0 of the Alcan – we are in Dawson Creek, BC, Canada.  We arrived here this afternoon around 4:00 local time (we are now on Pacific time), made a stop at the inevitable Walmart to stock up on some groceries, and then to our camground for the night, aptly named “Mile 0 Campground”.  Very nice campground, we’ve already met several folks here who are also heading up the Alcan.  Our neighbors right behind us have a German Short Hair, 3 1/2 years old.  He’s more brown than Jaeger was, but it was good to see another big one that acted a lot like Jaeger.

I think Dawson Creek is sort of a “staging area” for folks to get ready for the great beyond – the trip up north.  This is the kind of campground we like…well kept, friendly folks and not a mud hole – more on that in a moment.  We plan to stay in Dawson Creek until Sunday.  We have to move to a different campground tomorrow, there’s no availability at the one we are at now.  Hopefully we’ll like the other one just as well.

Saturday is Canada Day – sort of like our 4th of July.  They are celebrating 150 years, and we’ve heard things will be shut down Saturday, crazy people will be on the roads, and there’s no use trying to travel on that day.  So we’re going to take that good local advice and stay put until Sunday.  I want to catch up on laundry and be sure we have all the supplies we need, I’m expecting services like grocery stores to be much further and fewer once we leave here.  I could be wrong, we’ll find out and I’ll let you know!

Back to the mud comment….the previous 3 days have been non stop rain.  The campground we were at in Hinton, Alberta (I think I referred to it as “eclectic”) became a terrible mud pit in the rain.  We left there Wednesday morning and were glad to go.  We literally were sinking into the mud.  While we were packing up and getting ready to leave, a nice couple stopped by to say hi.  There were only 2 other RVs in the place, and these folks had just pulled in the night before.  They were leaving too.  They were from Auckland, New Zealand.  They keep their RV and truck in storage in Canada and come over each summer to tour.  Super nice, we exchanged contact information and they invited us to come visit them in New Zealand.  We needed to dump our tanks (grey tank which is all waste water except for the toilet, and black tank, which is only toilet), but the sani-dump was so small and placed in such a terrible location we couldn’t get to it.  So we left and planned to dump upon arrival at the next campground.

We then arrived yesterday at a campground in Grand Prairie, Alberta.  It took us about 4 1/2 hours to drive about 200 miles.  We were in the mountains, rained all day, foggy, and it was a 2 lane road with lots of logging trucks on it.  That all was stressful, but, it got really stressful when we saw where we were staying.  I had reserved 2 nights here.  The entire campground was one giant mud bowl.  I can say this with certainty because we had to circle the entire “loop” 3 times – once looking for the check in office which was not on the loop but also not marked so we had driven by it when we came in, once more to get to the sani-dump, and again to get out of the sani-dump because we were too big to turn out, we could only go in the circle again.

We were put into a separate area called a “group camping” area.  We see these alot – I’m guessing they are reserved by church groups, weddings, etc.  We were the only ones in this area that had about 10 campsites.  Kind of nice on one hand to be secluded, but, it was not maintained very well at all.  We had to fight through high weeds to get to the electrical hook up, and the water hook up was so burried in weeds I couldn’t find it at first.  Steve got shocked when plugging in the electric since the “on/off” indicator was backwards – we put it to the “off” position before plugging in, but it was really “on” and he got a nice shock.

The mosquitos feasted on us the minute we got out of the truck.  I don’t think they had seen fresh meat in days.  There was standing water all over the place.   We looked at each other and said, “we’re not unhitching, we’re leaving tomorrow morning”.  We can stay for a night without unhitching from the truck.  We can’t put down the leveling jacks, but we can still put out the slides.

This is when I was thinking – Seriously?!  The water is probably not safe to drink, we are covered in mud, the floor in the RV needs mopping in the worse way, and Gerry keeps wanting to drink the standing gross water all around us.  Not fun.

So after all that, I made us a cheese plate with hot peppers from MaryAnne – thank you, they are delicious, we have used the entire jar now!  And our favorite comfort food, creamy noodles.  No internet or cell service so I couldn’t search for a new campground.  Ugh!  Then, at about 11:00 at night, when the sun was just about done setting (yes, there is a lot of daylight up here) and it was almost dark, 2 pickup trucks drove back to our area.  We were completely separate from the main campground, and were immediately worried.  But after a few minutes they had kids get out of the trucks and play on the 2 swings that were there for a playground.  They left soon enough, but it gave us a bit of a fright…probably because our nerves were already on edge.

It was sunny in the morning, we did some chores around the house and washed the RV and truck the best we could to get most of the mud off.  Then it was off to Dawson Creek.  All is well.  I only have a few pictures here.  Hope to have some great photos as we travel up the Alcan.

Hello folks!  We have been without cell or internet service for the last several days, it’s good to be connected again!  It was difficult not being able to call the kids or to feel like we could be reached if needed.  I know there will be other patches of no connection along our route to Alaska and I don’t look forward to that.

We have spent the last 7 nights in the Banff and surrounding area, staying at 2 different campgrounds – one in Banff National Park, which I talked about in our last post, and then at David Thompson RV Resort, about 2 hours north of the last spot, still in Banff National Park.  We have been facinated with the beauty of this area.  It is impossible to describe how majestic and amazing the landscape is here.  In every direction there are mountains and glacial lakes and snow melt streams.  We went on several great hikes, taking a picinic lunch with us each day.  We ate by waterfalls and glacial lakes.  It’s hard to imagine Alaska will be as beautiful as this area has been, but we are eager to find out!

We departed David Thompson RV park this morning (Monday) and drove to Hinton, Alberta, Canada – about a 4 hour drive.  It took us almost an hour to get out of the campground this morning – there was a line of 4 RVs in front of us to use the shared “dump” or sewage.  Each spot at this campground did not have an individual sewer hookup, we only had electric and water, then had to use the shared sewer dump on the way out.  I just read that last sentence and realize it sounds like whining!  No, we are not roughing it, with electric and water hookups at our campsite!  I continue to be amazed at how these RVs work, it really is like being in a condo on wheels.  I have made many meals in my kitchen, baking in the oven and using the stove.  I also purchased a Crock Pot in Banff, which has been very handy to use when we are out all day hiking.

Speaking of which, grocery shopping in Canada has been interesting.  I am surprised at how different their products are, and many labels are in French.  This surprises me, as the French speaking areas in Canada are primarily in the eastern part of the country.  Also, everything is in Kilos or liters.  And it’s expensive.  I had selected a bag of fresh cherries, the same size I would buy at home at Giant Eagle for about $4.99.  They rang up at the register for $13.99!  Even with the exchange rate, which is about $1.36/$1.00 canadian, that was way too much and I put them back.

We continue to meet so many nice people.  On one hike, we met a nice younger couple from Wisconsin – we hiked together for most of the day and liked them even though they were Badgers!  We also met another couple at the David Thompson RV Resort that are from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.  Very nice, with a 10 year old daughter.  They visited us in our RV and also invited us to spend a few days parked on their acerage which has a group of 12 moose living in the back.  Unfortunately their home was in the opposite direction we need to travel in but we promised to let them know if we are back in the area.

Gerry is doing great and brings us much joy.  He loves to hike and is always the center of attention on any trail.  I’m getting better with picking appropriately sized campsites.  We arrived today at Cougar Creek Cabins and Campground.  At bit rustic, and we’ll call it eclectic :).  But we have a nice spot that we could pull through and no backing up – I have learned we must have pull throughs and the campground must be built to accommodate big rigs like ours.  I have also realized I need to look for the words “big rig friendly” in the campground descriptions.  We are here for 2 nights, then on to Grand Prairie, Alberta for 2 nights, then on to Dawson Creek, BC.  Dawson Creek is the “official start, Mile 0” of the Alaska Highway or the Alcan.  From there we’ll have about 1400 miles to the Fairbanks area.  We do not have exact plans for our time in Alaska yet, I am working on researching that.  We will depart Dawson Creek, officially on the Alaska Highway, on Sunday July 2nd.  At this point I’m guessing we’ll arrive in Alaska somewhere around mid-July.

We are starting to see animals along the roads – we’ve seen 3 bears (2 black and 1 brown), several mountain goats, several longhorn sheep, and a pair of Elk – a male and a female.  We also saw what we think is a wolf (could be a coyote, but we convinced ourselves it was a wolf).

I am trying something new for pictures.  In addition to putting some pictures in the blog post, I am attempting to share an album I created with more pictures.  I am not good at this technology stuff, and I hope it works.  There should be a link at the end of this post with some recent photos.  We love hearing from you all, please keep the comments coming!  And let me know if the link for the photos works.

Try this link out to view more photos:

https://1drv.ms/a/s!Ap-2lg-EnL0pjmrANu_2q1QBVBHE

 

 

We arrived in Banff on Monday after a 7 hour drive from Columbia Falls, MT.  The boarder crossing into Canada went very smoothly, thankfully.  I had not realized what a big deal the boarder crossing was going to be until we started talking with people that had done the crossing before.  There are a lot of rules (no fruits or veggies allowed in, only 44 pounds of pet food, if unopened and in original packaging, etc) and depending on the day and the officer you get, you may be completely searched, with every item in your RV taken out and put on the ground.  You then are left to put everything back in.  Many fellow travelers reported several hour delays at the boarder due to this.  Then there’s the issue of firearms.  Canada has very strict rules about bringing firearms into the country.  I had done quite a bit of research on this before leaving, and thought I understood the procedure, which was to complete a declarations form, list each firearm on the form, and don’t try to hide anything or risk being arrested when found.  We then learned that absolutely no handguns are allowed unless you have applied for a special clearance through the Canadian Mounted Police which involves taking a class, background check and other hoops to jump through.  This applies even if you are just traveling through Canada to Alaska like we are.  This special clearance takes weeks to obtain.  We also heard that if showing up at the boarder with a handgun without this special approval would at minimum cause you to be delayed and have your handgun seized; or you could be arrested for attempting to smuggle an illegal item into the country.  All this being said, we elected to leave our handgun in Montana at a safety deposit box we rented in Columbia Falls.  We declared the other guns (22 and shotgun) on the proper form and there was no issue at all.  We are not gun people as most of you know, however, we thought being prepared for the wilderness of Alaska and also traveling full time in remote areas was important.

Our next door neighbor at the Columbia Falls RV park was also traveling to Banff the same day as we were, they left an hour before us and were still at the boarder crossing being searched when we arrived.  And they had no guns of any kind to declare.  There also was a guy in a Jeep that was about 5 minutes in front of us – when we pulled in they were putting handcuffs on him and took him inside, leaving his large doggie alone in the back of his Jeep.  We will always take the boarder crossings seriously and be prepared as best we can and be thankful when they go smoothly.

Otherwise the drive was uneventful and beautiful.  This is an amazing part of the world, some of the most beautiful landscapes we have ever seen.  We are staying at  Tunnel Mountain Village II campground, about 5 minutes outside the town of Banff.  Another lesson in campground site selection has been learned….we (I) had reserved a spot in the no hook up area of Tunnel Mountain Village I campground as this was all that was available.  It said it could accommodate RVs 35 feet and over.  We are nearly 41 feet.  We got back to the site and knew there was no way we were going to be able to back into the tight squeeze.  While we were standing there fretting about what to do, a hawk swept down and grabbed a chipmunk or something like that right on our site.  We went back to the front check in office which was backed up with about 20 RVs trying to check in, and the nice person there took pity on us and found us sites for each of our 4 nights in the much larger, pull through, full hook up sites in Tunnel Mountain Village II.  We have to move each day to a different site as none were available for 4 nights in a row, but we are lucky to have the sites and moving is not a big deal.

On the drive into Banff we saw a black bear along side the road, and also a group of mountain goats, with babies.  Hoping we see a lot more!

We did a 6.8 mile hike yesterday (Tuesday) and took Gerry.  Fortunately, unlike in the states, dogs are welcome on most national park trails in Canada.  It was a very challenging hike, very steep.  There were gondolas you could take to the top or back down, many folks hiked up and rode down, but no doggies allowed on the gondolas so we hiked both ways.  A nice coffee shop on the top of the mountain and amazing views.  Gerry did great, although he protested much of the way back down and had to be coaxed to keep going.  It took us about 4.5 hours to complete the hike.  The trail was very popular, and Gerry was a rock star on the trail!  People of all nationalities stopped to pet him and tell him how cute he was in all kinds of languages!  After every visit he pranced up the trail like, “I’m cute and I know it!”  Shortly after we started back down we had a few sprinkles and then a beautiful rainbow came out below us – I hope the rainbow shows in the picture – it is the last one below.  These pictures are from Steve’s “big” camera – he’s working on his photography skills and doing very well I think.

We are nursing blisters on our feet today and plan to make it a day of exploring the very cute town of Banff.

We’ve been in Montana for the last few days.  We drove from North Dakota, through Billings and onto Bozeman where we stayed at a Walmart – out here Walmarts are few and far between, and this Walmart looked like an RV campground!  In the morning we counted 36 RVs in the lot!  I don’t know what the average RVr spends at Walmart while staying in the lot, but I believe we have helped improve the average.  It took us 3 tries to find a spot big enough in the parking lot so we could fit and not hang out into the driveways.  Not glamorous, but it works for an overnight on the road.

We arrived at Columbia Falls RV park in – where else but Columbia Falls, MT – on Friday.  It’s just about 15 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park.  Very nice RV park, the nicest we have been to yet.  Everyone has been very friendly, they have a great fenced in dog play area and Gerry has been making friends!  He and Ginger the Vizla (which is a cousin to the Weimaraner breed) have enjoyed playing together several times.

Gerry had a vet appointment Saturday morning to get his Rabies vaccine and a couple other vaccine boosters he was due for.  I had called ahead and found a very nice vet nearby, they were really helpful with information for taking a dog into Canada, which we will be doing soon.  3 shots later he left with an updated health certificate and documentation for the boarder crossing.  He’s 24 pounds now and will be 14 weeks old on Monday!

We took Gerry on a hike to Columbia Mountain Trail later on Saturday – we hiked about 5 miles, he loved it.  Columbia Mountain is in the Flathead National Forest. He was super tired after the vaccinations and the hike.

We learned no dogs are allowed on any national park trails….so we made a reservation for Gerry at a doggie day care.  We’ve never used a doggie day care before for any of our dogs, but, the vet had recommended this place and we decided to give it a try.  So early on Sunday we took Gerry to his play date and we went into Glacier National Park for a full day of hiking.

We had intended to hike a trail called Avalanche Lake, but when we arrived at the trail head they had just posted a “trail closed due to bear activity” sign.  A ranger gave us a couple suggestions and we ended up going to the Lake McDonald lodge and taking a hike from there.  We hiked the Snyder Lake trail, it was 8.8 miles, and challenging.  The first 2 miles were very steep, then a steady incline all the way up.  It was a very cloudy, misty, drizzly day all day and with all the snow melt, there were several places on the trail that were covered in running water.  Very muddy for most of the trail.  Beautiful lake at the top of the trail and made a great place to eat lunch.  It took us about 5 hours to complete the hike.  We are feeling every bit of it tonight!

The “bear grass flowers” are blooming – tall white flowers – a ranger told us they only bloom every 7 years.  We saw 2 mule deer and some prarie dogs, but no other wildlife.  Our neighbors in the RV park saw a grizzly bear and a black bear today (along the road) while on the other side of Glacier National Park.  We love Montana and it is all so beautiful it is impossible to capture in photos.

John, we didn’t make it over to Logan’s Pass or Two Medince – we are staying near the west side of the park and the Going To the Sun Road was closed about 15 miles into the park due to snow cover.  So we couldn’t get to the east side of the park or to Logan’s Pass….so no famous photos yet from Steve!

Gerry loved his play date and was happy to see us when we picked him up.  He promptly crashed on the chair when we got home.

We leave early Monday morning for Canada – first to Banff National Park, we are staying for 4 nights, then on to the Alaska Highway or the “Alcan” as it is known.  I think we are in for a serious adventure, stay tuned!

We have been in North Dakota for 3 days now.  We spent one night in the Jamestown area, and 2 nights in the western part of the state, near Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP).  We really liked the spot we stayed at in Jamestown – very few RVs there and a lot of land around the campground set aside for dogs, which Gerry appreciated.  The second campground, near TRNP is functional but not very enjoyable.  Basically a large gravel lot with hook ups, we can almost touch the RVs on either side of us…but, we’re here for the great outdoors and are not spending much time at the campground anyhow.

I’m happy to report no mishaps for this leg of the trip!  We have toured TRNP in the truck – found out Gerry was not allowed on any trails inside the park.  But we did find a great trail outside the park called the Maah Daah Hey Trail.  It’s 144 miles long, and also connects to several other trails.  It’s named from the Mandan indians who are native to North Dakota and it means “a land that will be around a long time”.  The symbol of the trail is the Turtle, from the Lakota Sioux indians, and stands for patience, loyalty, determination, and steadfastness.  All the trail markers had a turtle on them.  We hiked 6.5 miles today, it was beautiful, high 60s and windy.  Gerry did great, this was his longest hike yet.

Leaving Thursday morning for Montana.  We’ll spend a night on the road – probably a Walmart – then arrive in Columbia Falls, MT Friday afternoon.  It’s near Glacier National Park, we’ll be there for 4 nights, looking forward to some great hiking there.

 

This is going to be a long post, so grab a cup of tea and get cozy!  A lot has happened in the last few days, some good and some not so great.  But even out of the not so great are lessons learned.

We (finally!) left the factory in Indiana Friday, at almost noon.  Way later than we expected.  We were due to meet Guy at a State Park in Minnesota that evening.  When I realized how late we were going to be, I changed our campgroud reservation to a different State Park, one that would be about 2 hours closer for us since we had to drive straight through now.  Still was a good 9 – 9.5 hour drive, but doable, and we gained an hour on the way from the time zone change, so that helped too.  I carefully planned our route from Howe Indiana to Whitewater State Park, MN on both the Rand McNally GPS tool and Co-Pilot, another RV GPS tool I had purchased awhile back (I like Co-Pilot better).  We had to go by Chicago, and while both GPS tools wanted to take us right through the heart of the city (on the freeways, like the Ryan Expressway), I knew that was not a good idea for us newbies.  So I created a route around Chicago, it worked great, and the drive went really well.  Steve did a great job driving, and Gerry slept the whole way – we only stopped twice to let him out for a quick potty break.

First Lesson:  always remember to secure the refrigerator doors with a strap or bungie – or else the V-8 juice (large bottle, of course) will fly out of the fridge while cruising and spill all over the floor and carpet.  Yup, it happened.  Happy to report the carpet cleaned up really well.

We arrived at Whitewater State Park right at the same time as Guy, Steve checked in at the park office, received our pass and directions to our camp site.  The lady confirmed our equipment (large 5th wheel) and sent us on our way (this is important to the story, trust me).  Our assigned camp site was down the road a bit, in a smaller, sort of “annex” to the regular campground (red flag should have gone up) and we turned into the entrance to see that all the other campers were in tents (LARGE red flag should have gone up).  Us newbies however didn’t notice all the red flags and proceeded into the “loop” of all the campsites.  At this point every one of the tent campers were watching our giant rig attempting to squeeze down their quiet little tent camping lane.  We immediately knew it was a bad idea and we were never, ever, going to fit into the camp site.  We decided immediately to leave – but, leaving meant we had to get out of the place….it took about an hour, and the help of a super nice guy who directed Steve on backing up and manuvering in small increments at a time to finally get out of the campground.  But, a tree branch snaged our roof and tore a gash about 6 inches in the rubber roof.

Lesson # 2:  don’t assume the campground reservation system will accurately assign an appopriate camp site just because they require you to input your equipment type, length, height, etc in order to make a reservation; don’t assume the nice lady at the camground check in office is actually thinking and/or listening when she asks what equipment you are driving when she confirms your campsite and, most of all, when you look down into a campsite “loop” and you ONLY SEE TENTS – DON’T DRIVE INTO THE LOOP.

So we drove to a Walmart about 30 minutes away and camped in the parking lot.  Never thought I’d be so glad to see a Walmart.  And we got there in time to get food from the Texas Roadhouse in the same parking lot 30 minutes before they closed, what a bonus.  Got to bed after midnight – then the CO2/LP gas alarm went off at 6:00 am.  It wasn’t the full alarm, just the every 15 seconds “chirp” that lets you know your battery is too low to continue to operate the alarm….I find the manual for the alarm, figure out how to turn it off.  Decide to go ahead and make the coffee and….no power in the outlets!!!!  You will recall we had this GFCI outlet issue on our very first night, it was on the LIST of things to be done at the factory, we just spent a WEEK at the factory, and they said it was fixed!!!

Lesson #3:  don’t drive away from the factory without testing everything they said they fixed.

Now, on top of figuring out another campsite for the night so we could salvage some of our visit with Guy (he’s asleep on the sofa bed during all this), figuring out where/how to repair the roof, I now have to also figure out where/how to get the outlets fixed.  I’ll shorten this part of the story:  found a great spot at the Autumn Woods RV Park in Rochester, MN, which was only 12 miles from our Walmart; researched online and found out they make this great roof repair tape that Steve and Guy put on without any trouble and fixed the tear in the roof; discovered all RV service places are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, including the ones near us that accept the special service/warranty plan we purchased.  Called and left unhappy messages for persons at the factory about lack of actual fix on the GFCI outlets, did tons of research online (these RV guys really put a lot of info online in forums) and figured out there was a GFCI outlet on the side of our Inverter (which converts battery power to electric power in the outlets).  You can’t see it due to it’s practical placement against the side of the wall in the storage unit, but Guy was able to get his hand into the spot and reset the outlet and – it worked!  Now, when we are not hooked to shore power (plugged in), and we are using the generator (such as when staying in a Walmart parking lot), all of our outlets have power now.

Lesson #4:  We can fix things ourselves…who knew?!

We packed up and got ready to move to Autumn Woods RV Park.  It was now 1:00 Saturday afternoon….the parking lot was busy, cars parked everywhere, even though we were in the back of the lot.  We were standing outside the rig, looking in all directions for the least terrible way out, when Jim and Diane came by and said they would help us.  They stood at strategic places and blocked traffic, Jim directed Steve on how to back up, and got us out of our fix.  Earlier, while I was outside the rig looking at the generator trying to diagnose the outlet problem, and Steve and Guy were out buying the roof fix tape, Jim and Diane had stopped by and asked about our rig and what we were doing.  They shared they had also purchased an RV and were 1 month away from leaving for their fulltime RV life…

Lesson #5:  When parking at Walmart get out early the next morning and consider your escape route when chosing where to park the night before.

Lesson #6:  There are a lot of really nice people out there.

Got a “pull through” site at Autumn Woods (no backing in required, you just pull through) – I think the universe knew we needed a break.  It was 93 degrees and 40 mph wind gusts.  However, the universe was not done with us yet….I made a terrible mistake when setting up.  There is a sequence of steps to be followed when arriving at a campsite and unhitching.  I know this, Rob taught us, we practiced it with him, and I have done it a few times now at our stops.  BUT, I was flustered, tired, hot.  I failed to put the front jacks down on the trailer, so that when Steve pulls the truck away the trailer has something to stand on.  Nope, we undid the hitch, I told him to pull away and bam!  Front end of the trailer fell right onto the bed of the truck.  In a very loud, spectacular fashion of course!

The good news here, if there is any, is that the already damaged Tonneau cover rails (the thing you pull closed over the bed of the truck) took most of the impact and the truck itself is hardly damaged.  If you have been following the blog, you may be thinking…hmm, I don’t remember the Tonneau cover getting damaged.  You’re right, I didn’t mention it before.  I was trying to save some ego, but hey, now that we have all this to share, why not share it all???  Remember our first campsite, in Michigan, where the nice guy named Steve was riding his bike by us and offered help, and backed us our rig into the campsite for us?  Well, what I didn’t mention in that story before was that while we were attempting this feat ourselves, we jacknifed the truck/trailer at a 90 degree angle, caused the hitch to swing into the Tonneau cover rail and broke it.  I didn’t realize the hitch could swing that far and wasn’t watching for it while helping guiding my Steve.  So we were standing there staring at our broken Tonneau cover rail when Stranger Steve came by and offered help.  There – now you have the whole story!

Lesson #6:  Always, always, always put the front jacks down before pulling the truck away when unhitching!  Stop, think and go slow no matter how hot, tired and frustrated you are.

Got everything set up, got air conditioners on and put Gerry inside while we did a couple of things outside.  Came back in to find Gerry having fun with a roll of toilet paper….

That’s the end of all the bad stuff.  We had a great visit with Guy, made a great dinner Saturday night on the new little grill we have, and enjoyed spending time together until he left this evening (Sunday).

While I was lamenting all the things that had gone wrong, apologizing for not being at a camground sitting around the fire, fishing and hiking,  Guy said, “mom, we are all healthy, our family is in a good place now, and we’re together, what is there to complain about?”  Indeed.

Lesson #7:  Being together, the love of family and friends matters most of all.

We will leave Monday to head west.  We will drive through Minnesota, North Dakota, to western Montana.  We have a reservation near Glacier National Park starting Friday, we’ll stay there for several days before we head north to Canada and Banff.

We are still in Indiana, at the factory.  We expect to leave by this evening, as soon as they finish up the work on our RV.  So we have had some time to explore northern Indiana and have found some gems.  We found a great little breakfast and lunch spot that we’ve been to 3 times now – Next Door Neighbor.  Gerry has enjoyed toast there the last 2 mornings!  We also found Karna’s Atmosphere Hair Salon.  Karna gave Steve a great hair cut and covered up my grey roots.  Karna was so friendly and nice to squeeze us into her schedule.  Karna also told us about a great county park nearby, Pine Knob which we visited and hiked the 2.7 mile trail there with Gerry.

We are anxious to get on the road but have enjoyed exploring the area.  There is an Amish community near by, we found fresh strawberries at an Amish farm that were delicious. In the meantime, Gerry has discovered how to use the stairs that go in and out of the RV.

We are headed to St. Croix State Park in Minnesota, we should arrive there Friday afternoon.  Guy will join us there for the weekend, looking forward to seeing him and doing some hiking and fishing together.

We are now in Howe, Indiana, at the DRV Mobile Suites factory.  We are having some modifications made to our RV, (washer and dryer installed, cook top replaced with a full oven/range, slide toppers installed and a more comfortable mattress) and tending to a few minor service issues.  On the one hand, it’s not exactly what you envision when “going on the Great RV Adventure”, but it’s not all bad either.  The factory provides very nice full hook up RV parking spots in their parking lot.  So, we have full electricity, water and sewer conveniences in our RV while we are parked next to the toll road in a giant factory parking lot…..but there are patches of grass for Gerry and the other DRV Mobile Suites folks who are here for similar reasons are extremely nice and helpful.  We will be here until Thursday afternoon.

Ray and Cindy are parked next to us, they are from Illinois and helped us figure out our first full water hook up yesterday when we arrived.  In otherwords, when I was about to hook up the water fixture backwards, Ray kindly said, “how about you let me show you how to do that?”  And today Ray showed Steve how to tighten the lug nuts on the RV and truck to the right “torque”.  Rob had gone over this with Steve before we left, but a refresher course was needed.  Evidently these need to be checked after every trip and involve the use of an impact wrench.  For those of you who know us well, you will appreciate the humor in the words “torque”and “Steve” in the same sentence.  But, we are learning!

I toured the factory today and saw how they build these units and learned a lot. I am meeting with the service manager tomorrow to go over my LIST of questions which I’m sure will be the highlight of his week – but I figure I need to take advantage of all the resources while they are right here literally in my backyard.

I’m also using this waiting time to attempt to learn our new Rand McNally RV Navigation tool.  It allows us to program in our size, weight, height, etc so we don’t get onto roads we shouldn’t be on with our big rig, or with bridges that are too low.  Not turning out to be as easy as I had hoped it would be to learn how to use….so spending a lot of time figuring out our route for our next leg of the journey which will be to a campground in Minnesota.  Guy will be joining us there for the weekend and we are looking forward to that!

So I’m calling this little part of our journey our “training camp”.