Visit with daughter Michelle and family

Our daughter Michelle and family visited today, wonderful to see them, catch up on hugs, renew our relationship, and catch up on news. Oh, man words cannot explain the feelings we felt this afternoon while visiting with them. Oreo went right nuts when she saw Chris and Caitlin, two of her favourite people, we put on her leash and she sat just vibrating with excitement until finally Chris and Caitlin said hello and cuddled her (once she settled enough that they could come near her without her jumping all over them). Christopher’s girlfriend accompanied them, she is a sweetie, we were very happy she decided to attend our little gathering. Michelle and Chris brought a bouquet of flowers and of course, some special beer that Chris knows we like, we had a BBQ, Chris performing Chef duties while the rest of us prepared the table, etc. During the afternoon Caitlin walked and played with Oreo, Oreo listens to Caitlin so well, it was so heart warming to see them together again, I know they both enjoyed the time they spent together. Caitlin will come one weekend while Woody is in Africa and spend the night, I am looking forward to that, but Oreo will be in heaven for sure. The afternoon passed much too fast, we were blessed with good weather and wonderful company, can one ask for more.

Oreo and Chris wrestling, they both love it!

Catlin and Oreo taking a break!

Do you think Chris can get Oreo's attention?

Here is our sign eh!

Chef duties call!

Okay back to playing!

Christopher and his girlfriend Emily enjoying Grandma's computer.

They both loved my comfortable chair and took turns sitting in it while at the computer!

Michelle, Caitlin on the blanket in the background and you know who just enjoying catching up on all the news!

An afternoon and evening well spent, we are so very blessed.

First full day at our summer home

Spent the day getting settled in, Woody did some needed shopping and making lists for his trip to Africa. A quiet day that we both needed, we are both finding it difficult to believe that the Africa trip is so close, feel like a few more days are needed to be ready emotionally and physically but I know that all will work out and we will be ready.

Arrived at our summer home today!

Today we reach our destination home campground, Sandy Beach Family Campground at the Summer Village of Sandy Beach, AB about 37 miles or 60 km NW of Edmonton. Have a site reserved but we are a little apprehensive due to the fact we have not seen the campground, not listed as big rig friendly on the Woodalls Directory but talked to the owners and they assured us we could get our rig in, so we are hopeful. Could not find any campground that had a site available, except one that wanted over $900.00 per month and that was with a discount for booking a site for at least 6 weeks. We do know that campground, not the prettiest or nicest, and the only reason they command such an outrageous price and get it, is their close proximity to Edmonton. We wanted to be close to our two daughters and families, who live in this area, for the summer and I especially wanted to be close to them while Woody is in Africa.
The day started out nice but turned cool and blustery, strong NW winds, rain showers off and on as we headed toward Alberta, roads are good, not much traffic, gained an hour when we entered Alberta, so it will appear that we have not been on the road as many hours as we actually have by days end eh! Stopped at the one and only truck stop along highway 16 between the border and our destination, while Woody fuelled the truck I walked Oreo, this area sits atop a hill and the wind was just whistling over the hill, I actually had to put my hood up, getting an earache from the cold wind! Of course, Oreo did not care; she was only interested in sniffing all the gopher holes in the grassy area of the field surrounding the truck stop. She had a good time, we spent about ½ hour there, felt good to stretch the legs for us also, and our bodies are starting to complain loudly from all the travelling, everyday takes a toll on the back, not enough exercise, too much sitting. We do have an exercise machine and message chair in the garage area but I did not want to ask Woody to untie his bike, drag it outside so I could use the machine or chair. I know he would have done it cheerfully if I asked but I did not have the heart, he was feeling wiped out from all the driving over the last few days. Still we feel blessed that we are able travel, just will do a better planning job for the next long trip this fall. We knew this trip would be a little wearing just as the trip we made in 2006, even though we took more time this trip, still to many one night stops, experience is a good teacher eh! As we got closer to our destination, the weather improved, clouds disappeared, winds became light, and we are happy looks like we will not be setting up in the rain. Reached the campground around 5:00 pm, our heart sank when we approached the entrance, a narrow entrance with a narrow road with and instant turn, decided to pull up along side the campground on the road and Woody will walk in to have a look. I took Oreo for a walk while Woody was looking around, my heart was pumping, and my stomach was in turmoil, what will do if we cannot get into this campground, sure did not want to turn around, drive back towards Edmonton and book into the expensive Golden Embers Campground. Woody was thinking the exact same thing I knew, he had told me before we arrived that if possible he would get our rig in this campground, at first glance it did appear to be well cared for with lots of grass and trees, much nicer than Golden Embers. After what seemed an eternity Woody returned and told me we have a real nice big site, we just have to back up the rig down the road and there is a second entrance the owner will open the gate, it is a back in site but no problem getting into it, lots of room to swing the rig around and back in. Owner helped us back in, we need one person on each side to make sure nothing gets hit while swinging the rig and backing in the spot. The owner gave Woody a compliment on the good job he did with this big rig, quote from owner “I drove semi trucks for years and you did an awesome job”, all I know is I was happy to have it parked without any difficulties and I know Woody was also! Here are a few pics of our summer home, wish all of our friends could visit us here, how about it guys, anyone for driving to Alberta for a visit, we will be here until September 30 when this campground closes?

We have trees on two sides, fenced also. The trailer you see in the background are our neighbors and are fulltime Rvers also, will be here until September 30th, so no worries about neighbors on that side eh!

The rig provides privacy from the third side.

Oreo has settled in nicely, she hangs around in our little yard, do not have to tie her up.

We are street side but we can live with that.

May 27th to May 29th

May 27th

Travelled to Moosomin, SK today, pulled into Fieldstone Campground and what a beautiful well kept clean wonderful campground, will go back there if we ever get the chance. Lots of bush, trees, and a huge open field for Oreo to play, investigate and run her head off. Our site was one of the pull thru types set along side the campground road, hook-ups are always on the wrong side for our rig but nicely laid out all together and not a real problem. The picnic table was tucked in the bush along with a nice fire ring, lots of privacy at these sites. Took a bit of playing around to get the dish set up though with all the trees, Woody kept dragging it around until he found an opening in the trees large enough to acquire signal needed to use the dish for internet use. This campground did not offer WiFi but the owner is in the process of installing a WiFi system due to many requests by his patrons. We must be getting tired and anxious to get home, did not take one picture of this beautiful place!

May 28th travelled to Regina, short day of travel and pulled into King Acres Campground early afternoon, which means we will have two long travel days after this stop to reach our destination in Alberta due to the fact we could not find a campground closer to North Battleford, SK. Finding campgrounds in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta is a pain, as one fellow said to us we met along the way, seek and ye shall find but it is not easy. So many campgrounds do not list with Woodalls or other campground directories that are useful. I checked some of the online campground directories that are produced in Canada and they are a joke, absolutely not enough useful information, for example, are they big rig friendly, allow pets, have pull thru sites, size of sites, type of hook-ups, etc., nope give you name, address, telephone number and sometimes a map. Used up many minutes calling ahead for campground reservations. Note to self, pick up campground guides for Canadian provinces we plan on visiting or driving through.

May 29th, on to North Battleford, SK bucking a NW wind all the way, man that kills the fuel economy, averaged out at 9.9 mpg, that hurts after getting 14.9 the day before eh! Arrived at the North Battleford Campground earlier than anticipated, made excellent time today despite the wind. The staff was very friendly, efficient, and helpful. A nice little campground just outside of North Battleford operated by the city. The city really needs to budget for decent equipment to maintain the campground. The staff was using regular small gas push mowers for cutting the grass and there is plenty of grass to mow, no way could they can keep up with maintaining the campground, takes too long to mow grass with that equipment. Whoever designed the campground though did not understand Rving, the hook-ups for power and water were very far away from each other as well as too far from the designated area for the rig, we carry extra hose, etc. so not an issue for us, but is for some campers. They have a nice big dump station, we which we made use of, no sewer hook up at this campground nor the previous one, no point in carrying extra weight the remaining day of our journey. Using the dump station turned out to be a not so nice experience for Woody, just as he pulled the lever for the black tank to empty the hose dropped off the drain pipe and whoosh, you know what was pouring out, he quickly closed the lever but there was a mess, the ring that connects the sewer hose to the drain pipe on the fifth, had broke, good thing we had another one. Well he got it hooked up again, finished empting the tanks, flushed them and cleaned up the mess with the hose provided at the dump station. The saving grace to that incident was there were no people in line waiting to dump, Woody had gloves on, and didn’t get any of the mess on himself thankfully. We made use of their washroom and were on our way!

As we were leaving Regina, waiting for a train to pass by, I saw these storage bins and thought the mural was great, so snapped a couple of pictures as we drove by.

May 23rd to May 26th, travel

May 23rd, off to Governor’s RV Park and Campground at Casselton, North Dakota, we were happy to get a reservation at any campground due to the long weekend. This is not really a campground, just a gravel/dirt spots with full hook-ups and for 26.20 we would not stay there again, unless that is all we could get as in this case, although we could have made use of their exercise room/spa if we had chosen to.
May 24th to 26th
This morning heading east on I94 to I35 (the campground we stayed at was 20 miles west of Fargo, ND) we were heading into heavy SSE winds. The poor ole Dodge was working hard, could not get enough speed to use 6th gear, glad it was only 20 miles, once we turned north the wind was pushing us down the road, gotta like that eh! This is the first time the Dodge was working that hard on a flat stretch of road including our trip in 2006.

Close to the border, we stopped at a Rest Area in North Dakota, just as we pulled in a ¾-ton pulling a gooseneck trailer pulled up right beside us loaded with lumber with a Manitoba licence plate. Of course, as Woody was heading to the washroom he commented to the gentleman regarding the SSE wind pushing us down the road. With that, they started chatting; yeah I know what a surprise eh! At any rate the gentlemen said they could cross the border buy the lumber, pay for the trip, pay the GST at the border, no duty for some reason and the lumber is still less costly than buying it in Winnipeg, MB, which is disgusting because the lumber originally comes from Canada. After much chatting regarding the price of lumber the gentleman asked him if he would like a half bottle of whiskey, they would have to toss it, could not take an open bottle across in his truck, so Woody put it in the fifth wheel and thanked him very much, never know what kind of bonuses one might get from a little chat! Crossing the border was no problem at all; we declared the liquor, smokes and gifts we had purchased, answered all the normal questions they ask and that was it, took about 15 minutes. We pulled into the Arrowhead Campground about 15 minutes south of Winnipeg earlier than we had expected, which is always nice. The campground is very clean, with some trees and is covered with limestone, no grass at the sites. The owner said that mosquitoes do not like limestone and there is never a problem with those little critters in the campground area, interesting, surprising what one learns along the road. The little town just north of the campground is named Ile des Chenes. After crossing the border most little towns had French names or German, must be a mixture of both, saw German Restaurants with good German menus, we would have stopped but no place to park and really didn’t have time anyway.

The prevailing language, just south of Winnipeg as well as the south end of the city of Winnipeg, is French; most signs are French and English. Woody knows a little French, so of course greeted the owner in French, the owner was ready to carry on a conversation in French, and Woody had to admit that he only spoke a little French. Next day he was chatting with the owner and his wife, in jest asked owner’s wife if she would like to dance in French, she replied in French “sure would, let’s get to dancing” and then they both laughed. Honestly, there is hardly a dull moment when I am with Woody! We spent a couple of days relaxing, replenishing our larder, did laundry and generally relaxed. The campground has a very large grassed area for dogs and kids to play in so Oreo could run and play free, the weather was okay with occasional showers, and of course, wind, we all enjoyed our stay there! Cannot believe we did not take any pictures on this leg of our journey!

Jellystone Park

Arrived Sioux Falls, SD and stayed at Jellystone Park which is a very nice well kept campground, just a little to close to I90, certainly can hear the traffic but not so bad that we would not stay again. The service is outstanding, guide you to your campsite, we needed to fill one propane bottle, they came, picked it up and delivered back to our site, cost less than a fill up in PA or Ohio, that was a pleasant surprise!



The office and little store selling all kinds Yogi Bear, Jellystone park items, costly of course as one would expect.












Had to take some pictures and play tourist eh!

Took a couple of pics of the gently rolling hills in this area. It was interesting, the terrain changed immediately we crossed the border into South Dakota from flat to these beautiful hills.

Every evening Yogi Bear visits the campground to say hi to all the kids. Woody just caught this pic on the run as they were on their way back to the office. Didn't even stop to visit us, I was so disappointed! LOL

There is so much to see in that area, we shall return and spend some time.

May 19th to 21st, Illinois to Minnesota

May 19th
Heading down the road to Knoxville, Illinois leaving Indiana and their very good roads behind as well as our friends. The weather is fine arriving at the Trav-L-Park early afternoon, an okay campground for overnight stay.

May 20th we camped at Kellogg RV Park in Kellogg Iowa, they advertise and have a website that says “Iowa’s Best Burger” so of course had to try one for our dinner, not anything special at all, an ordinary burger, but better than cooking our own dinner, we were a little weary. We were considering staying a couple of nights but the weather did not look good, possible tornados coming so come morning we headed north to Albert Lea, Minnesota.

Some pictures of Iowa, note the traffic, headed north on I35. Most interstate highways are this busy! The area of Iowa we drove through was mostly flat with gently rolling hills, huge farms, lots of corn and soybeans grown there.

A beautiful Rest Area in Iowa on I35. Just love all the well set up numerous Rest Areas along the interstate highways in the US. Many of the Rest Areas have WiFi.

These energy producing windmills marched along a ridge on both sides of the highway in Iowa. There were over a hundred that we could see from the hiughway.

Also saw many being erected in North Dakata in our travels. In Alberta on a previous trip we had the opportunity of walking right up to one, they are massive. We also saw many parts being transported on the several Interstates on this trip, they all are oversized loads, one wing span per truck, several trucks to carry the portions of the pole.

May 21st

At Albert Lea we stayed at the Wal-Mart, did our shopping, took Oreo for a very long walk and caught these pics of some ducks just off the edge of the Wal-Mart parking lot.

If you have to stay at a Wal-Mart, this is a great one, Super Centre, open 24 hours but not on a real busy highway, with a nice open area just back of the store and not in a huge city so not a lot of traffic during the night, they also have security cameras. We have stopped here on previous trips, the only problem is that you have to leave via Minnesota highways and they are the worst highways we have encountered. Last time we drove through Minnesota we said never again. This time we took the Interstate 90 running west along the south of Minnesota but that was not very good either.

Westward Ho, we must go!

Pulling up stakes once again on our return trip to Alberta, headed to Crawfordsville, Indiana. We had reserved a site at the Sugar Creek Campground just outside of Crawfordsville. This campground was very nice, we had a site just off the creek, I could see it from the window of our fifth wheel and could hear the water running when the window was open, so peaceful and quiet, no highway noise at all and being a Sunday hardly anyone in camp.




Hardly can see the creek in this picture but it is left running along the trees.










The campsites are not very wide, but the campround has lots of green areas and overall is very pretty.

The weather was beautiful, warm, and sunny with just a hint of a breeze, an awesome afternoon it was. We cooked our dinner and awaited the arrival of a friend, Ron Knowles (hunter1963) who arrived shortly with his son Kyle.

Ron, chatting with his son!
We had a fantastic visit, just not long enough, next time Ron, we will spend more time!

Ron's son, Kyle an awesome young man, sure was great to meet you!

We visited into the evening, took Oreo for a nice walk, and continued our chatting not wanting to bid farewell to these two fantastic people. The evening passed swiftly as is always the case when enjoying the company of friends.

Day 3, Ohio, Magic Show

Saturday evening the campground provides free hayrides and just after all had arrived Todd spotted the hay wagon coming down the road, he grabbed Damien by the hand, and they both jumped on the wagon for a ride. We missed out, being in the fifth wheel, just caught the action a little too late. Damien was thrilled, Todd you made one little boy very happy, kudos to you.
At 7:30 pm that evening the campground was sponsoring a Magic and Balloon Show, we attended along with Frank and family, Heather and Todd.

Elizabeth assisting the Magician with a trick.

After the magic show, came the Balloon making, the compressor being used by the "Magician" broke and Frank saved the evening by providing his compressor, he was a hero to all the children there for sure. His grandchildren had the privilege of having their balloons created first. Way to go Frank!

Elizabeth, Damien and Toni Jo waiting for their special creations.

Damien wanted a sword so he could be a pirate. Later that evening after returning to our campsite his sword broke, he broke out in tears and said "the magic died and now I can't be a pirate". Frank saved his heart from being totally broken by creating another sword for Damien using what was left of another Balloon hat.

Of course the adults had to have some fun also!

Toni, you sure do look cute!

Woody with a Butterfly Hat, suits him don't ya think?

Elizabeth wearing her Butterfly Hat.

Well I had to try on the hat also eh!

It was fun, enjoyed seeing the kids having a great time. After the show we all wandered back the campsite and visited for awhile. Soon it was time to bid farewll for tomorrow we would be on the road heading west.

Thanks to our Ohio friends for a grand time, will be back as soon as possible eh!

Day 2 Ohio, return trip

Todd and Woody went shopping, Woody found some terrific camp chairs on sale, the zero gravity type, so he picked them up, we had been looking at them for quite some time but they were so expensive, what a magnificent find! We were also looking for a wind deflector for the truck; Todd kindly did some phoning around before they left and found one on sale that Woody could install himself so he picked that up also, a good shopping day!




Another BBQ courtesy of Todd and Heather, we contributed homemade potato salad, was held in the evening, Todd performed Chef Duties bringing his own BBQ over to our place. Frank, Toni and family had their grandchildren, which required them to leave a little earlier than Todd and Heather; we moved into the fifth wheel and continued visiting for a time.

Enjoying the feast and the company.

Arrival in Springfield, OH

We arrived in Springfield, OH early afternoon, staying at Tomorrow’s Star RV Park, the same campground we had enjoyed on our trip east to Dave’s place. We had made plans to meet Todd and Heather, go out for dinner, and help them celebrate their Anniversary. We set up the rig and had enough time for a short relax, playtime and a good walk for Oreo before Heather and Todd arrived. We visited awhile at our place, catching up on news, then headed out to the Texas Road House for dinner.

The happy couple, Todd and Heather.

See the pail of peanuts and the those buns, the buns are so delicious, I could have made a meal of them and when the buns are gone they bring more!

After dinner Woody made sure the staff came and made a fuss over Heather and Todd, announcing their anniversary, clapping and including the patrons in the big Ye haw.

Of course they have to shine a light on them just to add the attention getter! What a hoot!

After dinner we headed back to our little home and enjoyed visiting for a few hours, all too soon we had to call it a night, an evening well spent!