Glad to be settling down

Spent the day getting things set up which entails digging out the items that we pack up while travelling, setting up my computer desk, emptying tanks and filling water tank, setting up the dish and requesting a satellite change via phone, we cannot use the same satellite that we use in Alberta, some cleaning (travelling is a dirty business) the windows on the road side of the rig are so dirty we can hardly see through them from driving on wet roads but will wait until another day, we do not have that much ambition today, dusting and vacuuming will suffice for today. The dogs are great, it will take them a few days to realize that we are staying here, they let me know when I take them for walks that are thinking it is another travel day as they keep an eye on the truck if Woody is not with us, as I always walk them just before we leave a campground while Woody hooks up the rig, so when I start walking they keep looking back to see if the truck is going to move. The campground is not in as good shape as previous years and there are many stickers and such around, the poor puppies get them stuck in their feet and face. The one type of sticker is easy to pull out but the other one is sticky and has to be cut out; these get stuck in their fur. We spoke to Charlie (work camper and friend here) he said they just couldn’t keep up this summer due to the many monsoon rains here and Charlie says if they unable to keep the wild grasses and weeds cut they go to seed and then the only way to rid the ground of these pesky items is to burn them with a torch, raking does not help much. I try to keep the dogs on the road which is clean but of course the dogs seem to find any sticker that found its way onto the road. It is a beautiful warm day and we spent a good part of it just relaxing, well I spent the day mostly at home and Woody ventured out for some visiting, big surprise there eh! LOL. Some of our friends arrived earlier and of course Jim and Anne (Activity Coordinators here) stay the year around. Life is good!

The rest of the trip

I am going to fast forward the rest of the trip, did not take any pictures as we have many pictures along the way from previous trips. From Lewistown we travelled to Hardin, Mt. the shortest day of our trip, from there to Wheatland, WY, seeing snow on the hills and sometimes right up to the highway but lucky we have not had to drive in any snow. There was snow on the ground in the campground at Wheatland and it is very cool but roads are good. From Wheatland we drove to Pueblo West, CO and happy not to see snow in this area as we had hit some snow driving over Monument Pass, lucky it was cold enough so the snow was blowing around and not sticking to the road, we are still wearing our heavy fall coats. We were happy to leave the snow behind and drop into the desert. We planned to stay a couple of nights in Pueblo West to visit Charlie and Dawn, but ended up staying 4 days, had to replace the tires on our fifth wheel. Woody noticed a bulge on one tire so changed all four. The tires had to be ordered and then the Mobile Service came to the campground and took tires off the tire shop to make the change. We have used this Mobile Service previously and know they are reliable and good so not a bad place to have the tires changed. Also gave us more of a chance for visiting and we do love visiting Charlie and Dawn, you just don’t find friends like them everywhere. From Pueblo West we trekked over Raton Pass (no snow at all) to Santé Fe, NM spending the night, dropping into Albuquerque (Santa Fe is at 7000 ft.) on our way to Deming, NM we are seeing trees with some fall colours but still many trees are sporting their summer green leaves, what a beautiful sight, we take the shortcut (Hatch Hwy #26) and arrive at Deming, NM which lies in the wide open desert with the always present mountains in the background, it is warm and windy, we only spend one night, arriving at Tombstone Territories Park November 21^st our 2200+ mile (3600 km) trip at an end. We actually did not require any jacket at Deming and it was beautiful drive albeit quite windy the last 3 days of our trip and I so love travelling through Texas Canyon on I-10, it is such a unique area, awesome formations of rock along with some mountains rising up out of the desert. We are tired but elated and feel so blessed to have arrived safely.

Trekking South, Day Two

A good day of travel, crossing the border took a little more time than usual (they were very busy) but no issues at all. After travelling through some fairly flat grassland in northern Montana the landscape changes to small mountain ranges, which we know continues for the remainder of the trip. The whole trip is really beautiful driving up, down around the mountains and hills, dropping into valleys with mountains of various sizes, some covered with various vegetation from grasses, bushes and dotted with trees to bare volcanic rock and some are major outcroppings with very interesting rock formations. We travel through Great Falls where we change to Hwy 87 to travel east to Lewistown, MT, finding our way to the Hwy 87 interchange, this has always been a challenge, our GPS wants to take us on the wrong exit and the route is not well marked at all, but we made it, I was smart this trip and I marked on our road map the correct exit number to take or easiest route through Great Falls. We always use a road map as well as the GPS because you cannot always trust the GPS directions. We arrived at Lewistown late afternoon with plenty of time to set up, relax and enjoy our evening.

The Castle is Rolling

Started our trek south today, weather is nice, cool but sunny with little wind.  We drove straight through to Milk River, AB (about 650 Km or 403 mi) and for us with stops for puppy walks and a quick fuel stop about an 8 hour trek.  We purchased a small extra fuel tank this summer so we could make this leg of our trip without having to fuel up at a regular gas station as there are not many options to get a big rig like ours into a gas station along this route which means we have to stop unhook the rig then fuel up and hook up again. Pulling the rig on a good day 500 km is about our limit.  We also wanted the extra tank so we didn’t have to sweat bullets about fuel as we have done on previous trips wondering if we will be able to make our next stop if we run into windy conditions as there are areas we drive through on the trek south that do not have any services for miles.  Milk River is about 20 km (12 miles) from the border so it puts us a good position to cross the border and reach our next destination in good time.  We are never sure how much time we might have to spend at the border, depends on how busy they are and if they decide to check the rig, etc.  We always like to leave lots of time for border crossing either direction we travel.  The campground at Milk River (Under Eight Flags) is a nice clean small campground and reasonably priced.  Wi-Fi and cable are not available at this campground so we hope the weather is good tomorrow, it did look good when we checked before we left this morning so if the sun is shinning when we get up we will be on the road early.