Heading South

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

I have started working on the list of things that need to be taken care of for our trip south. If links are available I have added them below for your ease of reference.

1. This is the link for the form that needs to be completed for each pet that you bring with you. Since we have two dogs we need to complete the form twice, one for Whiskey and one for Zoey. Here is the link https://cdc-786687.workflowcloud.com/forms/090dc543-7b2f-4538-b2c7-2919d12ecc73  I have also ensured that we have a record of the girls vaccinations and microchips. We are fortunate that our vet uses the app Petcare by DaySmart Vet. All of the information regarding our girls vaccinations, appointments etc. are listed on the app so we literally have all the essential information at our fingertips. I will be submitting our forms likely today so that we can be sure they have them prior to our crossing the border.
2. Still need to research this and I think Geoff is going to look into a package. Will update once we have our package. 
3. I have done some research this morning and the best website to use is this one, https://www.aphis.usda.gov/traveling-with-ag-products/traveling-united-states-canada-land-borders This site has all the information you need about bringing food, dog food, plants etc into the USA. We will declare everything that we have including the extra bags of food that we have for the girls as well as the three plants that I have. I will let you know if I can keep them or if I had to lose them at the border. 

Wednesday, October 9th, 2024

I submitted the required forms for the girls this morning. It took only minutes to complete and a confirmation email was sent for each form. I saved the confirmation emails in my personal email file for easy access once we get to the border.

Monday, October 14th, 2024

We were on the road early so that we could get ahead of everyone else leaving the park as it closes today.

The drive to Writing-on-Stone was short and sweet and we arrived with plenty of time to explore the Unesco World Heritage Site. All I can say is wow! What an incredible and interesting place. 

Before we started exploring we set up camp and since Geoff and I were thirsty I decided to get us a cold club soda to share and wouldn't you know it, a dozen eggs jumped out of the fridge and decided to exit the carton and explode all over the floor. What a bloody mess that was to clean up! After that was taken care of, we had our cold drink, a quick bite to eat and headed out with girls to explore the hoodoos. 

The bad lands here are more spectacular than the ones we saw in Drumheller. John I think you would really like it here.

There was so much to see I think I took at least 50 pictures. Narrowing it down was difficult. I have included the ones that I thought captured the beauty of the landscape the best. I hope you enjoy them. Since there is also so much information pertaining to this Heritage Site I have posted the link. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1597/ 

After exploring with the girls on foot, we got out our e-bikes, and after a quick brake pad replacement of my front brake, we headed out to the highest view point to find some ancient writing on stone. The etchings are carved in sandstone on the walls of the great Milk River Valley and are thought to be between 4,500 BP to 3,500 BP. This particular writing depicts a great battle that happened in the area. On our way to the writing, we startled a rabbit and found a deer well camouflaged within the stones. 

The picture below shows the North West Mounted Police outpost that was set up to deter whiskey smuggling and horse raiding from across the border.  What an isolated post that would have been!

While waiting for the sun to go down I captured a few moments of the sun reflecting on a rock face and on the shoreline of the river. 

Tuesday, October 15th, 2024

Today we started our American journey to Texas. Our route took us across the border at Coutts on Highway 15. Unfortunately I was not as prepared as I would have liked to have been. Travellers be advised that unless you get your plants certified you can not bring them across the border. Besides having to give up my plants, we also could not keep our garlic, any citrus we had, as well as a package of Italian meats. We dealt with two agents at the border crossing and the first one was very rude while the second one was pleasant and very informative regarding what you can and cannot bring. We had to park the coach and enter the border control building to answer questions and complete paperwork. I then had to bring our agent into the coach to go through our fridge and check our dog food and treats, while Geoff had to remain in the building. Oh I almost forgot, you cannot have any grains, especially rice from India. So all of my basmati rice was also taken. I am pretty sure we were over our limit for alcohol as well but they didn't request to look at it. 

After our rather lengthy stay at the border we were finally allowed to leave and continued on our journey. The remainder of the drive was pretty uneventful and the scenery was very similar to the prairies. It wasn't until we arrived at the Great Falls KOA that we could start to see the mountains. We had a very nice site for the evening and the views were beautiful.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Montana, nicknamed the Big Sky Country or the Treasure State certainly lives up to it’s names. The sheer vastness of this state is staggering and incredible. We went from the open prairies on Tuesday to the aw inspiring mountains today. I think for me, this was the most beautiful day of travel so far. I really don’t think words can express the feelings I experienced while travelling. There were times when the scenery actually brought me to tears it was that beautiful. The pictures cannot do it justice, but I tried to capture the beauty as best as I possibly could considering they were taken while speeding down the interstate at 65 mph. The speed limit in Montana is actually 80 mph for all vehicles except transports (70 mph), so needless to say everyone passed us. We didn’t care though as we were comfortable going our speed. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Some of them have spots on them and this is because of the bugs that constantly hit the windshield and as the day wore on, the spots intensified. 

We arrived at the Livingston KOA shortly after 3:00 pm which gave me enough time to take some pics of the scenery around here and I also managed to snag a few sunset photos.

We were so close to Yellowstone National Park but our schedule didn’t work out for us to go!

This is the road to Yellowstone and to our KOA for the night. We had a great site and I loved the grasses,.

Thursday, October 17th, 2024

This morning we woke up to an overcast cool morning. Instead of our customary shorts we had to change to long pants and sweaters. We were relatively quick at packing up and we were on the road by 9:30. One of the good things about only driving between three or four hours in a day is you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn and be on the road. We can take our time, stop as many times as we like and still have plenty of daylight left when we arrive at our next destination. 

Today, we did not make a lot of stops, once we were on the road, we could see that it had snowed in the mountains overnight. It was also raining and not the best day for sightseeing as the cloud coverage was pretty low or it could be our current altitude. Livingston is at 4,502 feet in elevation. Medicine Hat's elevation was only 2,264 feet.

Since arriving in Montana we have seen a lot of trains, and in particular we have seen engines from a company called BNSF. Geoff asked what BNSF stood for and since I have nothing but time I decided to Google it while we were on the road. BNSF stands for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. It was named this in 1995 when the Burlington Northern Railroad and the Santa Fe Railway merged. BNSF is the largest class 1 railroad in the US by revenue, miles of track and number of employees. Probably the most interesting fact about this railway is that it was purchased in 2010 at a cost of $44 billion by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's huge conglomerate. He obtained all of it's shares and took the company private. According to Wikipedia the company has 36,000 employees, 33,400 miles of track in 28 states and over 8,000 locomotives. This would explain why we have seen so many of these locomotives.
 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Railway

As the day wore on, we continued to remain at about 4,500 feet in elevation and the weather continued to worsen. By the time we hit the Wyoming border it was snowing, quite hard. Needless to say I was happy to get off the road for the night and just settle in. 

Friday, October 18th, 2024

Our night in Sheridan, Wyoming was quiet but cold. We arrived when it was quite overcast and miserable. Little did we know that when we woke up Friday morning and hit the road, the mountains were right there beside the highway. Again, they were covered in snow from the storm that passed through on Thursday. The views were amazing! 

Sheridan is situated along the Powder River Basin and was named after Civil War General Philip Sheridan. The town's population escalated from 281 people in 1890 to nearly 5,000 in 1907. The Sheridan Inn built in 1893 was claimed to be the finest hotel between Chicago and San Francisco. Will Rogers, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Ernest Hemingway, and President Calvin Coolidge were all guests.

Some of the bridges in Wyoming have been quite unique. This is the only one that I captured and it was located in Sheridan. 

This mountain range seems to go on forever, which it does of course because it is part of the Rockies. The snow on the peaks added an extra depth to the landscape. Some of my favourite pictures are from this area and I truly hope you enjoy them as much as Geoff and I enjoyed seeing this part of the country. A lot of Wyoming is quite vast and unexceptional, with nothing but wide open plains that are devoid of anything except golden grasses and fences. We occasionally saw cattle and deer but nothing else for miles and miles. At times it felt very desolate and I don't think I could live out here.

Wyoming is the 10th largest state by area but has the second lowest population density after Alaska. To drive through it you have two options if you want to stay on an interstate. You can either take the high-elevation prairie Interstate 90 and then 25 (which was our route) or you can tackle the Rocky Mountains I Interstate 15. Since we are travelling in a vehicle that is 40' in length and weighs about 35 thousand pounds the Rockies were out of the question. It's unfortunate because I really would have loved to experience that route as the scenery would have been much more spectacular. As it is, I still managed to take loads of pictures and have attached what to me are the most interesting and memorable. 

These two photos are two of my favourite. The one below so far is at the top of my list!

Today was one of our shortest days on the road but seemed long, mostly because of the long periods of nothingness. We eventually had to go through a pass that was covered in snow. The pictures below are from this section. 

The picture below was taken on the other side of the pass!

As mentioned earlier, we were off the road relatively early today so I had time to bake a banana bread and we video chatted with our good friends Ralph and Tabitha. Tonight's dinner was compliments of a couple that were originally from Texas and had moved to northern Alberta and own a ranch there. (While we were in Great Falls, Montana we were getting ready to leave when we heard a knock on the door. The woman had a large bag of groceries with her and wanted to know if we would like them because they were going across the border and couldn't bring these items with them. We received bacon, eggs (to replace the ones that jumped out of the fridge) at me, a bag of apples, guacamole and pico de gallo. She said we were the only ones she could see that were up so we were the lucky ones.) So tonight I cooked us a delicious omelette while Geoff fried up some bacon and we shared the guacamole and pico de gallo. 

Saturday, October 19th, 2024

This morning we woke up to very heavy fog. Our KOA in Douglas is located very close to the interstate but you couldn’t tell. The picture below shows how heavy the fog was.

After stopping in the town of Douglas to pick up a few groceries, we set off again with Colorado in our sights. I can’t help but think of John Denver’s song, Rocky Mountain High whenever I hear the name Colorado. I will have to listen to it while we are in Golden! 

The views were not as spectacular today but the weather was clear and it was nice to not be chasing the storm any longer. The temperature has definitely improved from the last couple of days. 

We have reached our third state today since leaving Canada. I am not sure if Colorado is as beautiful as Wyoming, at least the parts that we have seen. The interstate was extremely busy as soon as we crossed the border into Colorado. I guess this is understandable since I-25 goes right through Denver and it is quite close to the Wyoming border. Traffic remained slow and congested until we arrived in Golden. 

Golden is a former gold rush town located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Golden is actually higher in elevation than Denver. Denver is 5,280’, where Golden is 5’675’. We chose this city as we are planning on taking a break from the road for a few days and it has numerous bike trails in the vicinity. We arrived with plenty of time to get ourselves situated and take the girls for a brief walk. The trail we took them on said to watch for rattlesnakes and stay on the trail due to open mine shafts.😳😳😳

Some of the landscape today reminded me of the badlands in Alberta. At one point the cliffs loomed over the highway as evident from the photos below.

And then we hit the border to Colorado!

The picture below shows the city of Denver off in the background. 

The last two photos of the day are of our campground, Dakota Ridge, our home for the next few days.

Sunday, October 20th and Monday, October 21st, 2024

Our first full day in Colorado was a busy one. We actually had a late start to our day because we slept in, as we didn’t have to get up early to start driving. So after our slow morning of relaxing with a coffee and catching up on our reading, we headed out with Whiskey and Zoey to explore the area around the park. Geoff had done a little bit of research and read about Apex Park, which has bike trails so we set off to see if we could find it. After arriving at the park we quickly, or should I say, I quickly realised that this was not the kind of bike trail I would ever want to ride. We did however decide that it would be great to walk it, so after lunch Geoff and I went back to the park.

By the time we actually arrived at the base I thought to myself there is no way I am going to make it up there. The elevation was already hard to deal with and after already having walked the girls I was starting to feel tired. However, I put on my big girl pants and up we went. Our elevation when we started was 5600’ and we climbed to 6800’. It was slow going on my part and we had to stop quite often to allow the mountain bikes to get past us and for me to catch my breath. 

I am so happy that we did this hike as the views were beautiful and watching these guys go up parts of this trail literally boggled my mind. I don’t know how they do it. I was nervous just walking so I can’t imagine actually biking up. This would be the kind of tail that our friend Chris would like. The pictures below show our trail going up, the changing views and some of the cyclists.

In the picture below you can see the city of Denver off in the distance.

It is called the mile high city and we are 1000s of feet above it!

To be continued…… After reaching the bottom of the trail, Geoff and I were both thirsty so we decided to check out the bar across the road from the RV park. It is called Dirty Dogs Roadhouse and according to their advertising they are Colorado's #1 Biker Bar. This was clearly evident by the number of bikes in the parking lot at any given time. I managed to snap a photo of two bikes, his and hers (there are a large number of women riding bikes here) and their backseat passengers,

We ended up staying to have dinner and listen to the live music. All in all, Sunday was a great day. 

The rest of the night was not so good. The weather had forecasted wind gusts but we never anticipated how strong they would be. They were so strong it felt as though the coach was going to blow over. At 3:00 am we finally got up and brought all three slides in to help lessen the noise and the movement of the coach because up until then we couldn't sleep. We finally managed to fall asleep but the winds carried on right up until sometime overnight on Monday. 

Monday we had planned to go cycling after walking the girls but it was just too windy. So instead we planned the remainder of our drive to Mission, Texas, our final destination for the winter. I had received an email earlier from our winter home saying they were looking forward to us arriving and provided us with our site number and the code for the gate. Our contact, Victoria, at Bentsen Palms, said if there was any change to our arrival date to let her know. We were originally scheduled to arrive there on November 1st so I emailed her back asking if it was possible to arrive earlier than that. I was very pleased when she responded that there would not be a problem. This helped with our planning the remainder of our trip. So after a few hours we had it figured out. The drive is going to take us 5 days to complete, with four of those days in Texas alone. We are pretty much driving from one corner of the state to the other. 

Our first stop is scheduled to be Raton, New Mexico, then Amarillo (Texas), Big Spring, Boerne, and finally Mission on Saturday, October 26th.  It will be wonderful to finally be able to settle down and enjoy our first winter away from the snow and cold. The temperature there for the next couple of weeks is nothing but sunshine and 30 degrees, give or take a degree or two. No snow John 😉!!

The last few pictures of this post are from the walk we took with the girls and they show the bike path we would have taken had it not been for the wind. Monday night, before we went to bed we brought the slides in again so we could hopefully get a better nights sleep.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

First off, I apologize for the delay in getting these blogs out! After spending so many days on the road in a vehicle that feels every bump a thousand percent and rattles so much you think it's going to fall apart (remember this line as I will reference back to it), and bounces like a bouncy castle, by the end of the day I have had enough. This feels like a good time to say that you really need to do your homework before deciding on what type of RV you want to travel in and what kind of travelling you want to do. If you are interested in going straight from point A to point B, sticking to the major interstates, then a Class A is a good option. If you want to be more adventurous, then something less bulky would probably be a better choice. Don't get me wrong, when we are parked and settled for the night, I love our home on wheels. I just don't like riding in it. I may touch briefly on that again but for now let's get back to our journey.

Today we left Golden on the last leg of our trip to our final destination. The scenery was still beautiful and the mountains were always there just out of reach! It's amazing to think that the Rocky Mountains stretch three thousand miles from British Columbia and Alberta all the way down to New Mexico and we have travelled about 1200 miles with the mountains.

We stopped briefly in Colorado Springs to capture a few pictures of the mountains and were fortunate enough to watch some sky divers and see a plane take up a glider on a beautiful sunny day. I can only imagine how spectacular the views would be from up there.

The drive from Colorado Springs to Raton was relatively smooth and we took time to stretch our legs and enjoy lunch outside with the girls. Here are a couple of pictures of our views. 

After lunch we continued heading south and just enjoyied the scenery until we saw a Historical marker regarding the Ludlow Massacre. Geoff and I both reacted with "That doesn't sound very good" so of course I had to look it up. The Ludlow Massacre was an attack on striking coal miners and their families on April 20, 1914. Twenty five people were killed including eleven children. How very sad and horrible what some people have had to endure for simply standing up for their rights and to ensure better conditions for future generations. thttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

Our last point of interest on this day was travelling through the Raton mountain Pass with a total elevation of 7,834 feet. It is part of the Santa Fe Trail, a major settlement route from the 19th century and as such was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Once through the pass it was a very quick drive to the RV park we booked for the night. 

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024

Out of all the KOAs that we have stayed at, the one in Raton was my least favourite, like the town itself, it was old and tired (not unlike myself lately while travelling on the road). There was however, no wind so we did actually enjoy a good night’s sleep and were ready to finally reach Texas. 

The New Mexico scenery was similar to the badlands and again, very much reminded Geoff and I of the old western movies. The horizon went on for miles and most of the ranches are enormous. While driving we saw signs for the 7 Day Ranch. After doing a bit of research, the 7 Day Ranch or V7 Ranch is a hunting preserve consisting of 34,500 acres with elk, deer, antelope or turkey. They have experienced guides that work closely with you to ensure you have the best possible hunt. Believe it or not, they are booking hunts for the 2029 and 2030 seasons as anything sooner is already sold out.

While we were driving past this ranch we received a text from our friend Marshall responding to a message that Geoff had sent him earlier. While texting we found out that he had retired. Rather than continue texting, I decided to call him so that we could congratulate him. It was so good to hear his voice and Lise’s, and we are so very happy for him! If anyone deserves to be retired it is Marshall. Both he and Lise are two of the hardest working people I have ever met. Now they have time to enjoy life and each other. Marshall being retired is wonderful and we really are happy for you both! We also miss you guys like crazy. ❤️❤️❤️

While researching the V7 Ranch an interesting fact came up about land owners in New Mexico. Two of the largest land owners in New Mexico are Ted Turner, who owns more than a million (yes, you heard that right, a million) acres, and a corporate executive from Beverly Hills, Henry Singleton, owns over 1.2 million acres. All I can say is WOW.

After our short stay in New Mexico, we finally crossed into Texas. Texas is the second largest state by both area and population covering 695,560 square kilometres (268,596 square miles) with over 30 million residents. So when they say “Everything is bigger in Texas” they really mean it. Now having said that, our great province of Ontario is actually considerably bigger with a total land mass of 1,076,395 square kilometres (415,598 square miles) and is the fourth largest province and is home to 38.5 % of the country. Texas just seems bigger because of its wide open spaces. You can’t see for miles in Ontario because our forests get in the way. 😳

Our destination today was Amarillo and of course this brought to mind the song, Amarillo by Morning by George Strait (1982). This song was originally recorded by Terry Stafford (he also wrote the song with Paul Fraser) in 1973. We stayed at the Big Texan RV Ranch and what a nice RV park. It was definitely big and some of its accommodations were pretty neat. They had two covered wagons that you could rent as well as some very nice cabins. The park also provided free limousine service to the famous Route 66 Big Texan steakhouse. If you have never heard of the Big Texan, it was opened in 1960 by Bob (RJ) Lee and served what he referred to as REAL Texas cowboys who came for his big cowboy dinners. The steaks came from a nearby stockyard and the cowboys would come in after a long days’ work and on Fridays would cash their pay checks and were offered 25 cent beer. 

One of the most famous steaks is the 72-ounce steak, which if consumed in an hour, it’s on the house. You also have to eat a shrimp cocktail, baked potato, salad, and a roll with butter. The timer doesn’t start until you are satisfied with the taste and that it is cooked to your satisfaction. To date there have been 93,849 attempts and only 10,351 champions. Geoff and I both had steaks, albeit considerably smaller and enjoyed the lively atmosphere. I don’t think if we would go back again if we ever found ourselves back in Amarillo but it was an interesting experience. While in the city we also explored the nearby Rout 66 Bug Ranch, which I believe is a spin-off of the Cadillac Ranch. The original ranch was created to pay homage to the American automobile culture and the American dream.