Monday, June 19, 2017

Great Falls to Dawson Creek

I hope I didn't wait to long to update the blog and can remember what we did so far.....

We started out in Great Falls Montana, where everyone in the caravan gathered to get ready to leave for Alaska.  Start date was June 7 with the caravan leaving the campground June 8.  June 7 we met our Wagon Master and our Tail Gunner.   The Wagon Master is responsible for going over the Trip log for the next and day and making sure all the reservations are in order including all the tour buses and meals along the way.   The Tail Gunner is responsible for bringing up the rear of the caravan and helping out with any mechanical issues that might arise.  Since I am writing this after the fact, I can tell you he has already helped me out by fixing a rock chip in the windshield with a kit I bought at Canadian Tire. (Canadian Tire has just about everything from dishes to camping equipment to automotive section.)

We had a welcome dinner at a nearby restaurant before we started on our journey.  We seem to be traveling with a great bunch of people.  We are starting out with 17 rigs and add adding 6 more in Dawson Creek.

Our first stop was the Great Canadian Barn Dance campground where we had a great buffet and got entertained for a couple of hours from the family that owned the campground.  They sang songs for all different eras.   The campground was beautiful.



We stayed for two nights at this campground and a tour bus picked us up the next morning to visit the Remington Carriage Museum




 and Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.
 This is the Wagon Master and his wife.  They are Canadians so are a great help when dealing with things unique to Canada.

The second day we headed out to Cochrane for our next overnight with a couple of stops on the way.  The first stop was at Fort McCloud Museum



 
The Second stop was at a small WWII Bomber museum, They also had a few classic cars, Packards, out front.


We enjoyed the stop and also had lunch, a hot dog they were selling at the museum.


The next day a tour bus came and picked us up to take us to the Heritage Park in Calgary.  My favorite part of the park was the Auto Museum and bakery.....









Here are a few more pictures....

Great Falls to Cochrane


The next leg of our trip took us to Banff and Lake Louise.  We stayed in the Banff National Park campground. 

The next tour bus picked us up and we headed out to Lake Louise.  The area is spectacular pictures will verify that.



The next day we were on our own and checked out the town of Banff and a little of the surrounding area.  Banff was very busy and a nice little tourist town, it was very busy being it was early in the season.

Here is the link for more pictures and they will speak for themselves.

Banff and Lake Louise

Our next stop was the Columbia Ice Fields. On the way we saw several animals, some on the way to the fields and some while we were checking out the Skywalk.




  We dry camped in the parking lot of the Columbia Ice Field Visitor Center for the night. We walked to the tour bus that took us up to the ice fields.  The road to the glacier was a narrow road only traveled by a special bus with large tires.  The decent on the glacier was a 32 per cent grade.


We also went for a walk on the Skywalk.

We also had to taste poutine, French fries covered in cheese and gravy.  It was okay.


I can't even began to describe the beauty of the area and the landscape we have seen so far.  I hope the pictures will help everyone to see the beauty.

More Pictures

Columbia Ice Fields and Skywalk

Hopefully that will get everyone up to date so far....most of you have been following along on Facebook and already know most of this.

Still....Living the dream............






GOD BLESS AMERICA

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