Macleod, Alberta , Canada– Monday, July 4, 2011
Up early and ready to hit the road. The dump station to the St. Mary campground is at the entry station. We dumped two days ago when we had to move to a different campsite, and we were going to dump again this morning. But no, the line is too long, so off we go.
We’re headed for the Canadian border on US 89. Having talked to the Canadian border agents last Thursday, we had pretty much cleared the cupboards in anticipation of a search. When we arrived, there were 7 vehicles in front of us and 22 minutes later we were in Canada. No search, no inspection, just a couple of questions and we were cleared. Crap! We left our firewood behind, didn’t stock up on booze, vegetables, we even emptied the cooler. They didn’t even ask about the cats even though we have cat stickers in the windows.
We also saw lots of fields of yellow. We’re not sure what they are, but there’s sure lots of them.
One thing we learned here in Canada is that they don’t design filling stations (Gas Bars) with big vehicles in mind. As we neared Macleod we wanted to fill up Big Guy at the first opportunity. Well, the only Gas Bar we found had no maneuvering room for an RV. Frank took a chance and went for the pump on the outside end. After filling up, we attempted to extract ourselves from the pump islands and couldn’t make the turn. A large concrete block prevented us from completing our escape. We couldn’t back up because of the Element in tow and we were now blocking the only exit from the gas pumps. Welcome to Canada!
After several offers of help, we unhooked the Element, backed up and off we went to the big parking lot to hook up the Element again and calm our frazzled nerves. This on top of filling up in liters and having to convert that and the price (1.109) to gallons. After several deep breaths we were off for the Buffalo Plains RV Park.
Upon arriving at the RV Park, they asked us if we had reservations and we explained how we had called and were told no reservations were necessary as “There was plenty of room”. That was the case yesterday when we called. Today they didn’t have any more pull thru spaces, but found us a nice shaded spot that we could back into. Which was fine with us, because we planned on using the Element to run errands anyway.
This was the least expensive RV Park we could find that had all the amenities we needed for this stay. However, there were still more surprises to come. Want to wash your clothes? That’ll be four dollars a load please. Want to use the internet? Too bad. It’s down and we don’t know when it’ll be fixed. But at least we had a really nice spot under the trees with water and electric hook ups.
We needed to resupply since we had not stocked the pantry in anticipation of our border crossing. We set off to Lethbridge, a fair sized town about 45 miles away. Also Frank wanted to check out pre-paid cell phones and go see the Japanese Garden.
But first we had to get to a bank and convert some US dollars to Canadian “funny money”. No dollar bills, only dollar coins called loonies and two dollar coins called toonies! Went to a bank in Macleod but only got 93 cents per dollar. That was the rate for the day. Things are already more expensive.
On our way to Lethbridge we saw the High Level Bridge that the Canadian Pacific RR built. It is a mile long and 300 ft high and is the longest and highest bridge of it’s kind.
We made it to the Nikka Yuko Japanese Gardens.Nice peaceful place.
Next stop was Walmart. Didn’t have a lot of items we’re used to and things were more expensive, but we stocked up. Frank decided against the pre-paid cell because it really wasn’t that good of a deal. Oh, and they don’t sell beer there. We had to go find a liquor store. Wow another shock on prices. We may have to become teetotalers at this rate. They also have a 10 cent deposit per bottle/can AND they charge 5 cents for the plastic bags.
Once again we raced the sunset back to the RV. Didn’t get back until 10 pm and it was just getting dark.
| BG Miles Today | 85 | BG Total Miles | 3466 |
| Eat Out total $ | 296.16 | BG Total Fuel $ | 1810.61 |
| Entertainment total $ | 84.50 | Total Camping $ | 499.67 |
| E Miles Today | 95 | E Total Miles | 1455.5 |
| E Total Fuel $ | 272.09 | Day # of Trip | 34 |
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