Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

Today, we went sight seeing around this City, we've heard a lot about it and wanted to see for ourselves if they were right.

Lethbridge had its beginning with the notorious whiskey trade followed by the development of the coal mining industries. Fort Whoop-Up, as it became known, was the largest of the established posts and Forts. Because of the use of whiskey to "encourage" trade, the Fort soon developed an infamous reputation. This reputation and the fact that an American Flag was said to be flying over Canadian territory led to the formation of the North West Mounted Police in 1873. In 1874 the NWMP arrived at Fort Whoop-Up. Their task was to establish Canadian sovereignty in the North-West and control the alcohol trade.


Lethbridge is home to the longest and tallest trestle bridge in the world, known as High Level Bridge. This year marks the 100Th anniversary of the Bridge. It is 5,327 feet long and stands 314 feet above the Old Man River. The Bridge is still operational today.

Lethbridge is also the home of the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden. A meandering path joins five traditional Japanese Garden styles, combining trees, shrubs, rocks, waterfalls, ponds and bridges to create vista of unparalleled beauty.

Of course with so much to see, I took quite a few pictures. Settle back, relax and get two bowls of pop corn and enjoy.

Crossing The Border Into Canada

Today, after two weeks in Great Falls, MT., we finally left for the Canadian Border with our friends Ken and Mary Dollar. The other couple, Michael and Terri left this morning heading back to Texas without so much as a bye your leave.

When we arrived at the Border Crossing, the Border Guard was very friendly and asked a very few questions and in about ten minutes we were on our way. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about the crossing but we had no problems.

We stopped at the Alberta Welcome Center and got several brochures about places to see on our way north to Edmonton.

Of course Jerry and I took some pictures of the area. These are just the beginning of pictures yet to come.

Great Falls, Montana

Today we had to go to Wal-Mart to get Jerry's prescription filled and of course she had to do some shopping as well.

On the way to town we passed a park where Canadian Geese and their families lived. They had a large number of cute babies and I just had to stop and get a picture or two or three.

After finally leaving "Wally World" we drove to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. In 1805 Lewis and Clark came here and remained about one month while they portaged their canoes over land to by-pass the series of rapids that stretched for several miles on the Missouri River.

The Great Falls area had long been inhabited by tribes of Native American Indians, mainly the Blackfeet, with herds of Buffalo,Antelope, Elk and Deer roaming the prairies. The Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions also roamed the area.

If you're ever in the Great Falls area you must see the many water falls and of course the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

An Exciting Trip With Our Friends

We're in the FAMCAMP at Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana with our friends Michael and Terri and Ken and Mary. We'll be leaving here Friday, May 22, 2009 heading to Coutts, AB to cross into Canada and begin our long journey to Alaska.

I can assure you that we'll take lots of pictures along our way, so set back, relax and have lots of popcorn to enjoy the scenery.

Jerry's New Job

Since I had the trip pretty well planned, Jerry didn't have much "navigating" to do. She decided that rather than being bored she would become a "traveling photographer".

These pictures will hopefully prove how good of a job she has done. We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as she enjoyed taking them. Jerry was bouncing from side to side the motor home taking pictures like there was no tomorrow. At one point she yelled "Boy am I having a blast". She took a lot of pictures and she hopes you like them.

Kaycee, Wyoming

We left Casper heading to Kaycee, Wyoming to spend a couple of days. Our plans were to see Butch Cassidy Hole In The Wall hideout and the Historical Museum in the town.

After we got to the RV Park and got all set up we asked about driving conditions to the Hole In The Wall. We learned much to our displeasure that it's located on" Private Land" and the owner doesn't permit people to drive there. We also learned the Museum will not open until Memorial Day and of course we won't be there then.

We were very disappointed and will only stay here for two days.

We had the control device on our step break and it will not retract. That means Jerry has had a hard time getting in and out of the coach. We found a repar facility in Bozeman, Montana that can fix it and we'll leave tomorrow and get there on Thursday afternoon to get the repair done. After that's done we'll continue to head up to Great Falls, Montana to hopefully meet up with our other travel friends.

Since we were unable to see anything here there are no pictures, sorry about that.
Jerry did however take some pictures on our way to Bozeman. Hope you like the scenery/

The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center

Between 1840 and 1869, approximately 500,000 emigrants traveled through Casper Wyoming area on three National Historic Trails, The Oregon Train, The Mormon Trail and the California Trail. 350,000 pioneers traveled on the California Trail, 80,000 on the Oregon Trail and 70,000 on the Mormon Trail.

They migrated for different reasons. They sought free land in Oregon Territory, religious freedom in the Great Salt Lake Valley and free gold in California.

Here are a few pictures I took in the Center and the last ones are some Jerry took on our way to Casper, Wyoming. We hope you like them.

Wheatland, Wyoming

We are parked at a CityPark in Wheatland, Wyoming. It's small, only eight sites, but they have 30 amp service and some have water as well. There is a dump station just outside the park. The best part of it is that it's FREE and you can stay three nights.

We were only going to be here one night but since it was raining here and on down the road, we thought it would be better to spend another night here.

This morning we looked out the front window and found a family of Squirrels playing in the site next door. Jerry took some state bread we had and threw it out the window at them. At first only one came up and it grabbed a large piece of bread, ate some of it and carried the rest up a tree to his nest. Soon we had about 6 or 8 of them all waiting for some bread. It was fun watching them.

I hope you enjoy seeing them as well.

Vedauwoo And The Ames Monument

Yea!!! We finally made it safely to Cheyenne and pulled into Flying J to fill our tanks. Since this is a small truck stop we went to the Visitor's Center to spend the night. We were there all by ourselves overnight.

Twenty miles east of Laramie, WY along I-80 are the towering rocks of Vedauwvoo (pronounced Vee-Dah-Voo), an Arapaho Indian word meaning "earth born". Indians believe that these magnificent rock formations in the Pole Mountains area of the Medicine Bow National Forest were created by animals and human spirits.

The Ames Monument is a 60 foot pyramid shaped monument. This haunting limestone mass stands alone on the prairie and watches over the lonely remains of the one-time rail town of Sherman. This monument was built in 1881 to honor the Ames Brothers, Oliver and Oakes who were influential leaders in the construction of the transcontinental rail road. The Union Pacific Railroad built this Monument at the cost of $65,000.

Cheyenne, Wyoming

This morning we left Colorado Springs for what we hoped was a short pleasant drive. Since we only had 186 miles to travel we took our time getting on the road. After about 50 miles I began to wonder if we would have been wiser to stay over another day or two in Colorado Springs.

We ran into winds from the north-north west at about 45 miles per hour. Guess what?? we were going north west and this made our trip a bummer.

We heard a rather strange noise from the top left of the coach and had no idea what the problem could be. I finally found a wide place on the side and pulled over to check things out. It turned out to be the "topper awning" above the front slide out. The wind had gotten under the front of it and had caused it to really flap in the wind. There was nothing we could do about it on the side of the busy Interstate. We'll check it out when we get to Cheyenne.

My navigator and photographer took some good pictures of our trip from inside a moving RV. I hope you enjoy them. If so please send her a comment to this journal.

The Garden Of The Gods

We went to see the Garden Of The Gods which is a Colorado Springs City Park. The tour around the park is about six miles and has some of the most beautiful red rock formations we've seen in a long time.

About 600 million years ago the Garden Of The Gods began to form in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains eastern range. The mountains just west of the park are known as the Rampart Range because they rise steeply, like a wall, marking the end of the wide prairies to the east.

Maybe the following pictures will give you some idea as to how beautiful they are.

Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs

Today, we and our friends Michael and Terri left the FAMCAMP amd went to our favorite store, "Wally World" to pick up a few items.

From there we took a short drive to the quaint town of Manitou Springs to hopefully find one of Jerry's friends who owned a jewelry store. When we got there we learned she had sold the store about a year ago and no one knew where she was.

We had a real good lunch at a restaurant called the "Stage Coach" so the day was not a total lost. Terri found some stones she had been looking for so she was happy also.

On our way over from Alamosa Jerry took some pictures of the snow covered mountains and then today she took some pictures of Manitou Springs. I hope you like them.

We Arrived Safely

After finally getting over the "little hill" we arrived in Alamosa, CO where we'll spend the night in our favorite RV Park, "Wally World".

After getting parked I looked out the windows and the view was terrible, if we weren't tired we'd leave and find some place with a better view.

I'm sending pictures of what we have to look at until we leave tomorrow. Please feel sorry for us.

Our Drive Over Wolf Creek Pass

Today after two weeks at Ute Mountains RV Park we left heading to Colorado Springs. We'll be there for four days before we move on toward Wyoming and finally into Canada.

We had to cross a little hill before we got to our first stop at Alamosa, CO. The little hill was just a little over 10,850 feet and believe me it really tested the metal of the Monaco Motor Home. It took a little over an hour to get over the "little hill" but the scenery was beautiful. There were many mountains with snow covering them.

I can't really understand why, but Jerry wouldn't let me take any pictures while driving. She took a few and I hope you enjoy them.