Waterfalls, Dinosaurs and Lancasters

We have made a couple of excursions on our days off this month. The first one was a short drive up the Sheep River, through the foothills and into the Eastern Edge of the Rockies. We drove West on highway 7 through Black Diamond and Turner Valley then highway 546 into Kananaskis Country and the Sheep River Provincial Park. We drove to the end of the pavement then turned around and checked out a couple of stops on the way back. Bluerock Campground which is a wilderness campground. Nice but 99% of the sites would be too small for us.
Our next stop was the Sheep River Falls just a couple of kms East. We got out here to stretch our legs and give Maya a bit of a break.  They have set up a nice picnic area here and there are several walking trails up and downstream.

The river has dropped a lot since we got here in May! I can imagine what it must be like during the spring freshet.

After leaving the falls we stopped at the Sandy McNabb Campground. There was a bit more development here in that quite a few sites had power and there were a number of sites that would work for us. They also had a couple of group camps that were being used as overflow camping. Mostly these are in an open field which would actually be perfect for us. Gives us good sky exposure for both our solar panels and the satellite dish.

Our next excursion a couple of weeks later was to Drumheller, about 2 hours NE of Calgary. Drumheller is home to one of the best dinosaur museums in the world (CNN). The Royal Tyrrell Museum. Chris and I had been here once before about 15 years ago with her niece and nephews. The kids were pretty young then so we went through it pretty quickly. This time we were able to take our time and actually read the info on many of the exhibits. Alberta has one of the richest deposits of dinosaur fossils in the world and the Tyrrell museum highlights these.
As is frequently the case, they had one section of the museum shut down to overhaul it and put up new displays. Essentially everything from the last mass extinction 65 mil years ago to the present.

This is the first thing we ran into on entering the museum. That's quite a mouthful!

This guy reminds me of the pet calot, "Woola" from the movie John Carter

Black Beauty, the only Black Tyrannosaur skeleton.

At the end of July, we took a drive south to Nanton. We have passed by here a couple of times and noticed a place called the Bomber Command Museum. What gave it away was a big hanger right on highway 2 with a complete Lancaster Bomber in it.

This time we decided to pay a visit. Upon entering we found it was a lot more than just a hanger with an old Bomber in it. They have many displays of aircraft, vehicles, informational displays and more. Chris and I spent about 2 hours exploring it and by the end were suffering from information overload.

While this big bird will likely never fly again, they do bring it out a couple of times per year and run up the engines. That is an event that usually draws quite a crowd. Unfortunately all that has been put on hold this year due to COVID-19.

One interesting thing I learned was the importance of military aviation in Southern Alberta during WW2. Many pilots were trained here at a number of locations south of Calgary.

After leaving Bomber Command we took a short drive East to Vulcan, AB. What makes this small town special is it shares its name with a fictional planet in the Star Trek universe and they are capitalizing on that. They have a visitor centre that is styled to look like a space station.

Photo lifted from the Vulcan website

As well as a large model of a Star Ship. Not the 'Enterprise' but close.

They even style their street lights to look like a starship!

So by now, you may be wondering what camp hosting is all about.
This year is a bit atypical but my work day starts about 6:30 on weekdays with about 2 hours of irrigation. We don't have the luxury of automatic sprinklers so we wind up dragging hoses around for that time. After that it is the first garbage run of the day followed by cleaning out firepits.
By this time it is usually coffee/breakfast after which, if there are lawns to mow or grass trimming to be done, I do that. Checkout time is 11 AM and at this point we get the camp ready for the new arrivals which starts at about 1 PM. This involves sanitizing all the departure sites by wiping down the picnic tables and power pedestals with a bleach and water solution.
Through the afternoon I am escorting arrivals to their sites,  helping them get parked and doing any minor chores and maintenance items that need to be done.
We break for supper between 6 and 7 and after that, I do the second garbage run of the day and get things ready to put the camp to bed. Weekends we don't mow or irrigate but otherwise it is about the same.
Technically we are on duty all night but so far haven't had anything come up to disturb us.
Chris works in the office and her day starts about noon. She takes telephone calls, makes reservations, checks guests in and otherwise liaises with the guests and sells firewood, etc. We have a small concession which she also looks after.
We typically work 2 days on after which we have 4 days off.

July catch up

I seem to be running out of catchy titles but things are pretty consistent for us at the moment so it kinda fits.  Not boring or anything but a lot of same old, same old, but there have been some interesting moments.

We have had some pretty extreme weather in the area recently. A couple of weeks ago, we had a very strong thunderstorm roll through the Calgary area. We fortunately missed most of it here in Okotoks, only getting some heavy rain and light hail. Northeast Calgary though, which is only about 30 miles north of us, got hammered with heavy hail. Some of the hailstones were baseball sized or larger. Here are a couple of pictures lifted off the web.

Some estimates place the total damage in the area at around a Billion (with a B) dollars!
In fact we have had thunderstorms to some degree about once a week for the last month or so.
Last week several funnel clouds were even spotted south of us during another storm.

June is also the season for Cottonwood seeds. It started about 3 weeks ago with a few little bits of fluff floating around, but within a few days it turned into a full blown fluff storm. If it wasn't for the seasonable weather one might almost think it was a blizzard.

This lasted almost 2 weeks during which time the stuff was everywhere!  The campground is surrounded by Cottonwoods and a variety of Poplar that also creates fluff seeds so it didn't matter which way the wind was blowing, we got it!  We had to make sure doors were kept closed or it just invaded any open space. Eventually though the seed pods were spent and then they just littered the ground.

I have mentioned previously that we have a small herd of urban deer around here. It is amazing how unafraid of people they are. Chris and I came upon this one while out walking Maya the other day. We were within 5 feet of it and it just stood there and watched us.

It wasn't until we walked around behind it that it decided to be somewhere else and wandered off.
We also saw these two on the tree just outside the office.  Looks to be a parent woodpecker teaching its little one how to drill holes and look for bugs.

Last week we took a drive out to the object the town of Okotoks is named for. "Okotok" in the local native tongue means "rock". Just outside of town is a big glacial erratic dropped during the last ice age.

All around the area are families of these little guys. While I don't know for sure, I believe these are a variety of prairie dog, a type of ground squirrel.

Analysis has proven that the rock originated up near Jasper, BC, about 400 kilometers away. There is a trail of erratics stretching between here and the Rockies near Jasper. This is the largest in that trail.

A couple of weeks ago we took the trailer into the local Grand Design dealer (Woody's) to get the last of our warranty items looked at. They needed it for a couple of days but as this is our home we had to have it back at the end of each day. During the first day they had it, we did a bit of running around in Calgary that we wanted to do. IKEA being one stop. While there we found a few items for the trailer. One other stop was the local GMC/Chev dealer just across the street from Woody's. They had several of the new 2020 1 Ton dually's on the lot. One was almost the same colour as ours. Anyway after talking to the sales guy for a bit, we took it for a test drive and after kicking it around for a bit, decided to trade the old one in. This one was one that was special ordered for another customer but apparently at the last minute the financing fell through. His loss, our gain! The old truck needed new tires anyway!

We managed to work a deal where all we did was extend our existing payment for an additional 3 years. The same amount of time we'd had the old truck.
The new truck has a bunch of new features that will make towing nicer including more horsepower and torque. Our old truck had a max towing capacity of around 22,600 lbs which was sufficient for our trailer (20,000 lbs) and worked well enough but having a larger safety margin is desirable. The new 2020's have upped the towing capacity to just under 32,000 lbs and also increased the payload. Add in a bunch of new features specifically geared for towing and it should make for a more comfortable experience.
There was some confusion the next day when we went to close the deal though. Someone had recorded all the important info like stock number and Vehicle ID # incorrectly. It took them a couple of hours to get it all straightened out so it aligned with the truck we had decided on.
The last thing we did was transfer our stuff from the old truck to the new one. The big item being the hitch for the trailer. Both trucks use GM's built in 'puck' mounting system, and neither I nor any of the GM sales staff had known that GM apparently changed the spec for the 2020 model year. The hitch wouldn't fit! Not even close! Now this was a problem; we had a new truck without a functional hitch and a trailer over at Woody's that we needed to get back to Okotoks. Fortunately the dealership was nice enough to loan us a set of dealer plates so we could use the old truck to haul the trailer back to the campground. The next day, Saturday, we drove back to Calgary and picked up the new truck. Luckily I was able to order a new set of legs for our hitch at a reasonable price so we are once again good to go. The rest of the day we spent driving to Sparwood, BC so we could properly register the truck. As we are BC residents we couldn't register the thing in Alberta. We needed a break in run anyway. Sparwood being the closest BC insurance broker open on Saturday.

The last thing for this installment is something I have wanted to do with the trailer for a while and with all the electrical storms we have had recently, convinced me that now was the time.
This is the installation of an Electrical Management System or surge protector. This one has a number of other features as well that should protect us against badly wired campground electrical pedastals. More common that you might think! The photo below shows the new EMS installed beside the existing transfer switch.

I mounted the remote display on the compartment door beside the Electronic Levelling control panel. In this photo it is showing we have a solid 60Hz power feed. Right where it should be.

All in all, the whole install only took about an hour and a half and now we should be safe from almost all shore based electrical problems. 

June catch up

We left Kamloops as planned on May 15, and headed to Vernon for a couple of days. Spent a bit of time visiting my Mom who is now allowed outside a little bit if all social distancing protocols are followed. It was nice to see her face to face at close range for a change. FaceTime is nice but can't compete. I just wish I was able to give her a big hug though. We also spent most of Sunday with Chris's parents.
After leaving Vernon on Monday morning, we made the trip to Okotoks. Unlike last time when we ran into snow showers, this time was much better with only a couple of light rain showers as we came through the Rockies.
We pulled into the Okotoks Lions Campground, which will be our home for the summer, at about 4:30. We quickly set up camp in site 20 which is one of only 2 or 3 sites that we will fit.  It is one of the designated host sites so is nice and close to the office.

This area seems to be about 3 weeks behind Kamloops, weather wise. You can see in a couple of the pics above the trees are just starting to leaf out. The shot with the front of the trailer was just taken a couple of days ago and the trees are now in full leaf. The trees here are almost 50/50 Poplar and Cottonwood. We have had those little sticky leaf bud covers all over everything for the last couple of weeks! Fortunately they are almost done now but in a week or two we will be having the cottonwood fluff storms starting.
The first couple of weeks here we spent just learning the ropes. Chris works in the office so had to learn their booking and office systems and I was outside doing guy stuff like lawn mowing, trimming and associated stuff. Also figuring out the campground layout and the best way to get rigs into the various sites. Some are a bit tight. The park has 55 full service sites with 30 Amp power, water and sewer and 6 tent sites with 15 Amp power available. For the tenters, there is a washroom building with hot showers.
You will notice some of the pedestals in the photos have bags over them. Due to COVID-19 and social distancing requirements, we are only allowed to open up half the park. We have to leave an empty site between occupied ones. That means we only have about 26 or 27 available sites at the moment. Also as the public washrooms have to remain closed, we are not allowing tenters either. To stay here guests must be in fully self contained units. As per COVID-19 protocols, we also have to go around and sanitize the picnic tables and pedestals when a guest leaves and not to mention, anywhere where people are likely to touch.
Also for this reason, Pauline, the manager, has only hired one other couple to work with us. Normally there would be 4 couples working a 4 on, 4 off shift cycle with Pauline managing. Now there are only the 3 of us including Pauline and her husband Vern. The other couple, Don and Glenda, are people we originally met in Yuma 3 winters ago. They actually told us about this park and are partially responsible for us being here. They are old hands here as they have been doing this on and off (more on) for the last 10 years or so.
There is a fair bit of urban wildlife around here. We have a small herd of deer that are very tame. Not so tame that you can touch them but Maya and I have been within 5 feet of them and they just stand there and watch you or casually move away.

This one was a lot closer than it appears in the picture; maybe 10 feet away and was coming up to check us out.

We also had a pair of Canada Geese nesting in an old stump at the back of park. About 2 weeks ago, we got word that one of them was in distress. It seems mama goose had got her neck stuck in a crack in the stump.

In the above shot, you can just make out her head at the bottom of the crack. Papa standing guard on top.
One of the guests had called the fire department and they showed up with a truck and ladder and were able to get her head unstuck.

I am not sure if they had anything in the nest but we have seen them back a couple of times but they don't seem to be nesting.

A month in Kamloops

After completing our 2 week isolation in Vernon and wishing my Mom a very Happy 100th birthday, we packed up and headed for Kamloops. We were originally only planning on being here a week tops but of course COVID changed all those plans. Fortunately the campground we had picked was open and had a spot for us. We stayed here last fall before heading south so knew the lay of the land.

The above 2 shots show the difference between when we arrived here a month ago and now. The trees have fully leafed out and the river has come way up from when we arrived. In fact the river is coming up so fast that it may flood the campground in a couple of weeks. That isn't unusual here as the camp is built on the flood plain. I was standing on the protective dike as I took these shots.

So for the last while we haven't been doing a whole lot. I did manage to get a couple of my to-do project items knocked off. One big one being the hot water circulation pump. You can read all about that one on my Trailer Mods page.
We also spent one full day going through our sea can storage unit. We pulled a few things out that we figured we didn't have any need for and sold them. That was mainly so we could free up some room for a few things in the trailer that we wanted to off load for the summer.
Also Chris has been working on a couple of craft projects and I managed to get out flying a couple of times. The latest being to one of the local lakes for a bit of float flying.

This is the big project Chris has been working on. She made it for some good friends in Colorado.

It's been a pretty quiet month actually.

Recall I mentioned that our summer job at the Okotoks Lions campground was up in the air due to COVID? Well, we got word yesterday that we are a go! Yahooo! They want us to start right after the Victoria Day long weekend or in about 10 days for our US followers (May 19 actually).
Things will be somewhat scaled back there initially. They only have permission to run at 50% capacity and only to self contained RV's. Normally they have some tent sites but as one of the restrictions is that their showers and washrooms have to remain closed, the tent sites have to stay closed as well.
So, we will pull out of here Saturday and head back to Vernon for a couple of days for last minute visits with our parents before heading to Alberta.

Out of our 2 week isolation

Not a long post this time as we haven't done much for the last 2 weeks!
After arriving in Vernon 2 weeks ago, I talked to the owner of the Mobil station beside Superstore where we were parked. He was gracious enough to allow us to hang out here for our mandatory 2 week isolation period.
We had stocked up on most of the provisions we needed before crossing the border so had most of the necessities to last us. The only thing that we would likely need would be propane.
The first few days the weather was quite nice so we didn't use a lot but last week, it turned downright chilly. We wound up burning through our 3 30 pounders a lot faster than planned. I did have to break isolation once to go get the tanks filled but made sure I kept a good distance between myself and anyone else.
One day, about half way into our 2 week period, at 6AM, I was taking Maya out for her morning business and I watched an 18 wheeler pull into the lot and drive past our truck. He proceeded into the corner of the lot and I guess he decided he couldn't make it around the corner so started to back up. I was a ways away at the time and could only watch as he proceeded to back right into the front of our truck! Luckily he was only going very slow so didn't do too much damage but still managed to destroy part of the upper grill, the lower grill, dented the hood and possibly damaged the transmission cooler. Fortunately it is still drive-able and other than getting the initial insurance claim started there isn't much we can do until we get out of isolation.
Other than a few times a day to take Maya out to do her thing, we didn't do a lot except watch TV. One thing I did get done though is a write up on our new solar power system. If you are interested you can read all about it here.
We came out of formal isolation last Saturday so the first thing we did was hit Walmart and Superstore to refresh the fridge and pantry. I was pretty happy to see most people observing proper social distancing.
We needed to hang around Vernon for a few days after that as my Mom turned 100 years young yesterday, Wednesday, April 8, and we had to be here for that. What an amazing lady!

The facility she lives in has locked it down very tight to protect the residents which means none of them can leave and no-one from outside is allowed in. All staff are also masked and gowned when working with the residents.
Chris and I along with my brother Ken and Chris's parents stayed out in the parking lot and Mom was able to join us on their second floor patio. We shared some cake and conversation for an hour or so before it started to get chilly and we called it an afternoon.
Tomorrow we head for Kamloops. We have a spot booked at Silver Sage campground. We had originally booked it for 2 weeks as we had planned to head to Okotoks for our summer camp hosting gig. We got word today that the park was only going to open with a skeleton crew so we wouldn't be needed until the end of May at the earliest. So we have extended our stay for the month.

Crazy times!

Before leaving Yuma, I was able to get a replacement wing panel for my Elan and on Sunday, met my buddy Paul at the AMPS club field in Phoenix and got a few flights in. The weather was perfect and it was a very enjoyable day.

The next day, Monday, we spent getting the trailer ready for the road as we had heard that our Canadian government was telling all Canadians to get home due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. This was about 10 days earlier than we had originally planned but felt we should probably heed the request.
As a send off, Arizona gave us another one of its beautiful sunsets.

Our plan was to leave Tuesday morning and head for Las Vegas and get as far as we could the first day. As it turned out we made it about an hour north of Vegas to Mesquite. We spent the night at the same Walmart we stayed at on the way down.

Before I carry on, let me back up a couple of months for a minute. Back in December I had heard of a company (TDS Logistics) that was offering discount prices for diesel fuel to RVers. The company is a fairly large trucking company that is able to negotiate special pricing on fuel at some major truck stops. They use a 3rd party payment system and provide their customers with a card that works in the pumps in the truck lanes at most truck stops. They have decided to offer their arrangement to RVers as well. It seemed a bit too good to be true at the time so I just filed it for the time being. Fast forward to Boomerville in January and there were a couple folks there that had signed up. They had used the program a couple of times and it all seemed to work as advertised. I looked into it a bit further and while it still sounded very interesting, there were a couple of stickler points for us. Mainly the fact we wouldn't be able to receive their payment card as it would be mailed to our address back in Canada and as far as I could tell at the time, was required to be able to activate the pumps. Fast forward again to the beginning of March and I found out that as long as we knew the number on the card, we could link it to a Loves (one of the major truck stops in the US) rewards card and I could use that to activate the pumps.
Anyway, I decided to give it a go. I filled out their application on-line and then gave it a week to let them process the application. I then contacted them and was able to get the number. We then made a trip to a Loves in south Phoenix to pick up a rewards card. I should add that there is an app for smart phones where you can see where the discounts are available and what the discount price will be.
The first time we used it was at the Loves truck stop in Kingman, Az.  If I remember correctly, the posted pump price was $3.04.9 / gallon. Using the TDS program, we paid $2.19 / gallon. That's almost a 30% discount!

Anyway, back to the story. After getting parked in Mesquite, we ventured into the store to see what was left. Not much! There were no paper products, almost no canned fruits or vegetables, the meat racks were virtually empty and basic staples like flour, sugar, rice, etc. were nowhere to be found. We really weren't desperate for anything so weren't too worried but there were a couple things we would have liked to stock up on a bit.
The next morning we were both up fairly early and decided to head over to the store again just before 6. There was a line at the door but we got in fairly quickly. We wanted to pick up a couple more packs of TP so I headed there first. Chris went over to the meat section and picked up a couple of items there as well. We found a couple of other items then headed out. After we went through the checkout and just as we were about to leave I spotted a cart with a bunch of hand sanitizers on it. They were limiting these to 2 per customer and as we didn't have any, we picked up a couple.
We carried on and made our next stop at Perry, Utah, just north of Salt lake City. At this point, our plan was still to cross into Canada at Coutts, Alberta, leave the trailer in Calgary for some warranty work and drive to Vernon.  On checking the weather, it looked like it was going to get damn cold on the east side of the Rockies so we decided to turn west and cross into BC at Osoyoos instead.
After an uneventful trip with stops at Boise and Wenatchee, we crossed into Canada Saturday morning and are currently hanging out at the Real Canadian Superstore in Vernon.  We hope to be able to stay here for our 2 week self isolation and then get back to a somewhat normal life for a while.
We don't know what is happening with regard to our summer camp hosting job at this point yet but hope to find out fairly soon.
Oh, and after using the fuel discount card 6 times on the trip home, we saved almost $168 off the posted pump prices, about 40%. If you drive a diesel powered RV in the US, I recommend you check out the program. There are also a few stations here in Canada that do offer a discount as well although not to the same extent as in the US. As far as I can tell it seems that these are the Petro Canada truck stops.
If you do decide to apply for the program, please consider adding me as the referer on your application. If you do, I will receive a small credit from TDS as a thank you.

The Good, the Beautiful, the Bad and the Ugly!

While we were staying with Michael and Robin at their new place in Yuma, I offered to help repair a section of their patio that was damaged while they were parking their trailer.
I didn't get a full 'before' pic but the damage was considerable and required ripping up a 10' x 10' section and completely redoing it.  I have some prior experience with doing paver patios so dove right in.
The first step was to extract all the old pavers and salvage as much as possible. It turned out that about half the pavers were broken up to the point they were unusable.  Next was to re-level, repack and prep the area. That took a couple of days.

After this, we had to find a source of the original style pavers which, considering this subdivision and most of the brick and paver work is about 20 years old, was easier than we thought. We found a location in town that had lots of stock at a very good price.
Once the area was ready, laying the new pavers only took a couple of hours. A bit of work after that to seal it all up and clean up the mess, had it looking as good as or better than new.

A quick side bar: After my last flight at the Yuma Aeromodelers Airshow, I noticed some damage to the bottom of the right wing on my jet. I contacted the importer and ordered a replacement set of wings which he shipped to us here.
Upon examining the damage, it became apparent how close I had come to losing the aircraft during the airshow! The wing structure was so badly damaged internally that any extra stress during flight would likely have caused a complete failure and a total loss of the aircraft.
This was the apparent external damage.

And once I opened it up, this is what I found. That black tube is all that holds the wing onto the aircraft. It was split in several places and the support ribs were fractured. As a result the wing had lost about 90% of its strength! The only thing holding it together was a thin 1/16" balsa wing skin.

While we were here, we contacted the manager of the Pleasant Valley RV Park in Peoria and explained that we had been there before and that we were unable to find other suitable parking for a week or two. We managed to convince them to let us come back for a week or two and park in their dry camping area, so after spending a wonderful week with Michael and Robin, and after receiving my replacement wing set, we pulled out last Tuesday and headed East. It took us about 3 hours to get to our destination and once there, were set up in short order.
We have good friends who winter in Phoenix and on Wednesday, met up with them at the AMPS model club flying field where Paul is a member.
We plan on several more visits while we are here.

Now, you are probably wondering what is up with the title of this entry.

The Good is that we are again able to spend a couple of weeks here in Peoria.

The Beautiful is that spring is here! The desert is again starting to green up and flowers are blooming. There are many Brittle Bushes that are in full bloom again.

Also along the roadsides are many of these which I believe are Desert Globemallows.

And these Desert Marigolds.

Another beautiful aspect of this area is the regular appearance of a number of gentle giants.

We see these quite regularly if the weather is suitable. Sometimes they come quite close as they did yesterday, landing just across the road from us. There is a company in Arizona, Rainbow Ryders, that flies regularly in the area. Yesterday there were about a dozen balloons that flew in just before dusk.

Now the Bad. I don't know what it is with people, but we see this quite often. Shotgun shells and bullet casings just dumped in the desert. Why can't shooters at least clean up their empties?

And if that isn't bad enough, then there is the Ugly.  Out walking Maya the other day, I came upon this about a half mile from where we are parked.

I have no words for this except perhaps, disgusting!

We had planned to possibly head further East and spend a bit of time in New Mexico before heading North this year but now I think we will just head North from here. I am still unsure exactly what route we will take as that will depend on weather forecasts but we ultimately plan to cross back into Alberta around the end of March.  Stay tuned.