We drove over 451 miles on our first night away from the caravan. We were trying to find a nice park with full services. We ended up staying at Shaker’s Acres in Edmonton which had good reviews in one place that I looked, but it was a dump. Afterwards I looked at the reviews in my RVTripWizard program and saw that others agreed with my opinion. We were exhausted after the long drive so all we did was set up camp, have some dinner and call it a night.
On Sunday we only drove 325 miles to take advantage of a RV Park with full services. That’s less miles than where we wanted to stop but I could not find another park for another 150 miles that could handle our size RV. Especially when we are towing the Jeep. We thought it would be better to find a nice RV Park than be squeezed into a small park and have to unhook the Jeep. And Campland RV Resort in Saskatoon was very nice. It looked new with very lush grass and nice level sites. It was a beautiful, easy drive through very flat prairies with lots of ranches or farmland. I liked stopping early to catch up on laundry and cleaning. And Randy is very happy as they let him WASH THE DIRT YACHT. Their paperwork said that no washing of vehicles was allowed but when Randy asked if he paid $20 so he could wash, the clerk checked with the manager. He looked at our rig and gave us permission. He would not even take the money offered! By the time Randy got done washing, we were joined by Brian and Diane when they selected the same park. They had stayed at the Hinton KOA the night before so they had a much longer drive.
On Monday it rained most of the day so we pushed on to near Portage la prairie where we stopped at Miller’s Camping Resort for the night. The campground said it was big rig friendly and the highest rated Good Sam Park in the area, but the large trees made it difficult to maneuver to get to our site. Between the trees and the rain we got only one channel on the TV which Randy was hoping we would get some of the network channel to have a chance to see Monday Night Football–no chance.
When they were calling for more rain on Tuesday we decided to change our plans and turn South and head for the States. The Canadian roads were starting to take their toll on Randy. Not having sufficient WiFi was making it tough to use any of my programs to find someplace to stay after Thunder Bay. After Thunder Bay, all of the campsites were small provincial parks going over the top of Lake Superior. And some of my choices for the last couple of days had not been the best. Another deciding factor was that Peter had decided to start his journey South so he was no longer near the Thousand Island area and our other friends near there were not going to be home. But the deciding factor was that it is football season and we could not find parks with cable TV or more than 1 channel. We knew we would be driving during the Ravens game on Sunday. Ryan was good and kept us informed on the Raven’s blowout over Miami, but we missed both the Sunday night Patriots and Steelers game and the Monday night game with Denver. I think that was the final straw. Randy said let’s get back to the states and I agreed!! So we headed south and crossed back into North Dakota at Pembina. This is a new state for me. I have never been to North Dakota. The crossing guard grew up in Deale, MD, so we talked about the lack of good seafood here and no Old Bay. He asked more questions about our RV then typical border questions. I think he liked our rig because before we pulled up to the crossing gate he stepped out of his booth and said something to the other guard. I was worried that we where going to be selected for a random search. But he went back to his booth as we pulled in and just started talking to us. Almost as an afterthought he asked if we had any wood or fruits and vegetables which we had finished up last night except for my banana that I saved for this mornings breakfast. He waved us through and told us to have a great day! All of the crossings on this trip have been uneventful. I was just glad to be back on good roads and have more than 0.5g of data!! However being back in the states meant more people and more cars on the road. I don’t know how someone could not see us but we almost got hit by a small car coming out of a merge lane. She was trying to merge into our side. Fortunately she woke up or stopped playing with her phone because she swerved back into her lane to miss us.
The drive started out with a landscape of flat rich almost black soiled farms or farming equipment dealers then changed to gently rolling hills with some larger cities then areas with lots of lakes. And the best part was that the sun came out after we crossed the border. We know we will probably run into more clouds and rain tomorrow, but it felt good to see the sun! We finally stopped at the Oak Park Kampground in Garfield, MN. It was a very nice campground! And lots of friendly people. Which means I had to track Randy down in the campground office talking to someone about our ShowHauler and our trip to Alaska so that we could have dinner.
A little while later Brian and Diane showed up. They had stopped that morning to have their RV looked at because a warning light had showed up on their RV. Even after they had someone look at their rig, they were still having problems. Randy and Brian spent some time under the back end. They could tell they were having a coolant leak, but could not tell where it was coming from. I felt bad leaving them the next day as we headed out, but they had an appointment at the nearby Freightliner dealer to have more work done on their RV. Unfortunately it didn’t take long for the rain to find us again.
