We have also started a new picasa album for this trip.
Week 1 was basically get ready to leave time. We spent a couple of days in Vancouver where we visited our friend Marian and went into BCAA to get our travel insurance straightened out so that we were covered from the date we left the province, not the date we left the country.... Important difference! The BCAA top up we had was country based, but our personal coverage was province based so there would have been several days between when our personal coverage expired and when the BCAA top up kicked in... not a chance we wanted to take while traveling in the southern USA.
We lucked out on the drive to Calgary. The Coquihalla was clear except for some heavy fog right at the summit and the Rogers Pass was totally clear. Excellent driving conditions all the way through. Just a few flurries around Banff but nothing sticking.
We stopped overnight in Revelstoke where we went into the downtown area for dinner and came across the beautiful bear statues which had been yarn bombed...
In Calgary we stayed with friends Stephen and Christina while we took care of a number of errands including our car serviced, cashing in our Co-op shares, getting glasses fixed, a couple of dental cleanings, meeting a few but not nearly enough friends and walking the new Peace Bridge recently opened across the Bow River. Pretty cool...
Our wee trailer was in good shape and ready for another long trip. We pulled it from storage to Stephen and Christina's place, packed it and got it ready to head off.
Leaving Calgary we had to return to BC to get our trailer registered in BC before heading to the states. We decided that Fernie was the closest to our planned route.
About an hour south of Calgary, our "Service Engine Soon" dashboard light suddenly came to life. WHAT? We just had the car serviced three days ago! We pulled into a gas station in Claresholm where we discovered that our gas cap was not put back on the last time we filled up (a day ago) so we thought the electronic diagnostic system must have figured something was amiss with the fuel system. That night in Fernie we called up Dr Google on the web and searched for "Nissan Pathfinder Service Engine Soon" and were rewarded with numerous hits on advisory boards telling us that others have had issues with loose or badly fitting gas caps. It appeared that the resolution for us was to go to a dealer and have them "reset" the error code in the diagnostic system. The car was running fine so we decided to leave it until we got to Great Falls in Montana. The next day we drove to Lethbridge then south to the border, doing two fillups along the way. About an hour south of the border, the "Service Engine Soon" light went out. We reasoned that the diagnostic system finally resolved that there really was no error condition to take care of. No costly visit to a dealer required!
On an aside note, we had heard that it was extremely mild winter in Calgary. Driving south towards Pincher Creek, we crossed a bridge over the Oldman River Reservoir. It was just about bone dry. This can't possibly bode well for the farmers this summer if there isn't some serious rain or a substantial melt off in the mountains.
It was a bit chilly in Great Falls so we decided to take advantage of Kris' Best Western rewards and get a free night at the Best Western. Not a bad place but the kitchen for the lounge and restaurant must have had some sort of meltdown that evening. Everything seemed to grind to a halt and most people (the place was pretty well packed) had to wait a long time. We waited nearly an hour between a salad and the main part of our meal (a burger and a sandwich). The waitress was so frazzled and apologetic that she removed the meal from our bill. Needless to say, the front desk received a plethora of complaints about that situation.
The drive to Billings was very pleasant. We stayed off the freeway again and drove down highway 89 through the Lewis and Clark forest. We stopped at one overlook viewpoint in the Sluice Boxes State Park
Our friends Joan and John would love this. The parks folks have removed an old railway line and replaced it with a long walking trail. Looked georgous from the overlook, although the state park website does indicate some dangers.
Later that day we stopped for a stretch in the old town of Harlowton. Looks like a small prairie town dragged down by hard times. There is one big old hotel that is vacant and for sale and looks a bit run down, but was probably a real beauty in it's day...
We wanted to stay in the trailer in Billings but we got there to find the KOA and the only other campground we could find were still "closed for the season"... so off to the Best Western again. Kris noted that it seems silly for so many parks to be still closed given the rather large number of RVs we have seen heading north for the summer. Lost business opportunity on the Snowbird Trail?
Ditto when we got to Casper Wyoming... not bad weather for staying in the wee trailer but another night at the BW. This one was a tad on the shabby side if the truth were told. They might consider changing the name from "Best Western" to "A Tad Shabby Western". It was likely a good thing we couldn't open the window as there was a lot of noise from the freeway all night. About the best we could say as a recommendation is that the windows were quite soundproof!
Finally off to Denver where we found a Good Sam park that was open. We booked into the Dakota Ridge RV Park in Golden for 3 nights. We'll veg out here for a few days before heading east into Kansas next week. We have continued to luck out on good driving weather. Mostly clear sunny skies with day time temperatures in the 18-25 C range.
| On to Week 3 |
No comments:
Post a Comment