We left Alberta on a bit of a stormy day with rain, high winds, thunder and lightning.  The kind of day one would want stay in camp, hunkered down waiting for the storm to pass, not the kind of day to travel across the prairies. Driving in a windstorm wasn't too bad until I looked in the mirror and noticed the trailer swaying a bit behind us with every wind gust and it was at that moment I was quite thankful that we had traded our pick-up truck in and that Toothless is as big and strong as he is!  The tricky part to staying in your own lane and not heading for the rhubarb in a windstorm is when you are passed by a semi tractor-trailer.  The first challenge comes when the tractor is beside the trailer.  The wind is temporarily blocked from the trailer which then sucks you towards the passing vehicle.  Next the entire tractor trailer is alongside and things are relatively calm.  Then as the trailer pulls ahead you are once again hit by the crosswind which then is trying to force you towards the ditch.  In the few seconds it takes for the truck to pass all you can do is take the wheel in both hands and do your best to ride out the storm!  Fortunately, I now know what to expect and it's not quite so scary. 

Despite a couple of Emergency Alert tornado warnings, we made it to a small town in Saskatchewan called Grenfell and set up camp for the night at the Grenfell Recreational Campground.  We had a bit of a glitch finding the campground as the GPS literally took us to the wrong side of the tracks.  As we followed the directions and the GPS said, in it's pleasant and friendly voice "take your next right turn then your destination is ahead, on the right", we took the next right turn which then put us on a single lane, dead end road with no campground on the right.  That meant backing up to a point where we could turn around and reloading the destination into Julies phone navigator to take us to the right place.  A lesson learned as to why you shouldn't rely on just one navigation system.

The "next right turn" led to a dead end and no campground in sight

As we drove through Grenfell and to the campground the streets were littered with broken branches and leaves, a quiet reminder of the storm that had passed through ahead of us.  We hoped that it was over and that the trees in the campground were a little more resilient than the trees lining the streets.  We spent a night in a quiet corner of the campground with some friendly people who were all spending a few days in Grenfell for a family wedding.

Evidence of the storm

Evidence of the storm

We pushed on in the morning through Saskatchewan and on in to Manitoba.  The scenery through the prairies is a lot of the same -- open fields dotted with small farmhouses and out buildings surrounded by long rows of mature and obviously not native trees to form windbreaks from the prairie weather.  Silos and grain elevators remind you of the hard work that goes into maintaining a life on the prairies and the dedication of the people living there.  If only the highway departments put in a similar effort to the farmers.  As soon as we crossed the Alberta/Saskatchewan border the highway turned into a ribbon of potholes, frost heaves and broken pavement.  We made mention to each other to remember to open all cupboards in the trailer slowly and carefully as there would be a landslide of contents waiting to pour out, which usually causes one to become a professional juggler to try and save every item from hitting the floor.  The highways in Manitoba are not much better.

We arrived at our next camping site near Souris, MB in the mid afternoon, another Hipcamp site aptly named "The Cranky Trapper".  The hosts, John and Loretta were the most down to earth, friendly and accommodating people you could hope to meet.  They set us up along their driveway rather than in the regular campsite (due to our size), said to let our dogs run all they would like, told us of the various things to see and do in and around Souris and, lastly, warned us of the copious amounts of ticks in the area!  We quickly gave all of the dogs their tick medication, hoping they wouldn't meet a tick until the meds had time to circulate through their systems.  In the evening John and Loretta came to visit bringing gifts of homemade jerky and moonshine they had made in their garage and sharing life stories of various trapping, fishing and hunting adventures they had experienced, and, once again reminding us of the copious amount of ticks around.  I said not to worry, I had treated the dogs.

John also mentioned that there were several striped squirrels around the property.  We had one living in a little hole, sharing the same plot of property as us.  They are actually called "thirteen-lined ground squirrels" and look a lot like a stripey gopher.  We sat and watched our little furry neighbor rummage around the farm equipment munching on the grass and enjoying the evening sun. 

The following day was a beautiful sunny day and we headed in to Souris with Reba to check out the various touristy things.  We parked at the swinging bridge and walked across back into town.  We stopped to have a look through the Hillcrest Museum, which

is a prairie castle, peeked in at the railway museum and wandered around looking at the various other sights.  We then treated ourselves to an ice cream before heading back to the camp site.  It's a unique feeling as you travel through and experience these small prairie towns.  It is a pleasant, homey, wholesome and down to earth feeling.  It also has a feeling of going back in time, back to a time when life was hard and challenging, but uncomplicated and simple, free from the hustle and bustle of city life.

One of the great things about living the nomad lifestyle is the people you meet along the way.  Many are memorable for the kind things they do, many are memorable for the not-so-kind things they do and many you might experience and think "you're the reason we have warning labels. . . "

We left our quiet sanctuary of the Dream Dog Park on a rainy, stormy morning and headed east.  We finally made it out of the Calgary area and our next stop was Medicine Hat at the Gas City Campground.  This was a nice step up from the campground we experienced in Calgary and although it was still one trailer beside the other we had our own space and plenty of room for the dogs to enjoy some outside time on the grass.  The park was clean and well kept and one nice touch to the campground was that there were carvings of animals made from the stumps of trees they had cut down.  There were deer, racoons, snakes and even an eagle.  We took the opportunity to visit an old friend who lived in Medicine Hat and to enjoy the scenery for a couple of days.

!!WARNING!!  If the title of this post wasn't warning enough, you are about to be bombarded with a lot of dog pictures . . . 

Power truly is power.  I say this in light of the troubles we have been having with our solar power system.  The last three weeks have been frustrating, to say the least, with various issues in our electrical system popping up and changes in travel plans to accommodate repairs to be done.  But, we seem to finally have all of that sorted out.  Lights no longer flicker, the hydraulic motor is happy and we can now plug into shore power without causing a fault in the entire system.  We now have a fully functioning residential solar power system adapted to our RV.  This does give one an amazing sense of freedom.  I just really hope it continues to function as it has these past three weeks when it was only operating on 1/2 the batteries and 1/2 the solar panels.  Our electrician seems to have washed his hands of it all and advised us that his part is done and if we have anymore trouble it will not be because of his install but because of the various system parts themselves and we would be better served by tech support at this point going forward.  I hope he's right....

These recent past few days have been for the dogs, literally.  After leaving Edmonton we spent a few days in Calgary to have the repairs we needed to be done.  We were cramped into a site that the trailer barely fit into and Toothless had to be parked up by the main office.  Despite the site barely being big enough for our rig, it was a double site and they continued to put other rigs beside us even though there were other, not so cramped sites available.  It wasn't bad when it was simply a motorhome with no slides, but when they put a big Class A beside us it was a little disturbing.  The dogs had only a very small patch of grass and most of that was occupied by a picnic table.  There was construction going on all around us and the sound of large trucks and equipment was constant.  

Our view of the top of their slide from our bedroom window . . . only inches between them!

It wasn't all bad, though.  It did allow us to do our laundry, take "normal" showers, do a little shopping for groceries and some more things to organize the living space a little more and I was able to get another visit in with my mom before hitting the road again.  And, we have power . . . . 

We left for our next site last Monday and were very excited.  This site claimed to be heaven on earth for dogs, and it did not disappoint.  The only issue we had when we arrived was that the directions were wrong with regards to where the actual site was.  They said to watch for the gate on the right hand side of the driveway.  Apparently they are as right-and-left-hand challenged as I am as we missed the gate which was actually on the left.  We ended up pulling right into their parking area, which was a little too small for a big rig such as us.  When we got it all sorted out where we were to go I had to back out of the driveway, back across the cattle guard and get ourselves back out onto the main road to give it another shot at entering the site we were supposed to be in.  We managed to maneuver ourselves around without breaking anything or anyone (and only minimal breaches of my expletive filter) and found ourselves settled in the best place we could imagine!  We are now in a very large (about an acre), fenced in site with green grass and trees!  The dogs can run their little legs off and we can relax.  The birds are singing, the sun is shining and all is right in the world again.  The only downfall . . . we have to move on in a few days. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, it has been raining non-stop for two days now.  Last night mother nature ramped it up to what I'm sure was the equivalent to a tropical storm . . . on the prairies.  We had high winds, thunder and lightning and, of course, copious amounts of rain.  The wind was roaring so loudly and was rocking the trailer so much it was hard to sleep.  Probably more accurately it was the thoughts in my head that were keeping me awake . . . "I probably should have taken down the Starlink dish" and "are we going to make it out of here".  You see, Toothless is a great truck and pulls the trailer down the road like a dream.  However, he does have his drawbacks.  For one, there is no four wheel drive option and for another he does not have very aggressive tires for being a non-four wheel drive option.  That means that there are certain situations that one should probably avoid -- wet grass, soft ground and mud.  It seemed that we were brewing the perfect storm.

When we got up in the morning and surveyed the situation Julie asked "are we going to get out of here" and the only answer I had was "I don't know".  The hosts had generously offered for us to stay until a break in the weather but, unfortunately because of our electrical issues we had to go back to Calgary to get it fixed.  So, I went outside and took a walk around the trailer.  The ground was saturated with about an inch of water sitting on top.  It seemed that the campsite was in a bit of a low area of the field and that if I could just run it backwards far enough to be on higher ground then we should be able to get out, at least out of the field.  The second issue was going to be at the spot where the path from the field joined up with their driveway.  This was a bit of a soft spot and we had started to create a few ruts and muddy spots driving in and out to run errands and visit friends.  This, I knew was going to be a challenge however, as rash a decision as it may be, we decided to give it a shot.

We packed up our stuff and yes, (to my relief), the Starlink dish weathered the storm!  Apparently our broken extendable broom handle and velcro straps are very steadfast!  I explained the plan to Julie .  "I'm just going to back up as far and as fast as I can to get out of this little hollow then we should be good, except for the mud at the driveway and I'm not at all sure how that's going to pan out".  I think she was reassured . . . not!

The beginning of the plan was flawless.  Toothless effortlessly backed the trailer up to higher ground.  Next, we headed for the mud.  I had picked up a bit of steam through the field and, because of the awkward angle that the field exited onto the driveway I felt I had better not hit it at Mach speed so I let off the gas a little.  Julie said, a little concerned, "don't slow down!"  I explained that I didn't want to hit the mud and risk going sideways and not being able to make the corner all in one shot.  We hit the mud and instantly we were bogging down.  Toothless started to spin and with every skid the back end of the truck went one way and the trailer went the other.  Toothless spun and clawed and pulled his way through the mud until he reached solid ground and the driveway on the other side.  We breathed a small sigh of relief but we were not out of the woods (or field so to speak).  The trailer still hadn't hit the worst of the mud pit and Toothless, being a bit heavier this time through, had made quite a mess.  And, because of the sliding around the trailer was not in the ideal position to stay on the path.  We slowly crept forward and I watched in the mirror as the trailer sank up to it's axles in the mud.  I secretly hoped that it would not sink much further or slide much more sideways and urged Toothless to keep going.  Needless to say, we made it through and we both began to breathe again.  Toothless had not let us down!  We stopped on the road to survey the damages and were pleasantly surprised that all bits seemed intact.  The photos don't quite do justice to the actual mud boggin' event itself.  There was even mud up on the mirror of the truck!

The rest of the trip was uneventful and here we now sit, crammed into a campground with neighbors on all sides waiting for the electrician to arrive.  At least the full hook-up site gives us the opportunity to do some laundry and take "real" showers now, but we have decided that if we can Hipcamp and boondock it the rest of the way across Canada to Quebec that would be more our style.  We have six little traveling companions that support that as well.  The next camping spot is for them . . . . 

There are certain things in life that you should should save for a rainy day.  Doing puzzles, binge watching Netflix and sorting through old clothing are examples of some of these things.  Going to the West Edmonton Mall is also one of these things.  We have always said that one day we would go and check it out and, as luck would have it, it has been raining for two days!

We went to visit our friend, Linda for a coffee and a snack in the morning.  She suggested that because the weather was miserable we should go and check out the mall.  So we parked Toothless in the visitor parking area at Linda's townhouse complex and loaded ourselves in her vehicle to go and visit the mall.  Neither one of us are very big shoppers but the mall is more than just shopping.  Theres's a big water world in the middle of the mall complete with a pirate ship and sea lions, there's an amusement park with cotton candy, rides and games and there's even a go-kart race track!  We picked up a few things that were on our list of things to pick up if we saw them, took some photos and did a little people watching in the amusement park before heading back home again. 

We were gone for about two hours.  We went in to Linda's house for our final goodbyes and to say goodbye to little Dori (one of our puppies from Mia's litter) and went to leave.  We heard a large diesel engine while we were in the house and when I stepped out the door I was met by a big yellow Toothless look-alike in a tow truck form parked in front of Toothless while the driver went about hooking Toothless up to tow him away!  We saw the sign that read "8 hours maximum" so we knew that wasn't the issue.  It seems that we missed the sign at the entrance of the visitor parking that mentioned "No vehicles over 3/4 ton".  Toothless, on a good day, is well over 3/4 ton.  I ran out to the driver and said "that's my truck, do you want me to move it?"  He was quite relieved and said, "oh thank goodness, I didn't want to have to tow this thing!"  He explained that because of the air parking brake he would not have had the proper equipment to tow it (so that leads me to think that had we not stepped out when we did, things could have gotten rather expensive with a tow bill AND whatever damage may have been done if he had pulled away with Toothless behind).  Thank goodness for good timing, we stepped out and saved it...on a rainy day!