June 20, 2013 - Travel to Innisfail Alberta

Last night we had a terrific storm and the rain was still falling this morning as we packed up and headed north.  This was from the storming coming in last night:

We had a smooth border crossing into Alberta:

And we were on our way!

The storm clouds continued. 

We made a short stop in Lethbridge to exchange currency and we continued north.  We noticed that there was many “ponds” in the fields and the rivers were high.

The Starship Enterprise in Vulcan .   We were there in 2007 and toured their museum.  This time we just passed thru.

The rivers were starting to overflow their banks:

We arrived at Anthony Henday Campground in Innisfail.  Once we set up we called Kay and Norval and found out that there is extensive flooding all thru southern Alberta .  We just made it through before some of the roads were closed. 

Please keep all those folks affected by the floods in your prayers.

After supper, we headed over to Kay and Norval’s for desert.  It was so good to see them again.  We met them in January 2010 at Quartzsite and stayed in touch every since.  Norval has had some health problems and they are currently not traveling so this year we made the decision to stop by and spend some time with them.

Life is good!

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled:  308 Miles or 496 Kilometers

Routes Traveled:

Montana: Oilfield Avenue; I-15

Canada - Alberta: PH-4; PH-3; PH-23; PH-2; PH-54

June 19, 2013 - Travel to Shelby Montana

We woke this morning to heavy cloud cover but no rain.  So we packed up and continued our journey north.

Check out those clouds:

Up and down the rolling hills:

Many farms:

Oil and Wheat:

We arrived in Shelby and are staying at the Lewis and Clark RV Park for a night.  Here is the park - those clouds continued to hang very low all day:

We needed to take care of a few things and once that was done we went for a little tour.  We had been here in May 2007 and September 2007 and the downtown is still very quaint.  We stopped at the visitor center for information on US-2 across Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota and had a great chat with the woman in charge.

Here is an interesting tidbit about Shelby:

“1923 World Heavyweight Championship Fight - Dempsey/Gibbons - This legendary 4th of July sporting event dubbed, “The Fight That Won’t Stay Dead!” is often hailed as boxing’s most historical event. It began as a real estate stunt and ended in a spectacular fiasco. The 40,000 seat arena held a mere 8,000 ticket holders before 4,000 ranchers and farmers stormed the gates prior to the opening bell! What a fight they witnessed! The brawl was the only World Heavyweight Boxing Championship Jack Dempsey fought all fifteen rounds to win! Shelby is working diligently to create Champions Park, an outdoor museum commemorating the July 4, 1923 event.”

Shelby is known as America’s Western Crossroads for transportation. The intersection of two of the nation’s busiest highways (I-15 and US-2) intersects here as well as the East -West and North-South lines of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

With all that activity of the cross roads, it is just a very small town.

When we were coming in, we saw this flag alongside the interstate.  As we drove around, we found the park with the flag.  It is the Veterans Memorial Flag and Park. The flag commemorates the Veterans Memorial Highway (I-15) and the 163rd Infantry Memorial Highway (US-2). This flag flies over 100 feet in the air and represents Shelby’s sacrifice, service and love of country.  The neat thing is that you can see this flag on the hill from most of the Shelby area:

The panel on the left are bricks in memory of military loved ones.  The panel on the right is a list of donors to the memorial and the flag.  This huge flag is replaced yearly.

There is a city park where we stayed in 2007.  So we checked that out and may stay there on our way back through.

Tomorrow we are heading to Canada so will be out of cell and internet access until we return (unless we find Wi-Fi)

So stay tuned for our next adventure and enjoy today.

 

 

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 87 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Montana: 21st Street; Smelter Avenue; 3rd Street, NW; Northwest Bypass; Vaughn Road; I-15; Oilfield Avenue

September 9, 2007 – Reset and Regroup

Today was get caught up and refill (laundry, cleaning, groceries, etc.) day. Andy cleaned the outside of the motor home while I did the inside.

A few days ago we had a bug infestation – they were so small that they came in thru the screens. The good thing though was their life span was less than 10 hours so I have been cleaning up dead bugs every since. I think now they are all gone.

Now where will we go next? That was today’s big decision. (Actually we opened up a map of the US and said – What looks interesting??? What a journey!!) So we are headed towards southeast Montana (I think). Stay tuned.