Water at temperature, our first hot tub. October 11 @ 551a. Yes, AM, it is normal for me to be up at this hour but it sure isn’t for Allan 🙂
Beautiful sunrise
October 12th: The first time in months I’m wearing pants & running shoes. Miss my shorts and sandles already. We’re walking to No Frills cause we have no groceries. First a stop at “Knight’s Pond”Back home for a much wanted fire
It’s been a busy week; doctor, dentist, eye appointments. Buying groceries, Costco, hair cut and much more. Today we have been back for a week, time sure does fly.
Got another pond walk in this time with a reward. Our first in quite some time
Today, Covid & flu shots, done! Tomorrow we take Bailey to be winterized, not too fond of that.
After a great summer of bucket list fulfillment ie attending 8 races, time to go home
Our last US sunrise for awhileThis little guy came to see us off and wish us safe travels
Sweet Grass, MT 927a
Coutts, AB
Our turn 930a
Through customs 932a
This was the easiest border crossing, even easier than when we crossed during the height of Covid. All the guard asked is how long we’ve been gone, how much liquor we have or any drugs. No questions about meat, vegetables, fruit, (made sure we didn’t have any) a dog, how many people in the vehicle. None of the regular stuff.
The border guard did point out that “you’re going the wrong way, you should be heading South!” The US border guard when we crossed into the States in May, pointed out the same thing.
We breeze through, North to South side was very backed up and will get worse as more head South for the Winter.
Alberta sign 934a
Bailey has a new Winter storage home, the last one was so muddy and we didn’t have a reserved spot. This base is gravel and we have a designated spot. We’re hoping for the best outdoor storage experience yet.
Want to start a business? Indoor RV storage is the one to have, there are very few and those in the area are booked with waiting lists. We even tried Great Falls MT, same all booked. Indoor charge $300+ a month, {which we’d pay to have Bailey all warm and cozy); we’re paing $360/year.
We unload stuff from Bailey can’t winter in her, we did open a slide to make it easier. There is more to go but Bob is full
Summary of our trip
May 14th: Start Mileage 86,545km/53,777m
October 10th: End Mileage 97,535km/60,605m
Total km/miles driven 10,990km/ 6,828m
35 Stops!!
Our itinerary, click the photo to enlarge
The before and after map of the States we’ve been to in Bailey
Take aways:
We were gone 5 month with no power failure at home
It’s easier to go away in the Winter, yard wise. Although we did have someone cutting the lawn we didn’t have a weeder. Hired one of those quickly!
Not one State we travelled through required reuseable bags. I now have enough plastic bags to perhaps, last a lifetime
Illinois was our least favourite state. It has Chicago, the worst most construction highways ever even using the by-pass
Is that the dreaded “s”?Rocky Mountains or just a mountains of rocks
On to more flat lands
Some think this is pretty, I think it’s just pretty sad
More flat
What are we seeing up ahead, vehicles in our lane of a 2 lane highway. As we get closer we determine it’s a lane painting unit. We stop at a Rest Area, hey we’ve been here before. When? When we returned from Yuma. That time, there was no one else here either, except for a snow plow. There was snow then.
Not the nicest of parks and fairly deserted
This will be fun, what will be. Not sure yet but it will be!!
Was its snow?No, just the Saline Depression Wetland
I was expecting Billings to be a cool Western town, I’m a little disappointed. Perhaps we didn’t find the right places to explore. Tripadvisor wasn’t much help so we’ve had a relatively quiet week. We still got our 10+k steps a day (except for Sep 30 our travel day)
Walked to town and back one day, that was 16,277 steps and just to town and around the last farmers market getting me 16,154 steps. We Ubered back with the worse driver, zero personality but at least we got home safely!
Thursday we walked to pick up Amazon items from a UPS store. We didn’t realize it was down a major street so not the most pleasant walk but we got it done and ended up with 19,441 steps. Our reward was a “Street Fight” beer, even me had a beer.On one of our walks we spot these dueling planesSame walk, different sight
First we saw a Trump firetruck now a Tim Sheeny one. Those Republicans seem to like their trucks
Getting there!
We’re walking to No Frills cause we have no groceries. First a stop at “Knight’s Pond”
Back home for a much wanted fire
Tomorrow we take Bailey to be winterized, not too fond of that.
This little guy came to see us off and wish us safe travels
Our turn 930a
Looking forward already to our next adventure
