How to RV with the one you love

How to RV with the one you love

Many people have asked me how Jim and I survive a month or two living in a 23-foot RV, without severe damage inflicted on each other. Well, we adhere to PRAYER: Patience, Responsibility, Attitude, Yuks, Enthusiasm and Respect.

Patience: An 11-foot tall, 23-foot-long house on wheels isn’t fast. We lumber along at 90kph (55mph) most times. And when we camp, well patience is truly a virtue. Getting level, setting out the awning, opening up the windows, and – when available – hooking up to water, power and sewer – take time. Then there’s the patience involved when two people use one small bathroom, one small drawer each, a small half-closet; we’ve learned to pack lightly, wear dirty, and not be in a hurry.

Responsibility: Jim handles the outside – hookups, sewage dumps, gassing up, loading and locking the bikes, tire pressure, oil check, windshield washing, and stowing hoses and cords. I make the interior shipshape – everything in its place and locked down before hitting the road (nothing worse than a carton of milk and a dozen eggs spilling out of the fridge on the first corner). I fill up our travel mugs with fresh hot coffee, pull out two bottles of ice water, close and lock the windows, double-check cupboards and drawers, put the fridge on propane, raise the step and police the campsite. When we stick to our own tasks everything gets done and we’re on our way.

Attitude: One year the engine blew up just outside Sandpoint, Idaho. We spent two nights camped under the sign for Brown’s North Side Machine & Gear Repairs, deep in the industrial area. We had a blast. We biked the town, explored every corner, discovered the antique mall, went garage sale-ing, ate the best pizza ever, and decided Sandpoint is one of our favorite places. Thank you, blown engine! Hey, breakdowns happen, detours occur. Attitude can mean the difference between disaster and delight. We choose the latter.

Yuks: True story. A sign above the shopping carts in a discount store in Calgary reads: Women should not have babies in shopping carts. Uh, okay, I wouldn’t have thought it to be a problem, but…. The humor is everywhere, from full-on guffaw-inducing signs to eye-popping people. Watch for it. We share the foibles and fun with each other and never fail to appreciate the ridiculous around us.

Enthusiasm: Yes! Let’s go biking! Picking our own corn sounds like a hoot! I wouldn’t miss the gopher museum! A fifty-mile side trip to see the world’s largest tractor? You bet! Show a little enthusiasm for the suggestions pouring forth from the other seat. You never know when something he wants to do will turn into a highlight of the trip. We’ve seen the world’s largest, fastest, smallest, oldest, longest and shortest of just about everything because we get enthusiastic about the places we go and the people we meet.

Respect: Well, no, I really don’t want to see the gopher museum, not in this lifetime. I was just kidding. So, while Jim checks out the dead rodents dressed in period costumes of the area, I get to check out the thrift store. We meet later over coffee and compare notes and really listen to each other; it’s almost like I saw the stuffed gopher in his lederhosen against the Tyrolean diorama. Really!

See, life in a 23-foot RV just takes a little PRAYER. Hope you get a chance to try it out with the love of your life sometime.

 Camped at Twin Lakes, northern Alberta

 Near the Highwood Pass, Alberta

And so ends another fabulous RV summer!

September 18

We’re just ended our second week at the ranch after our epic journey to the Northwest Territories; enjoyed the old ranch house with its built-in peace and quiet.  The weather was sunny and cold – last night it hit 11ºF and yesterday’s high was 52ºF. Winter is definitely on its way. In fact, we’ve already seen snow twice and driven through a mini-blizzard. But I’m ahead of myself, aren’t I?

            Our trip to the Far North was truly amazing, an unscheduled event that will forever be a highlight of our RVing life. Once we reached the Northwest Territories it was adventure all the way. We camped at Hay River one night, on the shore of Great Slave Lake, and at Ft. Providence on the mighty Mackenzie River. We crossed the river twice on the ferry and drove miles of arrow-straight road through the Mackenzie Bison Management area, saw a black bear, a wolf and three groups of enormous wood buffalo (much larger than their plains buffalo cousins farther south).

            Cousin Brian and Hazel welcomed us to their Yellowknife home and provided guided tours of the town, the old gold mines, and surrounding area. They took us to the end of the road – literally – where a huge stop sign indicates that further travel involves a canoe in the summer or wait till dead winter when the ice road is open. And all around is tundra: stunted trees, outcroppings of granite, lakes, muskeg and, in winter, ice roads to the far-off diamond mines. We parked in their driveway, plugged in and planned to stay four nights. We stayed a whole week because Hazel arranged for us to fly to Inuvik, well above the Arctic Circle, and spend a night there in the land of the midnight sun.

            Brian wasn’t able to go with us, so it was just the three of us flying out of Yellowknife on Canadian North one morning. An odd fact of flights to the northern communities: no security checks, no x-rays or baggage searches. Families saw each other off right at the tarmac, just like the old days. Our flight took us to Norman Wells, an oilfield town built on the banks of the Mackenzie not long ago. From there we flew northwest over thousands of square miles of tundra, which appeared to be mostly lakes and rock. A few tiny communities exist out there, connected by air in the summer and ice routes in the winter. But they’re hundreds of miles apart and only a few dozen people make their homes in each place.

            Inuvik is on the Mackenzie Delta where Canada’s largest river begins its final descent to the Arctic Ocean. The town is built on permafrost, permanently frozen ground just six inches below the surface. A few scraggly trees grow in sheltered spots but there is no landscaping, and all utilities (gas, water, sewage and electricity) are above-ground in meandering wooden tunnels connecting all the buildings in town. We stayed in a clean and comfortable hotel ($204 for the night), ate in the hotel restaurant ($60 for three hamburgers with fries), rented a car for 24 hours ($100 plus $60 for the shuttle from and to the airport). We walked through the local supermarket and kept our hands in our pockets – milk was $10 a gallon; fresh produce was outta sight. Gas was $1.80/liter = $6.84/gallon US. It turned out we really didn’t need the car and could have walked everywhere, but who knew?

            We made a point to join a tour of Our Lady of Victory church, aka the “Igloo Church” which was built in the 50s using a unique “raft” foundation of concrete and gravel to prevent the permafrost from melting beneath the building, the perpetual problem for buildings in the rest of the town. For more than 60 years this lovely little church has survived the long harsh winters without sagging or tilting.

            Another tour was of the community garden housed in an old hockey rink. The plots are all in raised beds, of course, and the lengthy summer days provide enormous crops of everything: cabbages, beans, tomatoes, beets, squash, onions, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, and 10-foot tall sunflowers. Planting begins in May, the first harvest of some crops in July, a second harvest in late August. By mid-October the place is frozen solid; heating oil is too expensive to keep the garden going year-round. I did a mini-workshop on vermicomposting when I discovered a bucket of red wigglers in the tool area, and offered to hold more workshops if they wanted to fly me up there in, say, June after the snow melts!

            We arrived back in Yellowknife Friday afternoon and packed up the RV for an early start the next morning, heading south to Alberta. Have you ever visited a place that was really hard to leave? NWT was such a place for us. Almost every night we were treated to fabulous displays of the Northern Lights (Yellowknife records more aurora displays than anywhere else on earth!); we bicycled everywhere we could in town and in the campgrounds; our fish dinners were fresh, right out of Great Slave Lake; and the feeling of vast open spaces was powerful.

Our trip back to Southern Alberta took a week with camping in High Level, Twin Lakes, Whitecourt, Breton and Carstairs before we landed in Claresholm for a couple of days visiting with Mom and Dad.

            And then we were back at the ranch with Peter and Shane for the weekend. I fished and did well, thank you. We needed one more little camping trip so Jim and I spent three nights at Interlakes in the Kananaskis. And that’s where we decided: After eight summers of RVing, thousands of miles of travelling, hundreds of campgrounds and hours of reminiscing – the Kananaskis is the loveliest, finest camping area we’ve found. Rimmed by Rocky Mountains, deep fresh lakes, hiking trails that go on for miles, grizzlies, elk, moose, wolves, eagles and ravens everywhere. And it’s only two hours from the ranch…            

            We sure hope you’ve enjoyed our travel blog this summer. This week we celebrate my moms 90^th birthday and Mom and Dad’s 68^th anniversary – a big party is planned at the ranch. We’ll be spending five days in High River at Peter and Shane’s house before flying off to another paradise: our Maui home. I’ll add one more short essay to this blog, an explanation of our RVing method if you’re interested.

            See you again next summer. Aloha.

 Looking north from just above our campsite at Kananaskis Lakes

 Buffalo traveling the Mackenzie Highway, Northwest Territories

 Bighorn sheep (mom and baby) traveling the Highwood Pass to Kananaskis

 Jim the Artist painting Mt. Indefatigable from the shore of Kananaskis Lake

 Tundra from 30,000 feet, Northwest Territories near Inuvik

Aloha from Yellowknife

Tuesday, August 21

            Hard to believe I haven’t written a new blog post for 12 days, so sit back and get ready for a marathon if you have the time.

            We camped in Lamont, Alberta, on the 9^th and enjoyed another thunderstorm so typical of the prairies. From there we bootered north to Athabasca and camped for the weekend at a lovely private campground called Blueberry Hill. The town is situated on the banks of the Athabasca River and reminded us a lot of towns along the Columbia River in Oregon: easy to bicycle, easy to find your way around. We toured the university campus (closed for the summer), shopped at the farmer’s market and thrift shop and took three whole days to get a feel for the area.

            On Monday night we camped in the provincial park at Lesser Slave Lake and had a great campfire in the pine trees while the sun set over the lake. The shoreline was white sand with waves lapping along its length, driftwood and seagulls, and a fabulous sunset. The results of the horrendous forest fire that burned one-third of the town last summer are almost gone. The areas that burned have been rebuilt and the only way to tell is that the landscaping is new, with young trees and fewer gardens. Remarkable.

            Tuesday we were in Peace River at the Lions Club campground overlooking – what else? – the mighty Peace. The campground is on a barren plateau that, until a few years ago, was a lovely forested site. Then the pine beetles arrived and all the trees had to be chopped down. Still, we enjoyed the open view and the many trains that passed by all night, hooting their way out of town.

            It was at this point we made our final decision as to our destination. My cousin Brian and his wife, Hazel, have lived in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, for the past 30-odd years and no one from the family has visited them despite annual invitations. It meant a detour of about 2000 km (1200 miles) round-trip but what the heck, who knows when we’d be back this way, right? So, we said see you soon, Brian sent us directions – “turn right at Peace River, turn left at Enterprise and drive to the end of the road.” So off we went. And here we are.

The Mackenzie Highway is blacktop or paved all the way and, except for the 50-mile stretch immediately before Yellowknife, it’s darn good, wide and easy driving. We stopped overnight in High Level, again in Hay River on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, and a third night in Ft. Providence (oh my, the black flies were amazing) before making the final 170-mile stretch to the city. Going from Hay River to Ft. Providence we crossed the Mackenzie River on the ferry while looking up at the new and not-so-popular Mackenzie Bridge now (and forever, it seems) under construction. We had worried a little about gas but it turns out it isn’t a problem, at least this time of year. Gas stations are located at least every 150 miles and that handles even old rigs like ours that get 8-9 mpg at the best of time. The highest price we paid was in Enterprise where a liter is $1.49 ($5.62/gallon in US dollars). We were warned to watch out for buffalo on the highway as we were traveling through the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary, but saw nothing but a black bear, a wolf, a sandhill crane and oodles of Canada geese.

            The only road mishap we’ve had is a random rock smashing into our windshield just north of Twin Lakes, courtesy of a passing truck. This is our 8^th summer RV trip without major window smacks so I guess we were due. On the way back south we’ll stop in High Level where a new windshield will be installed.

            Brian and Hazel have a lovely home at the edge of the old part of Yellowknife and, having lived here so many years, know the lay of the land intimately. And they shared it with us. We’ve had guided tours of the city, the old gold mines, and a special trip to – literally – the end of the road where there’s a giant stop sign and, unless you have a canoe in the summer or are prepared to travel the ice road in the winter, you go no farther. The ice roads lead to the famous diamond mines, located hundreds of miles from town. We’ve visited incredible northern lakes, viewed ice-cold waterfalls and rapids, and almost reached the northern tree line where the pines and firs are stunted and old. We've seen gigantic jaw-dropping displays of the Northern Lights covering the whole sky all night long. Yellowknife is the center of the Aurora universe, boasting more displays per year than anywhere else on earth and they're year-round when it's dark enough to see them.

            Last night we met their son Tim and his wife Laura for the first time. Tim is a meat-cutter and treated us to huge Alberta beef steaks cooked to perfection. Laura was born in Inuvik on the Arctic Ocean, which leads me to our Big News:

            On Thursday Hazel, Jim and I are flying to Inuvik and staying a night! Hazel works for the airline that makes the daily flight and arranged our trip including the hotel room and rental car. She has been there many times teaching quilting arts and also in her previous capacity, head of the Girl Scouts in the Northwest Territories. She’s the perfect tour guide for this trip-of-a-lifetime. So, on Thursday night, you can picture us well above the Arctic Circle. In a week or so I’ll post real pictures to this blog.

            Meantime, stay well and stay in touch.

Laura and Tim

 Sunset over Lesser Slave Lake

 Brian, Hazel, Jim and Laura

 Jim and Brian atop the rock at the end of the road

 Lady Evelyn Falls, south of the Mackenzie River in NWT

Slowly heading North...

Thursday, August 9

Aloha RVing fans! We left on our road trip on Monday morning from Claresholm.

Our first stop was to see Clay and Jenn at their horse facility: Clay Webster Performance Horses, east of Okotoks. Braxton was sleeping but we got to see his adorable twin sister Faythe and play with her a bit, then watched Clay in the ring. He's making the 3rd in a series of DVD instructional tapes so was being filmed/taped while we were there. Just him doing things on a horse and talking about the whats and whys. Very interesting. After that, we took off on two-lane highways east and north of Calgary, ending up in Carstairs for the night. I think we drove a total of 120 miles that day! Gruelling. We found a great spot in the community campground; quiet and dark all night. In the morning we rode our bikes all over town, checked out the cemetery (something we do in most small towns we visit) and then packed up the RV and drove north.

We don't have a plan this summer. We're going wherever we want, when we want and how fast we want. The next night we were in Stettler, about 100 miles from Carstairs. We camped in the fairgrounds campground - very nice, clean, quiet. And again, in the morning we biked all over the old downtown section, found the bakery that we visited in 2000 but it was closed for two weeks! Arrgghh - no cream puffs! After breakfast at Smitty's we biked to the community garden and talked with a lovely woman tending her plot. Wow. Her peas, beans, zucchini, cabbages - she planted on June 2 and had already harvested once with more ready to pick. She gave us a bunch of peas; I rode back to gift her one of my tote bags.

From Stettler we headed north to the itty bitty hamlet of Donalda, home of the world's largest oil lantern replica - 40 feet tall - overlooking a badlands valley. We went through the museum (900-plus oil lamps and lanterns) and then I found the antique store. Whooppee! What a blast. I walked out of there with about 500 buttons plus oodles of vintage and antique pins, embellishments and geegaws. We had lunch in the RV, then got on the road again up to Camrose and found the Whistle Stop Golf Club and Campground. A train goes by about every 4-5 hours and, yep, whistles at the two crossings. We love it, even the two that went through at 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

I checked the weather radar after we got camped and saw a huge thunderstorm was heading our way. Sure enough, around 8:30 the lightning and thunder started, then the wind, the rain, a little hail. It went directly over us and for more than two hours it was constant lightning and rumbling, some of the strikes were straight down and looked close. It's a little unnerving to watch the show while sitting in a metal tube, hoping we're not rubbing up against a big ol' pine tree! By 10:30 the storm had moved off to the NE and we bunked down. This morning is sunny, blue sky, birds singing - another lovely Alberta day. Jim is going to play 9 holes this morning, then we're off to the casino for lunch and a little play of my own.

We decided last night to skip Edmonton, so will be going to Lamont (northeast of the city) to stay the night, then working our way northwest and will be in Slave Lake sometime this weekend. Or maybe not. Who knows? We could end up in Saskatchewan! It all depends on which road looks more interesting, what the weather is doing, who we meet along the way. All we know for sure is that this is the perfect way to RV: no schedules, no itinerary.

You stay in touch, please, and I'll send updates when the wifi is willing.

 Faythe Webster, 17 months old. Joy's grand-niece.

 Barn cat and her kittens.

Jim's morning coffee break at our secluded campsite at Carstairs.

That's my nephew! Clay Webster, horse trainer without equal. 

Check out Clay Webster Performance Horses on Google for the full story. 

Thursday, August 2

Aloha everyone, with apologies for such scanty communication. Picture this: You're nestled in a 62-year-old ranch house with wood-burning stove, comfy chairs in a wood-panelled living room, bookcases filled with an array of books both old and new that would make a librarian weep, the coyotes are yipping outside and there's absolutely no reason to go anywhere. Well, except for one: there's no indoor toilet so trips to the outhouse are carefully scheduled. And the only thing missing is - yep, you guessed it - Wifi! In fact, we have no newspaper delivery (yay), no radio (double yay) and no TV (that's the biggest yay ever!) so truly, living at the ranch is a way to really unplug. Of course, the downside is no Facebook, no email and no updates on politics. Wait, did I call it a "downside"???

Yesterday we left the comforts of the ranch for the comforts of our RV. We took all day to load up and make sure we didn't forget anything important in the way of clothing and tools, then drove into High River to stay at Cousin Shane and Peter's for two nights. Tomorrow we'll drive to Claresholm and camp in the town campground for three nights. On Monday we leave for parts unknown, although the general direction will be north and possibly as far north as the Peace River country.

This afternoon Shane and I have a table at the local farmer's market to sell our bags. I've been working hard every day at the ranch (when not fishing), making my Bags of Joy out of fabric rejects and scraps I found at the salvage yard up the road (website: joyofrecycling.com). Shane crochets lovely gift bags; altogether we both have about 20 bags each and hope to sell enough to pay for dinner tonight. Wish us luck. 

Much has happened since my last post. Our grandson, Hunter, got a good taste of country living at the ranch including lots of ATV riding, helping dig a new hole for the men's outhouse (and then helping the guys move the little building), assisting my brother with fencing, and generally watching and listening to the old folks tell their tall tales. And yes, I showed him the fine art of trout fishing on a little itty-bitty creek, then demonstrated my technique for cleaning the catch. And then I cooked 'em and we ate 'em!

Our trip to Beaver Mines Lake was fun and successful - I caught a lovely rainbow from the shore using a barbless hook. Photo below. We camped one night just to give Hunter an idea of the RV lifestyle. I think he preferred the cozy ranch house I described above.

All in all, the fishing has been great - many cutthroat and brook trout - and I expect to do some more as we travel north.

The last two days of Hunter's visit were busy. One day we drove into Calgary, right downtown, and went up the Calgary Tower to have lunch. It's a revolving restaurant and, fortunately, the day was clear as a bell so the views were outstanding: we could see all the way south to the mountains at the ranch, east into the prairie, and west to Banff. Jim took Hunter through the Glenbow Museum - a Charlie Russell exhibit was the highlight - while Shane and I shopped for goodies to take home as gifts.

The next day we drove to Drumheller, about 70 miles east of Calgary, to the world-famous Tyrell Museum where most of the world's dinosaur study is done. What a place... if you haven't been, it's worth every dollar of admission and every moment you spend. After that, we explored the Atlas Coal Mine in East Coulee and while the rest of the group toured the tipple I spent a wonderful hour wandering through the yard of cast-off equipment, old machinery, rusty wheel and gears - my kind of artifacts indeed.

Hunter got on the plane the following day and made it safely home to Maui; his first foreign trip now just a memory.

Mom and Dad are doing well I'm happy to report. Mom will be celebrating her 90th birthday in September, which is the reason we'll be here until almost the end of that month. Considering Dad is well into his 94th year, still driving, still taking daily walks around the town, and still sharp as his age will allow - well, I'm feeling really blessed, believe me.

The weather has been typical Alberta: almost freezing at night, almost 90ºF by noon, thunderstorm at 4 p.m., lovely sunsets over the mountains, light until 10. It's a little cloudy and coolish right now but I expect it will be gorgeous again soon. And now for some photos, willy-nilly, as Blogspot doesn't seem to like it when I insert them throughout my narrative. Happy trails till we get together again.

 Photo above: camped at Beaver Mines Lake and ready for fishin'

 Photo above: a 15-inch rainbow and Joy

 Photo above: Atlas Coal Mine, tipple in the background

 Photo above: Hunter, Jim, Joy at Big Rock near Okotoks

 Photo above: moving the men's outhouse to fit the new hole

Photo above: Peter, Myrna, Jim, Hunter, Joy, Shane

Friday the 13th

Friday, July 13

We've been Stampede-ized thoroughly. After a five-hour overnight flight to Vancouver followed by another hour to Calgary and airport pick-up by my cousins Peter and Shane, we finally got a quick nap before heading to the Stampede grounds. By 7 p.m. we were in our seats in the grandstand, watching the world-famous Rangeland Derby. If you haven't seen chuckwagon races, well... you really need to put it on your bucket list. After a stage show and massive fireworks we headed back out of town to the cousins' home in High River and hit the sack at 1 a.m. Next day we were back at the Stampede to see the rodeo, explore the midway and swelter in 90+ºF temperatures. A great time was had by all.

Jim, Cousin Shane, Joy, Myrna and Hunter

Yesterday we drove to Claresholm to visit with Mom and Dad - found them in great spirits and doing well. We all had lunch at a new Chinese restaurant in the little (tiny) town of Stavely - Dad's birthplace and where Tony and I spent the first 7 and 9 years of our lives. Nothing much has changed in the past 56 years except for the new Chinese restaurant. If you're following our trip on a map of Alberta you'll find Calgary, High River, Stavely and Claresholm on Highway 2 heading south. If you kept going south past Claresholm you could - in a day or three - find yourself in Las Vegas. I know. I've done it.

Here are a couple more shots from the Stampede. The top is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride. The bottom is the finish of one of the chuckwagon races. What an event! Calgary really did it up big for the 100th birthday of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. Well over one million people will attend the 10-day show and I think most of them were on the midway with us on Wednesday.

Okay, today we're heading to the ranch. Map watchers: west of Stavely, just off Highway 22 about 8 miles south of Chain Lakes Provincial Park. Or you could google Chimney Rock Bed & Breakfast or Facebook Dames on the Range. I'll catch up with you from there.