Leg 7 (Final) Rob and Cheryl’s NARVO

(June 11th -19^th, 2016), Banff, Alberta to Port Perry, Ontario (3116/9447 miles)

Day 58 (June11th) – Focusing on the Bucket list

We left Banff around 9am making our fond farewells with Dave and Delia. They were staying on in the Banff area for a few days before heading to Calgary and Saskatoon to meet family and friends. We had really enjoyed each other’s company over the last month or so and it was going to be a bit of an adjustment to being just the two of us again.

We were planning a long day’s drive which included some beautiful scenery. Unfortunately everything was shrouded in rain and mist, so we just had to make a decision to enjoy the fact that we knew it would have been beautiful. The route we had chosen took us more or less directly south, back into British Columbia. 

We had had some hard bargaining about whether to go slightly south west from there into Idaho or go directly south into Montana. I insisted that Idaho needed to be part of our route as we are on a quest to visit all 50 of the USA states and if we left out little ole Idaho this time, who knows when/if we might ever make it back there. The counter view point from Cheryl was that we were going backwards, which was true, just to be able to say that we had visited Idaho – also true. Cheryl does most of the navigating so generally calls the shots in these discussions. However this time, as the driver, I pulled rank and insisted that Idaho was part of the plan. As it turned out we found a very friendly USA border guard, crossing into Idaho and we spent all of an hour or so, driving east before we were into Montana and Yellowstone NP was in our cross hairs. Visited Idaho – check. Been there done that.

The weather had gradually improved during the course of the day and we finally called it quits for the day when we pulled into a Walmart parking lot in Missoula, Montana, where we joined a small RV colony, about 15 RVs, who like us were cadging a free night’s accommodation. To be fair, we do always do our groceries there when we stop, and I suspect others do too.

Day 59 (June 12^th) – Yiaaa! – Yellowstone in sight

We had found what looked like a good church in Deer Lodge, about an hour’s drive en route, so we pulled in there with fifteen minutes to spare and were greeted warmly by the husband and wife pastor team. It turns out we had stumbled on a pre father’s day pot luck lunch and we were invited to join them which we were glad to do. We sat with a youngish couple with four kids who are all being home schooled. It was interesting to get their perspective as they are not at all happy with public school authorities being given such a free hand in influencing their kid’s values – quite topical I thought in light of the latest “improvements” to our own Ontario system.

Well-fed we set out after lunch and pulled into the Rocky Mountain RV Park in Gardiner, immediately outside of the northern gate of Yellowstone NP around 5pm with the weather steaming hot and robust sunshine. We took a walk around the town, which was styled as a cowboy/cum shake you loose of your spare change kind of place. $15 (US) for a burger I thought was a bit steep. We found a very helpful Information Center where the young lady was able to orient us as to the ins and outs of Yellowstone, which we found helpful.

The RV park was comfortable, but very tight to our neighbors. I met our neighbor on the one side. I was reading my book while he was hooking up his sewerage and water lines – that’s how close we were to each other. We got chatting - Larry is about our age in an RV similar to ours. He was travelling with his young adult son and daughter and two of their friends. It must have been pretty cozy I reckon. Larry is recently divorced, now living in his RV full time in Atlanta area with his son and is reluctantly dropping off his daughter to work at Yellowstone over the summer. After the summer his daughter may be coming to live with him and son/brother in Larry’s RV. It didn’t sound like a good situation, but Larry was the nicest guy. Sometimes people are living very sad lives.

Day 60 and 61 (June 13th and 14^th) – What happened to my Planet?

We joined a long line up of vehicles entering Yellowstone. Even though it is not yet the summer season, YNP is extremely busy. How they cope with the flood of people in the summer I don’t know. Many of the other NPs force one to park one’s vehicle in a central location and then they shuttle you around for free which is slightly laborious but does wonders for road congestion issues.

We spent two days driving around YNP.  On numerous occasions we thought it couldn’t get any more amazing, but up to the day we left we were still being astounded by what we were seeing. YNP is unlike anything we have ever experienced. It is a massive park, most of which sits atop a “Caldera” or volcano which is still very active. What this means is that the whole place is literally sitting atop a witches brew of geothermal activity, namely “Mud Pots, Geysers, Fumaroles and Hot springs”  YNP has over 10,000 of these features, more than the combined total found elsewhere on the planet.  The place is alive with steaming, bubbling and spouting activity and there are dire warnings everywhere about being so foolish as to step off the boardwalks. In fact very recently an individual ignored the warnings, went off the path and his body was literally dissolved in an acidic stew – with that cheerful thought in mind, we stayed on the path.

We have tried to compare YNP to some of the other National Parks we have visited, but there really is no basis for comparison. At times we felt like we were on a different planet. YNP doesn’t fit the conventional concept of outdoor beauty, but It really is a “must see” place.

Day 62 (June -15^th) – Off to see the Fab Four

We left early as we had a long way to drive to reach Mount Rushmore in South Dakota to see the carving of four of the USA President’s each picked for their own particular contribution to the Union.

The drive through Wyoming and into S. Dakota was very diverse, but always interesting and beautiful. As a rule of thumb we choose to skip the interstate highways, unless we are just looking to make distance, so we generally pick the scenic byways. Cheryl, our navigator mapped out or route and off we went. All was well until we found ourselves heading into a very steep uphill pass. I have never seen such steep grades. At times the RV was down to first gear, just to keep moving. Adding to Cher’s discomfort was the fact that I was compelled every now and then to stop and take photos of what we were seeing. Let’s just say that the navigator had us going on the I90 freeway for most of the rest of the day after that.

We found a steal of a campsite at Oreville National Forest campsite at $20 per night not far from Mount Rushmore and checked in there with the host around 7pm before heading over to Mount Rushmore for the Lighting Ceremony. 

The place is like a shrine to American Freedom and Patriotism and all of that good stuff and they have done a good job of it. We thoroughly enjoyed the intro program run by the Warden and a stirring Intro movie. Everything ended with the national anthem and the lighting up of the faces of the Fab Four. It was very impressive and we dragged ourselves back to our very dark campsite in the National Forest for a good night’s rest after a very long day.

Day 63 (June 16^th) – Give an Engineer a Challenge ……

We were up bright eyed and bushy tailed as we had two components of sightseeing to fit in today. We started back at Mount Rushmore and hired the audio tour to take us around. The vision and implementation of this marvel of artistry and engineering is quite something. They basically started with the side of a granite mountain.  90% the sculpting was done with dynamite. The explosives guys got so good at it, by the time they finished they could blast to within 4 inches of where they needed the ultimate cut to be. They used 6 foot models of each president and then transposed that by a factor of one to twelve onto the face of the mountain. It is all a bit mind blowing and a tribute to good ole fashioned American “ let’s just get it done” mindset. I’m not so sure they can still pull off those kinds of stunts these days. They’re too busy trying to pick between two of the worst presidential candidates one could imagine.

We left Mount Rushmore late morning and headed over to the South Dakota Badlands, National Park about an hour and a half east. We knew it was predicted to be a hot day, but when we arrived our thermometer was telling us it was 42 degrees Celsius. It’s a cheap thermometer, but it was definitely stinking hot. 

With that kind of heat our enthusiasm level was low and so we settled for a drive through the park to see, but not walk, all the main highlights. It was impressive, but perhaps the heat sucked our enthusiasm to a low ebb as we were glad to be heading out of there around 5pm.

We had the choice of driving on, or heading for an RV park with a pool and where we could switch on our aircon. We were soon settled down in the Sleepy Hollow RV Park in the mighty city of Wall and I went for a swim in the pool which felt like I was floating in a hot bath. It felt good though and we ended our day with a BBQ and catching up on a bit of news on TV. As we neared the end of our trip it was good to begin to start catching up with the doings of the real world again.

People along the Way – we didn’t actually meet them, but we enjoyed reading the story of one of Wall’s main attractions. We had noticed some very distinctive billboard ads on the way in from the Badlands, advertising “Wall Drug”. The things they were advertising had little to do with a drug store and we were curious. We enquired at the RV park and they laughed. It turns out Wall Drug is a local icon with a nice story attached.  A young couple starting out life arrived in Wall in 1931 when drought was everywhere. They bought the local drug store and waited and prayed for business to arrive – for five years. Unfortunately no one had any reason to stop in Wall, and they didn’t. Dorothy and Ted used to listen to the cars going roaring by on the road to Rapid City. Finally Dorothy had the brainwave that they should advertise “free iced cold water” in the store. Before husband Ted had finished putting up the signs on all the main roads people were starting to arrive. Business was brisk. They closed late that first night, the next year they hired 8 “girls” to help and the rest is history. They now own a whole city block, with every imaginable touristy gimmicky little shop one can imagine. They still serve free iced water and they serve up to 20,000 people on a good summer day. We were sorry that we had arrived too late and left too early to enjoy Wall Drug. Mental note – add Wall Drug onto my bucket list for a future visit.

Day 64 (June 17^th) – The Dakotas - Big Sky Country.

We got up and left early. We had a long way to go and breakfast could wait until we had nailed a couple of hours of driving. The interstate was bumpy and there was an endless amount of roadworks which was tense driving and slow. Finally we decided to head north, which we had to do later in the day anyway and catch the next interstate east up inside North Dakota. This happened to suit me just fine as if we hadn’t done that we would have missed North Dakota altogether which didn’t fit my plans of visiting all 50 of the States.

As we headed north we entered what is called the National Grasslands. It was wall to wall lush, bright green grassland and flat as far as the eye could see – not a tree in sight. The novelty soon wore off as the road continued north, but it certainly made an eye catching first impression.

We stopped in Pierre, State Capital of South Dakota and enjoyed breakfast in their downtown park overlooking the river. I bumped into a young guy in the parking lot who was taking a break from riding an old looking motorbike with a side car attached. I asked him how old his bike was and he said “brand new”. It turns out it is a Russian bike, a bit of a collector’s item, with relatively few being imported into the USA every year – a new bike designed to look old it seems, or maybe the Russians haven’t “borrowed” any up to date designs recently.  This was its maiden voyage and he was driving her from Denver to Maryland to hang out with a buddy for a few months. I had spotted him in Wall earlier in the day and was amazed to meet up with him hundreds of kilometres later.

We made it into North Dakota which seemed to my inexperienced eye to be a bit more developed. It became a bit more treed as we headed north and we even encountered the occasional hill. As we turned east on the I94 the farmland became more cultivated. We finally stopped around 7pm in a truck stop a few miles short of the Minnesota State line.  There’s nothing much pretty about truck stops other than their price – I like free, but oh my goodness to the tired and weary they offer a good night’s rest and that’s what we got. The Dakotas – been there, done that. Check.

Day 65 (June 18^th) – Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan – Moving fast now

Once again another early start. We are getting slicker and slicker at just getting up and going. A quick stop at the Minnesota Visitor’s centre for maps and we were on our way.

We drove a long way that day. The weather was steaming hot, and we were suffering without running our aircon as we had discovered that running it all day really impacts the fuel consumption negatively. We aimed for Duluth on the eastern edge of Minnesota and the very westernmost point on Lake Superior. The nice young girl at the gas station outside of town told us that downtown Duluth was worth a visit, so we decided to make it our lunch time stop. What she had neglected to mention was that this was Duluth’s biggest day of the year, their massive marathon, which involved shutting off every approach to the beach across miles and miles of waterfront, nor was there a parking spot anywhere to be found. After navigating through a plethora of diversions and exhausted looking mainly walkers by then, we just gave up and headed over the State line to Wisconsin where we stopped for lunch at a Rest Centre.

It was over lunch that we realised that there was a quicker way home than we had planned. When we took a closer look at the map we realised that we could save about 100 miles by rather turning north to enter Canada at Sault Ste. Marie and then hot footing it home on the Transcanada Highway.

This involved a more or less immediate course correction which fortunately we were not too far along to make. We drove through numerous pretty villages and towns as we passed through Wisconsin’s North Shore and entered Michigan where we finally dragged ourselves into Marquette Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior. Walmart was to be our abode for the night, but we decided to check out the waterfront before we bedded down for the night. As it turned out the waterfront was very pretty and we ended up eating dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant overlooking a gorgeous evening over looking the lake.  

Walmart, as usual offered a good deal, including a pretty good overnight security service. We were woken at 1.30am with the security guy telling us we had left the headlights on in the RV. This was not good news. When I tried to start the RV it wouldn’t turn over. Fortunately our “house” battery acts as a secondary starter battery so we did have a backup and in the morning we were good to go. Whew.

Day 66 (June 19^th) – Last Lap

Up early again. We were aiming high this day. 600 miles would take us home. Could we do it? I didn’t relish the thought of that much driving, but like a tired old nag I scented the home stable and I was invigorated to do it. We settled down trying to finish the 15 DVD story book we had been listening to since Day 1.

We breezed through Canadian Customs at Sault Ste Marie. Pleasant, cheerful and welcoming. Those good ole Canadians – makes the heart glad just to think about it. I found the driving most of the way to Sudbury a bit hard going as it was one lane only each way and bumpy at times. Tough when you get behind a slow coach who’s going nowhere on a relaxed Sunday.

We had heard good things about Grundy Lake Provincial Park just north of Parry Sound. We also needed to dump our tanks before getting home, so we decided to stop there for lunch and check them out and get our tanks cleaned out. We had lunch with our own personal view of the lake, watching a group of youngsters jumping off a high rock into the lake below.

Whilst there we decided to have one last photo of our almost ten week trip. We asked a guy, who was holding a large impressive camera to do the honors. He impressed us with his diligence as he took us from three different angles. His accent told us he was not Canadian born. I asked him where they were visiting from. His reply surprised me – “USSR” he says. He has lived in Toronto for 10 years. Something wasn’t adding up – the USSR collapsed 25 years ago.  I asked him which part of the USSR he was from and he said “close to the Ukrainian border”. I asked him which side of the border and he rather reluctantly indicated the Ukrainian side. I asked him if he is happy in Canada and he was rather ambivalent. Perhaps he is yearning for the good ole days of the Soviet Empire in which Mother Russia ruled supreme and finds Canada a bit too mild for his tastes.

We stopped off at Walmart in Orillia and did our grocery shopping for when we got home as we had left our fridge and cupboards bare. We got home at about 8pm and it was good to be back. After a quick unpack of our groceries, we showered and headed for bed. The big unpack and cleanup of the RV would take another two days – that could wait. We were tired after all that driving on a hot day.

Our epic adventure was over, but surprisingly we were ready to be home. We fell into a deep sleep. Only 5 of 50 USA states left to visit for the first time. North American RV Odyssey – been there, done that. Check.