Wednesday, October 7 - Drove 150 Miles Today. Stopped for the night in Durango, Colorado. Durango was another of those places on our dream list of retirement meccas. Its listed in many “Places to Retire” magazines, as one of the prime choices of those who are in their “Golden” years. It is an attractive city in the Animus River Valley, but has gotten too popular - probably because of the retirement magazines. The place has grown beyond its stretch limits these last ten years - prices are high - both real estate and RV parks. We paid $43 for the night at the Union RV Park - an okay place, but overpriced. The mountains are close, which really bothers Mary, and traffic is heavy, so we marked Durango off our retirement list. 
The Durango-Silverton Railroad passed right by the RV park in the morning and returned toward evening. It is a narrow gauge 19th Century steam engine that passed before we could get the camera - no photos. There was a neat bar in the downtown area, The Irish Embassy, where we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, October, 8,9 &10 - Drove only 60 Miles Today. We chose to stay at the Riverside RV Park, just east of Pagosa Springs, and selected an attractive site on the river - the last place on the row, so no one was beyond our door. Will, our 76 year old camp host, was a likeable fellow who bided his time between Pagosa Springs, Colorado and his Texas Ranch. He had been hosting at the park for eight years, and said this one had been harder - more troubled and pressed people than previous years.
That night the Pagosa Springs Resort cost us $17 each, plus and additional $5 to enter the special “adult area” - not worth it on Thursdays, but maybe on weekends. The Springs establishment is big with many pools and an adjacent hotel, and worth a visit. 
We explored the area on Friday and Saturday. The old part of town is mainly one street wide, without much new having been added. The new part of town stretches four or five miles to the west. That is where most of the business and housing has been added over the last few years - lots of modern-like development, fast-foods and local restaurants.
There was not much more to see, but we stayed on for another day because the hot-air balloon festival still raged in Albuquerque, not ending till Sunday. It was so popular that there was little chance of finding a place within a hundred miles, so we built a fire and roasted hotdogs and marshmallows by the riverside that evening. 
GO TO: Part 9
Friday, October 2 - 257 Miles Today. We left the KOA at 11AM. The western approach to Yellowstone National Park was near, and we had planned to drive through it, but the bad weather that trailed us out of Alaska threatened to blanket the area with snow so it seemed prudent to head south. The town of West Yellowstone lay only a few miles from our camp. We connected with US 20 there, and headed southwest to hook up with I-15 at Idaho Falls. The road followed the Snake River and we passed a number of nice “summer homes” situated along it banks.
Mary thought Idaho Falls might be interesting, but traffic was heavy again (5PM) and it did not seem as enticing as we had imagined. The RV park we wanted to look at lay on the east side of town, but we weren’t certain of its location. I thought it would be on the lead-in to town and was scanning the roadside the last five miles, but found it sandwiched between I-15 and traffic lights on the town-side, - a busy, congested area. I missed the turn, was highly flustered, and so turned onto the Interstate heading south. We drove on another 50 miles to Pocatello, Idaho. Looked over a KOA camp, but settled on the Cowboy RV Park. We unhitched and drove into town on 5th Street which merged with Yellowstone Avenue, the main drag. Every thing was located along Yellowstone, and the restaurant that caught our attention was called “Wingers” - a place specializing in chicken wings. It was a good choice.
Saturday, October 3 - 227 Miles Today. We left Pocatello fifteen minutes before checkout time and headed south on I-15. Salt Lake City was jammed with traffic - six lanes wide and moving fast. I try to flow with the traffic and thus found myself speeding along at 65MPH - a higher velocity than I normally chose. The heavy traffic was a bit of a surprise but the Mormon’s were having a major conference.
We stopped in Provo for the night leaving I-15 at Exit 265. Unfortunately I veered left, passed over one bridge, under another, and soon found myself going in the wrong direction. Things seemed bad for a while as I didn’t know where we were going or when I’d get a chance to come back. I turned into a gas station and noticed we were on Center Street, the one I wanted. I got on it in the reverse direction and went under one bridge and over another and was soon back on track. Two miles further and we came onto the Lake Side RV Park. 
Sunday, October 4 - It seemed like it was time to take a break as we had been staying at a different place every night since leaving Alaska, and so we remained at Lake Side RV for a second day. The people at the park told us that Provo Canyon was the place to see, the fall colors were brilliant, and the Sundance Resort was located high up in the canyon, We drove up there, took a photo of Bridal Veil Falls, and then visited the resort home of the famous Film Festival. Luckily we did all those things on Saturday afternoon and evening because it rained on Sunday. We had planned to ride our bikes around Utah State Park which was adjacent to the RV park, but contented ourselves with taking Moonshine for a swim, doing laundry, surfing the Internet, perusing an old Ford tractor out of my youth, and attempting to fix a leaky kitchen sink. 
Wednesday, September 30 - 430 Miles Today. We had planned to stay in Edmonton for a second night, but The Glowing Embers was not that appealing, and one day at the Mall was enough. We were on the road before 10AM and drove duel-lane highways most of the day, passing through Calgary about 2PM - moderate traffic and good signage made for a fast and easy transit. We thought of camping near Fort Macleod but found the country to be flat prairie. There was not much to attract us and as it was only 4PM we decided to move on to Lethbridge or even forge on to the border. Lethbridge proved to be problematic: 5PM traffic…missed a turn…got into a tight spot in a parking lot while turning around …finally got straight and kept going toward the border. Stopped for propane and gas a few miles before the border then stopped again at a Duty Free shop at the border. The Canadian money left in Mary’s pocket was burning a hole, so we loaded up with a variety of sundry articles (bottle of gin, beef jerky, nuts, a big Cadbury chocolate bar, etc) and then went through customs. That was the high-lite of our day.
Drove another forty miles before stopping at the Lewis & Clark RV Campground outside Shelby, Montana. An older, grouchy guy checked us in. Lots of rules in this campground and the Internet was accessed by a specific code that allowed a specific amount of time - and only one of us could get on. Night had fallen by then so the old man showed me the site, but it was still hard to get into it - parking a trailer in the dark is a lot more difficult. Couldn’t get cable TV and discovered the next morning that I’d attached the cable to the wrong outlet. The lesson here is to stop before nightfall - makes life easier.
Thursday, October 1 - 287 Miles Today. Left Shelby before 10PM. Drove I-15 through Great Falls and stopped at a truck stop for gas and ate at a buffet - nothing special, and we noticed they had no meat dishes other than tasteless deep-fried fish - not even chicken.
We took a shortcut, Hwy 69, at Boulder where I-15 veers to the west. Came to I-90, and headed east to Bozeman, then south to the Bozeman KOA Park - very nice. There was a hot-spring next door of which the fee was $7.50. The place had seven pools. We went in about 7PM and there were only a few kids there but a number of college students started coming in shortly thereafter. When we left I noticed the bigger outside pool was circled by students sitting around the edge with their feet dipping into the water, and wondered if that was a regular happening? GO TO: Part 6
Monday, September 28 - 289 Miles Today. The checkout time at most RV parks is usually 11AM - more rarely at noon. We usually get our money’s worth by leaving at near the posted limit, but made an exception by leaving just after 10AM from the Mile “0” RV Park in Dawson Creek.
I can’t help but think of Dawson Creek as being the start of the civilized grid. The signs begin here. We headed toward Edmonton passing fenced fields, tracing power lines pole to pole, and feeling the sensation of being reconnected. The town of Grande Prairie is the largest. It has an attractive college with beautifully designed campus buildings (smooth curves, no sharp corners), a Costco, etc - all the attributes of a modern town. It is unrecognizable from forty years ago. We left Grande Prairie on a dual highway with traffic getting ever heavier the further south we went. 
The radio predicted winds of up to 50 MPH so we decided to stop in Whitecourt instead of driving onto Edmonton. Stayed at Sagitawh RV Park on the outskirts. Made a fire, roasted hotdogs and checked the email. Moonshine made friends with the donkey resident of the Park. There were also two pigs, a goat, a couple sheep, a llama, chickens and geese - all living peacefully in the same area.
Tuesday, September 29 - 104 Miles Today. Dual highway till just outside of Edmonton. We stopped at the Glowing Embers RV Park at the very western edge Edmonton as it was only a few miles from the West Edmonton Mall. We had been stopping there since 1987, right after it opened as the largest in the world. Mary thought she might want to go shopping, and we have always gone to the Water Park. It has a pool that generates waves and numerous waterslides. Mary had a lot of fun in the wave pool the last time we went, but could not get inspired this time. She slid down one of the more gentle slides, I did a couple of the extremes. We decided the Mall no longer has the magnetic attraction for us that it once possessed. 
GO TO: Part 5
Saturday, September 26 - 204 Miles Today. We are very conscious that many Road Houses are closed, some not to open again, so I am reluctant to let the gas tank go much below the half way mark. We stopped at the Northern Rockies Lodge to gas. The place is a high-end hunting and fishing lodge on the shores of Muncho Lake. Well healed tourists are flown in by small float-planes for a week or two, and then carried out the same way - no dusty long road for them. There is a large lodge made of logs and a sprinkling of picturesque chalets along the shore. Gas cost $6 a gallon, the most expensive along the highway, but we had stopped at a couple other places only to discover they had no gasoline, so I wasn’t about to pass the opportunity.
We rolled into Fort Nelson at four in the afternoon looking for a place to stay. We had camped on the west end of town in 2006, but didn’t care much for it, so we thought to try one described in the Milepost that lay five miles on the other side. It was closed, maybe for a year or two, so we turned back to town. Found an RV Park in town hidden behind the Blueberry Motel. It was a fenced, open, graveled lot that we had failed to notice on earlier trips, but it had good Wi-Fi, so we were happy.
Once we unhitched and set up the trailer it was time for dinner. On other trips we had dined at Dixie lee’s, a small, popular place with the locals, so it seemed a logical choice. Dixie Lee’s specialized in deep fried chicken and fish. We noticed there were no customers when we went in, and it was dinner time. Only one other couple came in while we were there - weary travelers from Oklahoma on their way to Alaska . I ordered three pieces of chicken woth fires. I got a small leg, a small wing, and a small thigh - over cooked and dry. The place had probably been sold - new owners, new personnel. Don’t need to go there any more.
Sunday, September 27 - 283 Miles Today. We left Fort Nelson just after 11PM, and arrived in Dawson Creek about 5PM. I spent another paranoid day of driving while watching the gas gauge go toward the half way mark. We stopped at three places in the Pink Mountain area even though I probably had enough gas to get to Fort. St Johns - I wanted insurance. The Buckinghorse River Roadhouse had a sign on the pump, “Sorry no Gas”, so we went across the road to what looked like a large road crew camp. There was a restaurant with gas pumps out front and an RV sitting at them - nobody around. We waited several minutes and then went on into the Provincial Campground for a break. The campground has a large parking area with camp sites along its river side. We have camped there several times and always enjoy stopping. The RV was still there as we left the campground so we drove on again. The gas gauge was slipping under the quarter-tank mark when we were finally able to get gas. 
GO TO: Part 4
Wednesday, October 7 - Drove 150 Miles Today. Stopped for the night in Durango, Colorado. Durango was another of those places on our dream list of retirement meccas. Its listed in many “Places to Retire” magazines, as one of the prime choices of those who are in their “Golden” years. It is an attractive city in the Animus River Valley, but has gotten too popular - probably because of the retirement magazines. The place has grown beyond its stretch limits these last ten years - prices are high - both real estate and RV parks. We paid $43 for the night at the Union RV Park - an okay place, but overpriced. The mountains are close, which really bothers Mary, and traffic is heavy, so we marked Durango off our retirement list. 
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