Quite The Trip

We have been blessed with many trips across our great land but this one was special because we included our neighbors to the north, Canada.

We had hoped to camp in Alaska earlier this month but we got to figuring up and we did not have enough time to go and get back in time for all the things we have planned in September.

September is one of our favorite months with the Highland and Brown County Fairs, the Corn Festival, Farm Science Review, and many more fun activities. We also have many grandchildren now and it is hard to be away very long from their birthdays and activities.

So, we headed west two weeks ago across Indiana and Illinois to our friend Keith Schlapkohl's farm near Stockton, Iowa. I have mentioned his 200 pod soybean plants to many friends and forums. They are awesome. I always learn something in Iowa.

Then we headed north up Interstate 380 to Minnesota where we caught Interstate 94 this time, a little farther south of US 2 we took once but north of 90 we have taken more often. The biggest thing we noticed was the oil business and they have baled every sprig of grass across the north, even the little drainage area's off the cloverleafs. I mean everything is baled.

We did not have the insect problems in Minnesota and North Dakota we usually do and Montana is always big sky country. I don't see how anyone could not like Montana except for a few who have to tough it out there in the winter. This time we caught Teddy Roosevelt National Park in the badlands before we got to Montana. It has a nice 35 mile loop through it and we enjoyed every minute of it.

The next day we got to Livingston, Montana where we met an old friend for lunch and camped that night at beautiful Steelhead Lake at the west base of Glacier National Park. We could have easily stopped right there and headed home today.

Instead, we crossed Going to the Sun road across Glacier and did not mind the one lane road construction that backed things up. Sitting at 5000 feet looking at that National Park is no bad deal for me and we had lunch up there, too.

We found the campsite we camped at 11 years ago but headed to the new visitor center on the east side. We crossed over to Alberta for the first time and viewed the Canadian Praire full of wheat and swathed down canola, mile after mile. We camped at Daisy May and celebrated at A&W Root Beer. That 5 oz sirloin is a tasty meal!

We visited Calgary for the first time, though we missed the big crowd at the 100th annual Stampede in July and found the campground where you camp and they take you to the Stampede. That would be the way to do that for us. We drove on to the Banff and the Canadian Rockies and camped at Jasper National Park.

I will stop right there for now as I downloaded a picture from the Xyboard we took. That is enough for tonight.

Happy Labor Day Weekend, America!

Ed Winkle