Calgary

We left early on Friday morning to head north toward Calgary and fuel up near Trans Canada Highway 1, which was at least a couple hours away.   That fuel stop would allow our next fill to be in Grand Prairie, about 500 miles north.  GP is the last reasonable priced fuel stop before Anchorage.  Lucky for us, we left the smoke behind in Waterton and it was an enjoyable ride till we got to the fuel station.   Then it got difficult.  Seems it was the start of the Canadian long weekend and everyone needed fuel, so it was a madhouse getting in and out of there.   Not real fun with a 65′ long rig with all the folks jockeying for position.   And of course I forgot to take into account I was paying in Canada money when I prepaid inside, so I had to do it twice to fill the tank, which only meant I was there even longer.

We arrived in Cochran and Google Maps took me thru a new neighborhood with lots of small roundabouts.   Next time I will look much closer to the route it wants to take and set a few way-points if it’s going to do something stupid like that.  Bow Rivers Edge Campground was down this odd roadway with construction all around it.

We paid and pulled into our site.   It was fairly tight once in there and there were fairly tall hedges between us and our neighbors.   It was a bit smokey there, so when it cleared up the next day, there was a bit of celebrating going on all over the campground.  It was so smoky that I started to research filters on Consumer Reports.   Of course, I didn’t find any of their tested models available near me and ended up buying a 3M Filtrete Air Purifier model at Lowes.   It surprisingly worked well and now we have one for our time in Alaska too.  Last time in Alaska we were dodging smoke most of the trip.

We went out with our travel companions one evening while there to a local Tap Room, Half Hitch Brewing for Burgers.  The beer was good and so were the burgers.