Neighbouring camper comes at me with a tire iron in his hand!

In this edition:

At the end of the last installment, we headed for home - as we tend to do once in a while!  But upon getting home, it was discovered that the nice neighbour (not the one with the tire iron!) had already cut my 2 acres of grassland!  So - after spending two nights in a row at home, it was time to hit the trail again.

Friends Ernie & Deb from Saskatchewan were out touring around in BC, and they wanted to check out one of my usual summer camping locations.  So we headed back out to the Abraham lake area to await their arrival.

Right away, Bailey had to check out their Jeep!

 

We hung out and got caught up for a couple days, and hiked the nearby Siffleur Falls trail.

 

Even Don came down from the Edmonton area one afternoon - and we watched the Stanley Cup final - courtesy of Starlink. 

 

The roads in the area are great now, and very scenic, but it was not so, back in the day!

After this trip, another two nights were spent at home, waiting out some rainy, wet weather.  One afternoon, the sun peeked out, and we were off!  But, unfortunately, it rained very hard, all the way back to the lake, and most of that night.

Next day, it was nice again, and Bailey showed his usual 'restraint', and raced off about 80 yards to meet some random strangers who were passing near our camp spot!  

A bear wandered by one day, surprising some tent campers on the far side of the river.  Looked like he was on the trail - headed towards Banff National Park!

 

Below is another shot from across the river, looking back at most of the random camping areas.

More friends, and their dog showed up!  Things were crowded because it was on the long weekend, and they couldn't get into the spot where I was on the river bank, but I scouted around and found a nice quiet spot across the road that we had all to ourselves.  Bailey, and their big black lab eventually agreed to terms for sharing the area!

 

We did the requisite hike back to Siffleur Falls, but also did a new hike into Whitegoat Falls

When Anders & Dianne left, there was nothing left to do, but head back to one of our favourite spots on Revelstoke Lake.  We settled in, and waited for the weekend crowds.

Bailey, still a kitten at heart, has a great time there stalking the various wildlife - and butterflies!

He still thinks he can catch random robins, feeding on berry bushes, or squirrels taunting him from 40' up in a tree. 

Cat on a collision course!

I photographed this butterfly - about 30 seconds before he caught it, but I was able to free it, apparently unharmed ;-)

But he did spot a mouse, making itself at home under the trucks hood.  Hopefully it was gone before we hit the road, as I have seen them before, popping up in front of the windshield when the engine compartment gets a bit too toasty for them.

Flowers were out in full force along the lakeshore.

A group of nearby paddleboarders out on the water to watch the sunset.

 

It was getting pretty warm during the day, so I was in the water constantly to cool off.  Bailey preferred to lay in the shade in the green grass under the rig, but also tolerated getting misted with water if he had to be inside. I also took him for his very first kayak ride, though it was  short.  He was somewhat concerned, but didn't panic or complain.  He's shown no fear when walking out on floating logs or other precarious spots, or (unfortunately) approaching total strangers and their dogs!

 

A Merganzer mother came by almost every day. I counted one with 12 young behind her!

On the weekend, a younger couple pulled in and parked on the old road approaching my spot where the now flooded highway disappears into the lake.  The girl came and talked to me, making sure I wasn't planning to leave, as they were somewhat blocking my exit.  I told her I would be here for a few more days - not a problem.  But there was a problem!  A bit later the girls boyfriend approached me carrying a tire iron!!  He explained to me that the one he had would not fit the lugs on the vehicle, and wondered if I had a larger size that he could borrow?  I dug mine out after supper, and it did the job he was trying to accomplish.  Gee, I hope no one was waiting to hear about a campground skirmish ;-)

 

Camping, travel. Alberta, BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC again!

It seems to have been a while since my last blog update!  I guess it's time to get a bit more up to date?

The next tour started pretty much the same as the last one - we headed out west of Rocky Mountain House to a place called Preacher's Point on Abraham lake.  It is more or less free camping, but you do require an annual pass to camp in the east slopes of the Rockies here in Alberta.  It costs about $30, and is available online.  I was glad to see that my last years permit had not yet expired!

Being a week day, we were able to get the very same spot as the last couple of trips - and there were a few more leaves on the trees this time.

We've changed our Starlink service from roam/mobile to 'residential', which is cheaper, and provides supposedly faster service!  The downside is that you have to 'change your address' each time you move.

I'm still learning the ins and outs of that process, and it can be a bit challenging to do when there is no cell service to fall back on.  If you know where you will be camped next, it is easier to change it prior to actually moving.  I also bought adapters for SL that allows me to use shielded Cat6 cable instead of the stock SL cables, which seem apt to fail regularly.  At least this way, I have two separate working cables for redundancy.

Abraham lake is actually a reservoir on the North Saskatchewan River, formed behind the Bighorn dam.  This time of year the water levels are still low, so it's mostly just a river channel at the upper end.

From there we headed up to Jasper, and over to Valemount, BC.  We attended a big get-together of the BC Backcountry Horsemen .  I knew a few of the organizers, who I worked with in the backcountry of Jasper, back in the day.  I used to patrol the north boundary of Jasper National Park for 17 days at a time, alone, with a saddle horse and two pack horses.  Apparently, I didn't take any photos of this occasion!
From BC, we headed back across Alberta, headed for a reunion of Conservation Officers in Saskatchewan - where I also used to work!  Although it is only about a 10 hour drive, I was in no rush and managed to spread the trip out over 4-5 days.

On the second day, I paid an overnight visit with Don & Donna, who were spending some time at home between camping and work trips. Don donated me a 1000w inverter he wasn't using!

Another stop was at a historic railroad trestle near Wainwright, originally built in 1908, and still in use today on the CN mainline, with only a few updates.

And here is a Youtube video I did in the area. 

https://youtu.be/IKkvFdMotOA 

It was a good get-together with a bunch of old Saskatchewan Conservation Officers - several of which were also college classmates of mine.

Saskatchewan camp spots ...  No mountains to block the view!

After visiting Saskatchewan, I did spend a total of two nights at home - to mow the grass and re-stock.  Unfortunately, a good neighbour had already cut my grass the day I got back.  Good timing, so there was not much to stick around for.  Back to BC we went.

We have a number of favourite, free camp spots along the length of Revelstoke Lake, and we found one of our spots free.

 

I didn't notice the canoe and tent on the beach, till I reviewed the video later.  Nice spot, on the far side of the lake.

My spot.

  So far, the new 200Ah Lipo battery in the camper has been working well, and the dc-dc charger keeps thing topped up when ever there is driving.  While camped at the lake, we went 4 nights/5 days of fairly substantial use of Starlink, and keeping laptop, phone, tablet, drone, and e-bike batteries all charged up - without the use of solar, and the generator was left at home.  There was excellent sunshine for solar use, but all my panels stayed safely stowed under the mattress as I wanted to give the new battery a good test. After all that time, there was still power to spare. The dc-dc charger had the battery at full capacity again, long before we got home!

The 1000w inverter was used to replace my 400w one.  The smaller inverter was quite sufficient for my needs in this rig, but it's annoying fan ran constantly, while the 1000w is silent, and I left it on constantly, never noticing the minimal draw.  I put in a new 110v plug powered from the inverter, with the addition of a couple of handy usb ports, and an indicator light to show the inverter is on, and the plug is live.  The doorbell switch turns the inverter on and off.

Eventually, the weather crapped out somewhat, so we have returned home to await decent forecasts in any direction before heading out again.