Monday, Tuesday; October 6 - 7, 2008

In Thompson MN CA we stayed at the McCreedy Campround along side the Churchill River and a float plane base. Mrs. McCreedy operates the campground and is certainly a very entertaining woman with a lot of stories to tell. Gail spent Monday catching up on laundry and walking around the Thompson towncenter. In the evening we boarded the train for our overnight (and next day!) ride to Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay. We left our RVs in Mrs. Mcreedy's custody until our return on Friday night the 10th. A word about the train ride. We learned the train is always guaranteed to be late and off the schedule and we certainly learned it is no express. While we had a sleeper compartment, we still had a restless night with the noise and slow moving and swaying of the train all of which is no fault of Canadian Railways. Other than some ocassional sidings, there is a single rail track from Thompson to Churchill which is plus/minus 325 mile long. These tracks are laid over the Trunda and therein is the reason the train schedule is erratic. The tracks are coniually moving around in the soft earth which doesn't provide for high speed rail travel. At times we would slow down to a crawling speed and ocassionally we would have to pull off on a siding and sit for a period of time while a freight train would pass us by. This track is also used to move grain to the shipping port at Churchill where it is sent on to Europe. We arrived in Churchill at 5 PM on Tuesday and procededed to our hotel, The Tundra Inn.

Catching up on the blog; Novv. 1, 2008

If you've been watching our Westward Ho blog and wondering what happened, this message will let you know we didn't get eaten up by the Polar Bears or lost in the Canadian Woods. We made it home fine without any incidents arriving in Chattanooga on Sunday afternoon October 19th. Needless to say, business activities have consumed Bob since we returned and this blog fell thru the cracks. Disappointingly, we also had an issue with our camera that has caused us to erase and lose a number of photos taken between 9/28 and 10/10. We'll catch the blog up on a daily basis and post photos where we can. We're happy to hear so many of you have been watching our trip unfold. We just feel blessed and fortunate we were ale to do it. Regards, Bob & Gail

Friday, Saturdday, Sunday; October 3,4,5, 2008

We’re driving north up the east side of the Province of Manitoba with the destination of Thompson scheduled for Sunday night the 5th. On Friday night the 3rd we stayed at a city owned campground in Dauphine. This area of the Province is heavily settled by descendents from the Ukraine area of Europe. We toured a historic Ukraine Catholic Church in the evening and then we were hosted to dinner by ladies of the church. The evening was concluded with some audience participation in the dancing customs of the Ukraine’s. It was an educational and fun evening for all of us. Saturday the 4th we spent the night dry camping at an Indian Casino at the city named, The Pas. On our drive here we discovered Tamarack Trees for the first time since leaving home. Their colors were changing continually in various shades of yellow as you can see in the attached photo. Sunday the 5th was more of the same scenery as we passed numerous large inland lakes. Just outside of Thompson we stopped at Pisew Falls. See photos attached. Monday we leave via slow passenger train to travel to Churchill MN on Hudson Bay for our much anticipated viewing of the Polar Bears. We return to Thompson Friday the 10th. Having passed the 55th Parallel at this point in our travels, we are getting ever closer to the Arctic Circle. photos to follow

Wednesday, Thursday; October 1-2, 2008

We spent Wednesday night 10/1 in Williston, ND. Oil drilling in and near the county has created a boom in the population with workers coming in from all over the US. No signs of a weak economy here! Bob is beginning to feel like a Nomad. Today he had a haircut at The Super Wall Mart while Gail picked up a few grocery items. Driving through large grain farms and oil rigs, we arrived at our campsite in the Turtle Mountains and at The International Peace Gardens just north of Dunseith, ND and on the Canadian border. The turtle you see in the photo is constructed of discarded vehicle wheels. Here we met up with eleven other coaches and couples to form the Fantasy RV Caravan that would travel into Manitoba and on to Churchill to view the Polar Bear migration there. We closed out the day with a social gathering of the new group members and a celebration of Gail’s 5th year since her cancer surgery. Thursday the 2nd was spent touring the International peace Gardens. Our tour was conducted by the senior gardener. This was a stunning place and a tribute to the international peace keeping efforts of Americans and Canadians. We were all very impressed with the place. The following website will do a better job of describing it than I can. Please take a minute to look at it. http://www.peacegarden.com/ Photos will follow at a later date.

Monday, Tuesday; September 29-30, 2008

Monday morning we awoke to a beautiful view of the east side of Glacier Natl Park from our KOA campsite at St Marys. The famous “road to the sun” was closed going west at Logan Pass. This still provided an interesting thirteen mile trip. We discovered our Grandson Jackson has a glacier named after him. We took a second road to “Many Glaciers” as named by the Indians. Once again, the scenery here was indescribable. The attached photo showing the glacier reflection in the lake will give you an idea of what we were seeing. We left Glacier Park in the early afternoon and drove to Havre, MT to hook up with our other traveling companions who had taken a different route. Gail is shown here leading the discussion to plan out Tuesday’s route. On Tuesday we drove across Montana’s prairies to Williston, ND – large farms, ranches and Indian Reservations. For those of you who would remember the Huntly - Brinkley Report, we passed Chet Huntly’s birth place at Seco, MT.

Sunday; September 28, 2008

After church, Bob, Gail, Bernie and Carol toured Waterton Park beginning with the area where Buffalo wander freely. The Aspen trees provided a host of colors, lite green, yellow, gold and orange. Glacier peaks were awesome to see. The village in Waterton is a cute little town where deer roam freely. We had lunch there and then struck out for St. Marys, MT on the east side of Glacier National Park. We crossed into the USA at Chief Mountain, MT (pictured) following a route of indescribable color provided by the Aspen trees. This is open range country and we had to be alert for cattle on the roadway.

Saturday; September 27, 2008

We arose early at our Lake Louise campsite pictured here and went for a walk along the Bow River with Don and Suzanne. We then struck out for a 300 mi drive to Waterton, AB passing through Calgary. Waterton is a Canadian National Park bordering Montana and our own Glacier Park. We arrived late in the evening at late twilight, photo attached. Here Gail and Carol had a memorable experience. RTM stayed at camp while Gail and Carol drove into town to locate a church to visit the next day. The girls came across a large herd of Elk with two males fighting over the females. They were so close they could hear the clashing of the horns of the two males as they fought. They sat there for some watching this mating ritual and of course, they didn’t have cameras with them to record the event. This experience made Gail’s trip who is ever on the lookout to see wildlife!