TRAVEL DAY
From: Willowbend Campground, Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, (SK).
To: Val Marie Campground, Val Marie, SK.
Day 341 – Today was not a great day. It was one of those days when things keep going wrong. We’ve been having trouble with a cranky slide out – the one on the passenger side front. That slide houses Rob’s recliner and table, a storage area, and the cabinet which opens out to become a desk of sorts. A couple of times we had a little trouble getting the slide to go back in straight. But it always went in after a couple of tries. Today when shutting the bedroom slide, a different slide out, it made a noise that didn’t sound right at all AND the passenger side front slide wouldn’t close until Rob forced it by physically pushing that side of the slide in. Not good. (You cannot travel with a slide out – they must be shut.) We went on our way, but Rob knew that he needed to work on this when we got to our next campground. This was just the beginning of our issues today.
Because these longer drives and one-night stopovers haven’t been relaxing for the cats (and us), we’d decided to cut our next drive in half, taking two days to get to our next destination in Montana. We originally were going to Glacier & Yellowstone National Parks but Glacier was smoky and Yellowstone’s north entrances and campgrounds were closed due to flooding. But there’s no such thing as climate change, right?
Anyway, we’d decided to go further east in Saskatchewan, then head down to Montana to visit several National Wildlife Refuges, a Bison Reserve and an Elk Reserve. We were hoping the smoke had not spread that far east. So today we were planning to take either the Trans-Canada Highway east, then south to Val Marie and the Grasslands National Park – OR – take smaller, side roads south, then go east to Val Marie. The problem was that we had no SK map, and sometimes programming something on the GPS doesn’t quite get you where you want to go. We opted to take the smaller, side roads since the Trans-Canada Highway, although more reliable, is usually not as interesting and it would’ve added a whopping (ho ho) 20 more minutes to our trip. Big mistake. We ended up making several wrong turns through empty, barren land and gravel roads at times. We were getting low on gas, too. There were only a couple of VERY small towns on this route, and it turned out – no gas stations. If we’d taken the TC Highway, we’d have reached our destination much sooner than traveling for hours back and forth on little roads, and there would’ve been plenty of gas stations.
We had departed Maple Creek Campground at 9:45 a.m. It was 59 degrees with hazy sunshine. What was supposed to be a 2 to 2 ½ hour drive ended up being a 4-hour drive. We arrived at Val Marie and went to the Visitor’s Center for Grasslands National Park, hoping to get a campsite at the National Park campground. The campground was full, but the ranger booked us into a campsite in Overflow camping. After paying for the site, when she handed us the receipt, she gave us directions – it was 30 km to the campground. We were already tired and hungry for lunch. The girls desperately wanted to come out of their travel room and settle in. Sigh. We drove the 10 km and got to the sign at the entrance to the Park. The sign said, campground 22 km. But that disappointment didn’t break us. We headed onward towards the campground turning onto a gravel and dirt road – which became washboard gravel and not good for the RV, the girls, and us. That was it! We turned around and drove all the way back to Val Marie. We could not find a regular gas station in the tiny town. Just one that was a city Co-op with Diesel gas only, self serve from a hose, pay by credit card, no one on duty. Enough already!
There was a City Park with a small campground in Val Marie. No one was on duty, just fill out an envelope with your RV information, put cash in the envelope, pick a campsite, and deposit the envelope in the slot at the office. We chose site #1, drove in and set up camp, letting the girls out and eating lunch first. Aaargh!
Rob tried lubricating all three slides. He moved them in and out several times and this seemed to work. Phew! It turned out to be a nice little campground and it was fairly full. In the late afternoon, we found out why – tonight was the Val Marie annual Indoor Bob Larson Memorial Rodeo! A huge draw for tourists from far and near! If we’d known in advance, we’d have gotten tickets! Hee hee. Val Marie is a tiny town, so small that they do not have paved roads in town, just gravel roads. It’s like a blast from the past, western style. The campground was in town on a corner. People walked by in full cowboy/cowgirl gear – hats, boots, and all – on their way to the rodeo. Horses neighed continually, particularly during the rodeo, when the MC on loudspeaker boomed through the two blocks of town. Cows mooed loudly at mealtimes. Old dusty pick-up trucks roared by on the road. A Queen of the Rodeo was picked at half-time. Classic!!! And, just in case you wondered, Val Marie is known as the Prairie Dog Capital of Canada. Yep, that’s right.
During our day of driving we saw cows, horses, antelope, prairie dogs, and hawks. The high today was 69 degrees and it was hazy but we could no longer smell smoke. We liked the campground; we had trees for shade. The scenery was certainly prairie-like, whether in Canada or the U.S.A., the prairie is the same. One thing though, we have never, ever, seen cows so large. Do they mate Cows with Buffalo in the west prairie?
Oh nooooo. What a day is right. Did you ever get gas?