EVENTFUL DAY IN ALBERTA

Happy Birthday, Andrea. My baby is 33 today.

Once again, arriving in Lloydminster, SK, no campground was open. None open until at least May 1, Camp Walmart to the rescue. It was rainy and cold. We did a little shopping for some fresh vegies and apples. Returning to the camper we were welcomed to a trashed inside. Tommie had had some fun tearing into her food bag. Naughty dog. Should have taken a picture, but, oops, forgot. She had the typical beagle sad look. I should have known that this would happen because just earlier in the evening she had fished out the special snacks that "Aunt Stephie" had given her as a going away present. Little bacon wrapped chewies she wasn't able to chew open. Steph....you are bringing out the naughty in Tommy. :-)
It was chilly waking up this morning, but I jumped up, went to start the furnace....cold air blowing. Tried to put a fire under the coffee.....no propane. RATS!!! This is an emergency!
We bought that little 5# bottle, but saw that there was a gas station across the street that we could exchange our big tank with.

Some real buffalo along the road today.

Continuing the morning story: The lady in the gas station was so nice. She dumped out the old coffee and put on a fresh pot just for us. Wouldn't take any $$$ for it. Then she told me to use their bathroom to do my morning freshening up in: she said "it's early, so it's nice and clean."

Then when we were all ready to travel, we stopped by to put air in the tires, and she wouldn't let us put any $$$ in the machine. She was just a sweetie to help start a cold morning.

We shortly crossed into Alberta. Moving right along, the cold morning warmed up, the clouds parted and the day turned out positively beautiful. Above is Chris fixing our lunch in the camper. We eat lunch there when the day is nasty, cold, rainy, or there is no place to eat outside of the camper.
Later in the afternoon, within an hour of Grand Prairie, AB we heard the unwelcomed sound of hitting something with the rear tire, and then the horrid thump, thump of the blow out. You can see how it looked.
Self explanatory.....and just as I said that it looked like the storm cloud that had been gathering was going to miss us....it didn't....

We figured we needed to stop in a hotel tonight so that we would be close to the Canadian Tire store first thing on Saturday morning....and....get Chris into a hot tub tonight. The other reason was that I absolutely insisted on a shower tonight. Two nights at Camp Walmart was enough...I wanted a shower and washing my hair! And seeing as it is frowned upon to pop up our camper and cook dinner in the hotel parking lot, we went next door to eat at the Japanese restaurant.

Our hordourve.

Our entre'

So, until we connect again...from the Alaskan highway, or wherever the next place is that I find internet.