June 19th to 2nd - NWT to Alberta

June 19th - Thurs - Yellowknife
Beautiful, sunny day today. We made another trip to the library to post the blog and check email since we are leaving tomorrow and don’t know when we will have internet access again. A quick stop at the grocery & liquor stores and back to the park to enjoy the sunshine. We took a long walk around the park, Terry build a better inukshuk and we enjoyed a fire even though it was warm. After dinner, we rode our bicycles around the park and discovered just how many of the roads were uphill!

June 20th - Fri - to Lady Evelyn Falls Territorial Park
Got a fairly early start this morning, dumped the holding tanks at the RV park and then drove into town to get some water so we were actually on the road at 7:45. Nice sunny day again for an uneventful drive. Saw lots of bison along the road - about 50 miles is a bison park. There was a “one sailing wait” at the ferry across the McKenzie River and the ferry was loading on the other side when we got there so it took nearly an hour to get across. We thought the employee who was directing the loading was crazy when he motioned a small car to pull in between us and a large tanker truck as it did not appear to leave enough room for us. It was calculated to leave the end of our 5th wheel hanging over the loading platform and then they raised it up just until it touched the bike rack. Managed to exit without dragging and bending anything this time.
We planned on stopping to view Lady Evelyn Falls and decided to stay overnight when Terry talked to a guy in the ferry line who was also pulling a Challenger 5th wheel and was going to be staying here. We (and he) thought there were no powered sites here so we were pleased to see that power has been added to half of the campground.
We set up and then walked to the river to view the falls - very impressive. We approached from upstream (Kakisa River) and it was weird to see the river kind of disappear. Before the falls the river is absolutely smooth except for one spot in the middle. The falls are across the entire river and the volume of water is amazing.
Visiting, dinner, a fire and then - why should it be different here? - rain!

June 21st - Sat - to Grande Prairie, Alberta
The rain was gone this morning and we had a lovely sunny day to begin driving. We stopped at Louise Falls on the Hay River (the road is called the Waterfall Highway!) and walked a nice trail to the falls. A bit further along the trail is a spiral staircase that goes down to river level where the falls start. It is 139 steps and Terry, who has been so good about all the little walks that I have wanted to take, balked at this one and we didn’t go down.
As I noted on the trip up, the drive is a little boring - straight roads for miles. We stopped at High Level AB for diesel and I went to an information center where we finally got a map of Alberta that goes north of Peace River. Not that we really need it now but it could come in handy sometime. We decided to continue on to Grande Prairie so we stopped at a pullout and I cooked hamburgers for a late lunch.
We arrived at the RV park at 6:45 which meant we were on the road for 10 hours today - unusual for us. And we drove through our required daily rainstorm on the way! The rain had stopped by the time we were setting up and it was just windy.

June 22nd - Sun - Grande Prairie
One of the reasons that we decided to stay here was to get an oil change for the truck. Canadian Tire in Yellowknife wanted $180 for an oil change so we figured we could go past the recommended miles for once. We got the oil changed, visited a casino, got the truck washed, went to Costco for lunch and did a bit of shopping before heading back.
Terry finished cleaning up the truck, washed the 5th wheel and scrubbed the bugs off the front of the 5th wheel. The wind was blowing so hard that it knocked the ladder over against Terry & the 5th wheel. No permanent damage to either.
I enjoyed the use of our phone today and caught up with Aunt Jessie, Marg and cousin Pat. I talked to Dad last night as Marg was out. Marg finally got her new tractor so Dad filled me in on their adventures with it.