May 12th to 15th - Alberta

May 12^th – Sun

We called friends Les & Wendy (who we met in Mexico and who live in Beaumont which isn’t too far away) to invite them over for dinner and luckily they could come. We went shopping in Devon for a few groceries, some alcohol and got the truck washed.  After doughnuts for a late breakfast, we went for a walk between the river and a golf course and picked up 5 lost golf balls.  The dirt road showed damage from the very high river water this year and you could see dirt washed off the steep banks on the other side of the river.

While I did some dinner prep, Terry washed the bugs off the front of the 5^th wheel and I helped him a bit when he continued on down the side.  Luckily Les & Wendy showed up in time to stop that nonsense!

We sat in the shade of a spindly tree to chat for a while but had to move into the shade of the rig when we all got too hot.  We had a nice dinner and a great time catching up.  As usual, it is hard to say goodbye and not know when you will see them again.

May 13^th – Mon

We got a late start for the long drive – 36 miles – to Cliff & Pauline’s in Sherwood Park this morning.  I forgot to ask Pauline for their address and she was on the phone when I called back and Terry took the call when Pauline called back.  This is all prelude to saying that Terry wrote down the wrong street.  We weren’t lost for long – a few minutes – when Cliff called to see why we hadn’t arrived.  He told us to stay put in front of a golf course and came to escort us in a different way to make the turn into their house easier.

We found Pauline, her brother Ray & wife Robin, other brother Al & wife Merilee all busy deboning a pig to make sausage.  Terry backed the rig into a parking spot and we pitched in to help.  Putting the meat though a coarse plate and then a medium plate on a grinder was the next step.  We weighed 15 pounds of meat into a large bowl, Pauline added salt, pepper & preservative dissolved in water and mixed it well.  A bit of the first batch had to be taken into the house and fried so everyone could have a bite and check the seasoning which was pronounced perfect.  They have done away with cleaning their own casings and buy them from a store.  They have to be untangled before being loaded onto the machine that has a crank to squirt the meat into the casings.  The hardest job is to hold the casings with the right pressure to produce firm sausages without breaking the casings.  Ray did a very good job followed closely by Cliff as he was the only other one to get stuck with the job!

The sausages were hung to drip & dry a bit on a large rack made especially for this reason.  They ran out of casings so everything came to a halt while Pauline & Robin went shopping.  Actually, we took the opportunity to put out the slides, set up and show off the rig to Bob & Doreen (we met them in Desert Hot Springs) who had also arrived to make sausage.  Pauline made lunch for everyone while we were finishing & cleaning up.  The next step was to carry the rack to the smoke house and transfer all the sausages to pipes in the smoke house – which was actually built as an outhouse but never used for that purpose.  Cliff put in a large handful of straw, lit it and closed the door.  The straw only burns/smokes for about 20 minutes and then the sausages are left to cool overnight.

After ALL this work, happy hour & dinner made by Pauline – with assistants - were much enjoyed.

May 14^th – Tues

Cliff knocked on our door at 8 to see if we were coming in for coffee & breakfast.  We were just getting ready to head over.  Robin made sausage gravy with the new sausage along with a large handful of meat that stays in the bottom of the “stuffer” and didn’t get smoked.  Ray made crepes on a wonderful propane grill on the sun porch.  Pauline made Saskatoon berry sauce and sliced strawberries with sugar.

Everyone filled their own crepes (dinner plate size) with sausage gravy and/or the fruit sauces.  Believe it or not the berries were quite tasty on top of the meat but I left the whipped cream for my “dessert” crepe.  The eight of us demolished more sausage gravy than I believed possible!

We had barely cleaned up from breakfast when Ray decided to replace Pauline’s oven with a new one that was in the garage as part of a kitchen remodel.  Of course the wiring was a challenge and soon almost everyone was involved somehow – getting tools, helping lift/move and giving “advice”!  The installation and other conversations & visiting went on until Pauline decided we needed a light lunch so we wouldn’t start happy hour on totally empty stomachs.  She made a wonderful noodle & wonton soup and put out cookies left over from Christmas and thawed yesterday – yumyum again!

Ray took a nap after lunch so Cliff & Terry finished the oven installation with some help from me reading the instructions!  Al & Merilee and Ray & Robin went on separate shopping trips so we and Cliff & Pauline played Ponytail Canasta.  I have been threatened with all kinds of harm if I don’t say that the guys won by a huge amount!

When everyone returned, Pauline started dinner and Cliff became Mr. Bartender.  We had yet one more great meal and then most of us played Wizard before heading for bed.

May 15^th – Wed – to Lake Louise AB

We packed up & went in for coffee, muffins & fruit with Cliff & Pauline before we hugged goodbye just after 8.  I am happy to report that this restaurant maintained its 5 Star rating!!

Wanda agreed with Cliff’s clear directions so we were soon heading west with no problems.  We stopped for diesel at 1.13/liter and had a burger for lunch.  We were heading for Golden via Jasper & the national parks so we had to pay $19 for the privilege of driving through the parks.

Believe me when I say that there is still lots of snow above 6000 feet!  There were lots of photo ops.  We had to get more fuel and were held up by a station in the park that charged 1.71/liter!  We didn’t fill up and then wondered if that was a mistake when we started climbing again.

We pulled into Lake Louise Campground and were instructed by a sign to pull into a vacant site and then come back & self-register.  We lucked out with site #1 and didn’t have too far to walk back as we didn’t want to unhook the truck.

There were too many trees for the satellite dish so Terry had to make do with music & computer games while I read and made dinner.  RVs pulled in in a steady stream followed by people walking back to register.  Roads were rough in spots but we got by without much wind today.