NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 86 - CHINOOK CAMPGROUND CAYLEY, ALBERTA & BACK IN THE USA!

Thompson Creek Campground in Alberta Canada, was such a nice quiet place. We woke up to cloudy skies and drizzly rain. But we didn't care, we were in a comfy peaceful campsite with nobody else around us. Steve made up our coffee, and we took the time to make a yummy breakfast of pancakes and bacon.

We loaded up and headed on out on Highway 11 which was also called the David Thompson Highway. We headed east towards a town called Caroline. Then we were going to turn south and head down to Calgary and see how far we would get.

Leaving Thompson Creek... The highway squishes in between the mountains to the left and Abraham Lake on the right.

It's too bad it's such a cloudy day. I bet this view is spectacular with beautiful sunshine and puffy clouds and blue skies. But we travel when we can, and do what we are able to do with the weather.

As we drove further east, we were entering into foggier and foggier looking skies. Because we had the air conditioning on inside, we didn't realize that the haze was from the wildfire smoke from the north. I looked on the wildfire maps for Alberta and sure enough... We would be in wildfire smoke all of the way through, until we get maybe south of Calgary. 

So by the time we reached the other side of this long, long Abraham Lake, all of that haze was actually wildfire smoke. Ugh! The sun was trying to penetrate it, so everything has a funny cast to the daylight.

I am glad that we can set the dash air conditioning to circulate within the motorhome and not suck the outside smoke within the motorhome.

We drove towards the east and actually it didn't look quite as bad as it did behind us. The wildfire maps weren't giving us a lot of hope though, it showed heavy smoke all the way down through Calgary and into the Great Plains of the United States.

We did stop in the small town of Caroline to get fuel and to also put in the DEF fluid that are Mercedes-Benz diesel engine needs. Every 2,500 miles we need to put in about 2 gallons. The rest of it gets saved for the next time or topping off in between.  

The fuel prices weren't too bad in this part of the province. We paid $1.35 a liter which converts over to $3.76 a gallon US. That's pretty good considering when we fueled up in Jasper / Banff Park at over $6 a gallon!

But we really don't stress over the fuel prices. We would be taking this extended long trip no matter what the diesel prices were going to be, and just spend less money on other things elsewhere.

We turned and headed south, and we were on the McLeod trail. As we got a little closer to Calgary, it seemed that the haze thinned out a little bit. We were able to see these beautiful bright yellow fields of what is used to produce canola oil. The plants are developed from what is called rapeseed, and it's used to make canola oil that is specifically made here in Canada. 

"Can" is for Canada and "ola" for oil. That is how the name Canola came about. Sounds better than "rapeseed oil"!  It is better for cholesterol and saturated fats than vegetable oil. Canada is one of the major importers to the United States of canola oil.  I know we switched to it a number of years ago, and like it better than vegetable oil.  Those fields look so pretty and sunshiny, even against the dark smoke-laden skies overhead.

As we were rolling along in these beautiful Western looking towns and terrain, I was trying to spot as many horses as I could. I was snapping pictures with my cell phone and sending them in real time over Messenger to my friend Vicky. We were both giggling every time I could find another horse to send to her... 

I also managed to spot a big dog park. There were some people on one end doing some obedience training. On the other side, the big dogs were playing and having a grand old time. There wasn't any time for us to stop with Nicholas. Plus, the heavy air with the smoke is just too difficult on my lungs. Sorry Nick, you'll have to wait for the next dog park when the skies are more clear.

We worked our way around Calgary to the southern end of the city. We avoided most of the heavy traffic. We pulled into a Walmart and stocked up on a few things. We were careful to not stock up on ANY produce or dairy. We would soon be crossing the border in a day or so, and we can't take any of that over the border. No vegetables or fruits or raw meats (especially chicken!) and definitely no eggs.  

Supper was a crazy conglomeration of leftover chicken alfredo, and some pulled pork on buns with a little gravy.

Using up what we had, and trying to have just enough on hand for breakfast before crossing the border. We were down to three eggs and two pieces of bacon.

Although it was a busy Walmart, I figured we might as well just spend the night there.  

But Steve thought he wanted some peace and quiet. He found another campground on the map about 35 miles down the road. 

The skies ahead looked ominous and there were thunder and lightning storms with heavy winds predicted for the night.

We drove on southward...

Just before the storm started, we pulled into a small town called Cayley, Alberta. Just past their Main Street, they had a ball diamond complex of three or four ball diamonds, a concession stand, some picnic tables and a gravel drive. The rest of the place was grass and you were allowed to park anywhere on the grass to camp overnight! 

The host suggested we camp near the bushes and the concession stand because of the high winds forecast for tonight. He said if we were up by the other ball diamonds, we would be getting full blasted from the side with the wind.

We were the only ones there, besides the host! 

We also decided that parking on the gravel area would be much better than parked off somewhere in the soft grass. With the amount of rain that was forecast, we didn't want to wake up in the middle of a mud hole.

The suggested donation is $20 for the night. We scraped the bottom of our Canadian money stash into an envelope, mostly coins. We got rid of the rest of our "loonies and toonies"and had to add in a $5 bill of US currency to hit the $20 mark. 

Here's the only information we could find about the campground, because there was nothing on their city website.

https://www.campendium.com/chinook-campground-baseball-diamonds

We got settled in just before the rain started. It blustered, blew, and downpoured and roared overhead all night long.   I think it was the worst rainstorm of our entire trip? 

I sent Steve out in the morning to take photos, there's no way we were going to go out in the storm when we first got there. So these are the "morning after photos" of the campground before we were getting ready to leave.  There was some standing water even in the gravel areas. The grassy areas were totally saturated and mushy underfoot. Glad we did not park in the grass.

Technically it's not a campground with campsites, but they do have two porta potties there. I wonder which one is the Women's and which one is the Men's? Lol! (We use our own bathroom inside the motorhome). 

Steve took Nick out into some of the grassy areas to snoop around and do his business. Of course, we always clean up after him. 

This is the area that is wide open grassy spaces...  not on the ball diamonds. I guess you can just park anywhere you want?  The row of bushes helped protect us from the heavy winds that blew down from the north overnight.

We were snugged up tight to the gate and the bushes, just past the camphost spot. We appreciated his suggestion to hide out there. After listening to the howling winds from the storm during the night, it was a great idea.

The donation drop box is right here on the corner of this little maintenance building by the campground host. Like I said, we used up the last of our Canadian coins to fill the envelope. It was kind of funny for Steve to drop in an envelope that went clunk in the box.

This appears to be a little community fire pit area and picnic tables near the concession stand. I suppose if we were camping nearby on a sunny day, we could grab one of those tables and bring it over by our camper. But with all the rain, we just hid out inside overnight and the next morning.

It was pretty cold in the morning. Only 54°. But we knew the hot weather was going to be coming along soon after that storm front went through. They were predicting highs up in the '80s and '90s in the next few days. We decided we were going to get a substantial amount of miles under our tires and get heading back towards the Midwest of the United States.

We decided to drive straight south to the crossing between Coutts, Alberta and Sweetgrass, Montana.

We had originally thought about going down through the Canadian Rockies into Glacier or even going further west into Washington State. But instead, with the high temps and all of the wildfires smoke, we changed our minds and decided to come right down into Montana and then head east.

We can save Glacier and Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and Washington State for another trip in the future. Maybe all the way down the coast of California?

We prepared everything to get ready for our crossing. We have our passports ready, as well as the special CDC form required now by the United States government for bringing your dog back into the country. We had the vet fill out the paperwork before we left and it's good for 6 months. We printed up the form while we were still at home. I don't know how people can print out the CDC form while they are traveling? Maybe if they go to a library or a bank somewhere? I'm glad we had ours printed up and ready to go because actually... this will be our 8th border crossing of this trip!

1. Crossing from Minnesota into Ontario at the start of our trip.

2. Crossing from British Columbia to go into Skagway, AK.

3. Crossing after Haines, AK back into the Yukon.

4. Crossing from the Yukon into Alaska at Beaver Creek.

5. Crossing from Alaska back into the Yukon at the Top of the World Highway.

6. Crossing from Stewart, BC into Hyder, AK overnight to watch for whales and bears. 

7. Crossing back from Hyder, AK into Stewart, BC to head on through to where we are now.... 

So this will be number 8 to cross back into the United States at Sweet Grass, Montana, USA!

Here we are pulling up near the border crossing to our final time hauling out the passports on this trip.

Of course we do everything according to the rules, with what food supplies we have on board, declaring anything that we purchased, and handing over our passports. 

It's a good idea to not wear sunglasses so they can see your eyes, turn your engine off, and only have one person answer the questions.

We had absolutely no problems, only two quick questions, and they welcomed us back to the United States. We were free to proceed. 

BACK IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

But now, we were going to have to deal with the wildfire smoke from Canada and the hot weather forecasted while coming across Montana and North Dakota. Ugh. 

That means looking for campgrounds with electrical hookups, and running with the air conditioning full blast from the dash. We can also supplement the air conditioning by running the generator and having the roof air cool the camping portion of the motorhome running as we drive down the road.

Here's the You Tube video that goes along with today's blog:

288 miles traveled today 

7,826 miles traveled so far