Crossing the frontier

When we were in Europe, they referred to the border as the frontier, so today we crossed into Alberta.  From start to finish we made 920 km's today, with 11 hours on the road; long day for us.
  We got up to a cool windy day.  How cool, well the water filter froze, so I had to get up and clear it before everything was solid.  That was a 3AM, BTW, I had been getting up to run a little water every couple hours.  We were the first rig in the rv park to commit and were on the highway at 7:30AM.  The wind blew so hard that at one point I think our rig was going backwards, well almost anyway.  We had a pretty good pull up to the Monida pass [summit 6,900 ft] and lots of icy spots on the road.  Up top the ditches were full of snow, but the driving surface was manageable.  This unit holds the road pretty good, it weighs in at 22,000 lbs, but don't let it get in a skid or that weight works against you.  After that first bit, the sun came out and we had perfect travel weather, sunny and clear dry roads, although the temp was a bit on the cool side.
  We took the bypass through Townsend around the second pass that goes from Butte to Helena.  Same distance, only it is 2 lane instead of 4, but without the grades.

   This is a cut bank at the Marias river around Shelby.
  Saw lots of farmers out seeding already in Idaho, so they are lots ahead of us.  No snow in this picture.

  This is an alkalai flat, much of the ground here is heavily alkalai and at the edge of the water it is white as snow,  in fact I saw some fence posts that were turned white.  Marg drove for a couple hours and she's getting to be a real hand, passing semi's like their standing still.  You may ask if that effects the fuel economy, I don't think so, but we really don't check it that close.

Most of the standing water we saw was not frozen; the streams & lakes were all open.  Got to Sweetgrass and the border around 4PM.  Went to the duty free, but were very disappointed.  It seems the pricing is all changed and there weren't such good deals.  The only thing we bought was one carton of smokes for Marg.  At the border we were 2nd in line and after a few questions, the agent told us to have a nice day.  We were over in the amount of alcohol & told him, but I guess they had bigger fish to fry today.

  Could not get reservations in Lethbridge, so we went on to Ft McLeod, you know, it was formerly called Fort Whoop-up.  Not kidding, google it and you will see.  It was so named because of the effect caused from selling whiskey to the natives in the area.  The camp ground is the one we stayed in on our first night in this motorhome when it was brand new, Daisy May.  There is a joke there someplace, but Marg keeps reminding me that our grandchildren read this blog.  We were parking and as we often do, Marg drives the motorhome and I direct her, especially if we are running it up on blocks to level it.  The park manager was there while we were doing it and commented that she handles that rig pretty well; stopping on the top level that is the same size as the tire footprint.  No room for error there.  Started to get chilly tonight so we winterized the motorhome, that way we can get through Edmonton & home without anything freezing and breaking.

  Not sure how far we will get tomorrow, but we should at least get to Edmonton.