December 1st

Nice room and we were sure tired.  Slept pretty soundly, but were up and about early.  Got off to an early start after a nice hotel breakfast. We were on the road by about 7:30 and traffic in to Calgary was heavy.
  We took the Stony Trail and it was much better than going thru on the Deerfoot trail.  It takes off at the north end and came out at the south end just before the Bow river.  There was a bit of a delay because of heavy traffic around 16th Ave, but it was pretty good.
  The highway driving lanes were dry and the temp just below the freezing mark.  It was very windy and when we got down further south, especially around Ft McCloud this made for a ground blizzard.  In places it was really hard to even see the road.

  Made it through Lethbridge in good time and the highway south to the border was more of the same, wind.  Stopped in at the duty free where Marg got her cigs and I got a bottle of Macallan scotch, that will get sampled shortly. 

  Made it through the border crossing at Sweetgrass Montana with no problems.  They wanted to know what was in the trailer & when I told them the Yamaha Rhino and the dog sniffed us, we were waved through.

  Roads were dry and travel was good except for the wind.  Drove the Deer Park pass south from Helena to Butte.  Usually don't go this way, but the interstate was in good shape.  By the time we got south of Butte we were losing the light and we crossed through the dreaded Monida pass in the dark.  Discovered there was some kind of strobe beacon like they have at airports on the summit, so it was educational as well.

  When we got out of the pass we thought we were home free, but not so lucky.  It turned out they had freezing rain about an hour prior to our arrival.  Our first notice of it was a van that rolled a few times in the median and all the police activity around it.  Until that time we had been blasting along at 110 Km/hr.  On slowing down, discovered we were on a black ice skating rink.  Took it easy for about 15 miles where it turned into rain without the ice and made good time the rest of the way to Pocatello.  A total of 1,204 KM's today and that was enough.

  Checked in to the Best Western we have stayed at in the past and then over to Appleby's for dinner.  If you follow us, this will sound like a familiar pattern.  Some new things there: like the Honker Ale I tried and you can self order appy's at the table using a digital pad.  Pretty cool.