2016/08 Newf'land trip - Cypress Hills |
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Tuesday September 6th
We had more thunder and heavy rain in the early morning. It was very steamy inside the camper. We were setting off for home, hoping to get to the far side of North Dakota. It was still raining as we set off, a slow start with heavy traffic and roadworks everywhere. We began to doubt if we were going to make it, but the sun came out and the traffic thinned. We only took short breaks and we rolled into the CCC campground in the Badlands at sunset after 600 miles of driving.
It was cool and dry when we arrived, quiet too as we had a section of the campground to ourselves.
Wednesday September 7th
We awoke to a pretty sunrise but it soon clouded over. As we set off, the sky darkened and the lightning was cracking down onto the Badlands. Then the rain came down in sheets and we couldn’t see much at all. Luckily traffic was light. When we came here in 2011, the North Dakota oil boom had just started and the traffic and mud overwhelmed the few roads in this quiet corner of the state. Now, five years on, the roads have been built and widened just as the oil boom has faltered and the road building looks to be overkill for the traffic.
The heavy weather lasted into Montana but then we had sun and clouds and wind, a good driving day. Sandie’s quilt pattern giveaway had ended the previous day but she was prepared to buy if it was a good pattern. As it was, the shop owner in Glasgow gave her the pattern anyway. In contrast the lady in Malta had received a letter from the company saying she could not sell or give the pattern away for another month.
We turned north at Malta and drove up the Milk River valley into Saskatchewan with the intention of camping at Grasslands national park. At the border the USA entry point was bristling with electronics and x-rays and barriers and warnings. Miles back along the road we’d seen cameras on either side of us and even a border patrol vehicle lurking on a side road. At the Canadian border the guard wandered out of his hut into the road and waved us down, returned to the hut to check our papers, then sent us on our way. He probably only sees a handful of cars each hour.
The road into Saskatchewan hasn’t improved since we last drove it. It’s blacktopped but it’s been patched so many times that it looks to be quilted. It feels like the camber changes continually, pounding the truck and us. The land looked to be getting poorer too with more salt lakes as we headed north.
It was too early for us to camp at Grasslands and there isn’t much to see there anyway so we were going to head for Cypress Hills provincial park on the border with Alberta. First through there was one more quilting stop in Swiftcurrent, where the lady gave Sandie the instructions and let her photograph the rest.
We followed the Trans Canada almost to the Alberta border and then had about a half hour drive up into the hills and the park. We were given a site in a forest clearing, a good spot for watching the deer. The park looks to be more recreational than natural with its golf course, ziplines, pools, restaurants, and resort, but I’m sure it’s very popular with the people from the surrounding flatlands. It’s actually an interprovincial park as there is an Alberta park which abuts the Saskatchewan one, though you can’t drive directly between them.
I hadn’t seen any cypress trees just lots of pines. But I’ve since found that the French Canadian Metis word for the jack pine is “cypres” and the name has stuck. The other trees, mostly aspen, were well into their fall colours.
Thursday September 8th
It was a cold showery morning but we wanted to at least take a look at some of the park. We drove to the lookout over eastern Alberta. It was wild wet and windy there but it looked like we might have better weather coming from the west. We’d taken a wrong turn on our way there and ran into this friendly warning.