By the title of today's post, you can rightfully conclude that we are now officially back on US soil! Yay for us! Also yay for phone service! And yay for Google! And yay (I hope!!) for wifi! 

We were up and rolling early today ...pulled out of camp at 7:45, which I am sure meets or exceeds a record for us. Sorry to tell you Brently, but it was once again a cool morning, just not quite as cool as yesterday, clocking in a 49 degrees. Since we don't turn on the heat at night, it was 59 inside this morning (before John got up and turned the heat on!) which wasn't as cool as yesterday either. For those of you who wonder what in the heck I am talking about...our dear friend Brently (known by most as Brent) HATES cold weather. With a passion. With vigor. He hates to be cold. Therefore when we are in a situation we KNOW he would hate, we just HAVE to rub it in! Just another day in the life...

At any rate, when we pulled out the temperature was 49 degrees and we had an impeccably blue sky. What a send off for our last day in the Rockies! I took a couple of shots of the views as we left the campground...the light looked good and I couldn't resist. It was amazing how quickly we were out of the big mountains . In 45 minutes we were into lower, rounded hills and back into fields of grain. By 8:45 the Rockies dropped out of sight in our rear view mirror...sad to see them go! At that point, we were in a wide valley full of beautiful big fields covered with big rolls of fresh hay. 

By 9:00 we were in the outskirts of Calgary, driving by Olympic Park fairly quickly. We drove from Calgary towards High River, Alberta, where we stopped in at a Tim Horton. There I was able to upload the last two day's worth of posts, along with the pictures that go with them. At that point I still didn't have enough juice to upload any videos, but I felt that I was making progress. We met and talked to some very nice folks from Scotland while I was working with the iPad (and coincidentally sharing a Cappuccino and a custard filled donut...we WERE at Tim Horton's after all) with John. Good stop all the way around!

Back on the road at 11:30, we headed in the direction of Fort MacLeod . There were huge fields along our way...wheat, alfalfa, and lots of canola were some of the crops we identified. There may have been soy beans, but couldn't tell for sure from the road. They also had oil wells planted...wonder which of these crops is the most profitable?? On our right in the far distance, we could see an outline of the Rockies.

 We didn't actually go on into Fort MacLeod as we discovered (thanks to Chickie who apparently had recovered from her snit the other day) a shortcut that saved us several miles of driving. On a good road no less. Maybe she was ready to get back in the States also...that figuring out the difference between miles and kilometers HAS to be hard on her brain! At any rate, just above Fort MacLeod, we decided to definitely make a run for the border.

As we turned eastward towards Lethbridge, AB, the land became VERY flat. The fields were vast...stretching from horizon to horizon. I would imagine if you were a farmer, it would be your idea of heaven . Along the way we saw several wheat fields in the process of being harvested. The wheat is such a nice golden color, and the different textures of the fields as they are being cut is fascinating. Looks like a mosaic from the road.

In the Lethbridge area the land was more rolling hills and plateaus. I took a shot of a HUGE train bridge (at least a part of it) that we passed just as we came into town. It is the symbol of Lethbridge, and we can see why it would be. I pulled up a Chinese restaurant on Chickie and we drove into town and had a very good meal there. Luckily, they had pretty good WIFI and I was able to load up two videos...one for the August 8 post, and one so far for the August 9 post. I will try to get the others up when I post this. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether it will happen or not! I will tell you when I send out the notice what I have been able to upload.

Leaving the restaurant we stopped in town for a small quantity of fuel . Since we had to wait so long last week at the border we didn't want to take a chance on running out of gas in line. We paid $1:17/liter. John only put in 16 liters, so once again we don't have a MPG figure on this partial tank.

We had never been on the road between Lethbridge and the border crossing at Coutts before so, as always, we enjoyed seeing new sights. The land before the border was very flat and again we saw wheat being harvested. The temperature was warming up...hate to even think of it...91 by the time we got to camp.

We reached the Coutts Border Crossing at 4:25 and luckily we were through by 4:41. The border agent we had was very nice...but they ALWAYS look so stern don't they?

We arrived in Shelby, MT at the Lewis and Clark RV Park at 5:18. It is a small Mom and Pop stop. Just off the interstate, level, good electricity, and I again have my fingers crossed for the WIFI! Nice folks own it. We are in a depression below some golden, rolling, small hills under a beautiful blue sky...looks like the wide open spaces! We have had a great day. We really enjoyed visiting our next door neighbors to the north, but it is always good to get back on native soil.

We drove 307 miles today.