Island Falls, Idaho to Mossleigh, Alberta (7/3 – 7/9)

Driving from Yellowstone to Alberta, we would have preferred to stop once at Great Falls, MT before crossing the border. We had to leave the park near Yellowstone on July 3 because it was fully booked beginning that day. Unfortunately, none of the parks near Great Falls were available until July 4. I was able to find a spot in Bozeman, MT which is about halfway between Yellowstone and Great Falls. While staying in Bozeman was unintended, it worked out for the best as we were able to have dinner with and catch up Aaron Howard, a 2014 New Finalist who had camped with us, and his girlfriend Sarah.

We liked Bozeman. Although about the size of Kerrville (population of around 38,000), the city is thriving with many of the amenities you would expect in a much larger community. Specifically surprising to me – a Costco. According to Aaron and Sarah, the presence of major information companies like Google and Facebook is a major factor for Bozeman’s growth. Montana State University is there, which has several renowned science related programs

Since the drive from Island Falls to Bozeman was relatively short, less than 1.5 hours, I had time in Bozeman to take the Beast to the Ford dealership to have its 60,000 mile oil change. Incredible to think that during the less than two years we have owned the truck we have travelled that much.

The next day, July 4, we drove to Great Falls to stay for three days to stock up on goods and supplies which were less expensive in the States. While slightly larger than Bozeman, Great Falls felt very different. It is a mining and refinery town, as evidenced by the main street being named Smelter Avenue. Surprisingly, the town had very little 4^th of July activities going on.

Friday, July 7 we headed to Lethbridge, Alberta for the night. Crossing the border into Canada was less eventful than the first time. No questions about “Where are your guns? Where did you store them?” Instead just some perfunctory questions about the reasons for visiting, length of our stay, and how did Deb end up in the States.

Why Lethbridge you ask? To see John Wort Hannam perform. John was a New Folk contestant and winner in 2007. He claims he would not have won except for us. At the time, John was living in Fort Macleod, Alberta, smaller than the average attendance of the Festival. When he walked into the Mixmaster, the entrance to the Festival campgrounds, John was overwhelmed by the number of people and activity. He sat down on his luggage, called his wife, and told her he couldn’t do the contest and had to return home. She told him that was fine but he had to go down to our camp to tell us he would not be staying with us. Being a good husband, John did as he was told. When he appeared at our camp, I greeted him with a welcome hug and asked if he needed a beer. That apparently was enough to convince him to stay around for a while.

We were excited to be able to see John perform. We hadn’t seen him in over 6 years, just before the birth of his son, Charlie. We thought the show was to be a concert with John as the headliner – we were wrong. It was a musical theater revue with a salute to Canada’s 150^th anniversary as the theme with John as the musical guest. They asked for a show of hands as to who was not from Canada. Of the three, I was the only native born U.S. citizen. They were surprised we were from Texas, and more so when we said the reason we were there was to watch John perform, and for cooler weather which they had failed miserably at since it was a high of 101 that day. John performed two songs during each of the two acts, but only one was an original. The others, at the request of the revue, were covers of Canadian artists. As one of the songs was Four Strong Winds by Ian Tyson, Deb’s dad’s favorite song, they were forgiven. At intermission, we found someone to tell John we were in the audience. He came bounding out like a puppy for a snack. He told us he had heard some people from Texas were in the audience but never in his wildest imagination did he think it would be us. We talked to him during intermission and after the show, and set up breakfast the next morning to meet his wife and son.

Breakfast the next day was outstanding. Catching up with John and getting to know his wife and son was a great joy. For those of you who are John Wort Hannam fans, he is planning to record a new album later this year. Also, the Italian sausage breakfast sandwich I had was incredible, putting a Whataburger Breakfast on a Bun to shame. After breakfast, we returned to the trailer, packed up and drove to Mossleigh, Alberta. More about that in the next post.