Day 26, July 6th we headed out from Grande Prairie toward Edmonton. When we got to Whitecourt, we filled up with gas and I emptied the black water and gray water tanks at a public dump site. Later in the day, when we got to Stony Plains AB, which is just before you get to Edmonton, we stopped at a Safeway and used their wifi. By the end of the day we were in North Battleford SK. We stopped at the North Battleford Walmart and spent the night in their parking lot.
Day 27, July 7th we left North Battleford and made our way to Saskatoon. I went to a local Safeway and got some bananas and oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. Then we drove down through the middle of town and picked up the Yellowhead Highway and headed southeast. As I was driving along, I got to thinking about a video that I had seen on Youtube about a town called Cymric SK. I love country stores and that was about all that remained of Cymric. The outside of the store reminded me of several I had known as a boy in rural Alabama. I checked and it would only add about 30 miles to our trip. When you are making a eleven thousand mile trip, 30 miles seems fairly insignificant so I turned off the Yellowhead and went down to Cymric. It was Sunday so I was not sure that the store would be open but I figured that at least I would get to see the outside in real life instead of a video. When I got there and pulled up in front, I noticed that the light bulb hanging down in front of the front door was on. I walked up to the door turned the knob and walked in. I looked around and it was just what I expected. It could have just as easily been 1955 and in Richville, Equality or Pentonville AL. After a minute or two a lady came out of the back. I got a Snickers bar and a Pepsi and went to the counter to pay. I told her where I was from and what had me in Cymric SK on a Sunday Morning. She was very friendly. She explained how the store had once sat in the townsite of Cymric over next to the railroad tracks but that the man that owned it was leasing the land that it sat on. The land the store was sitting on in the town was owned by another gentleman who also owned a store in town. When the lease came up for renewal the property owner declined to renew it so the store owner moved the store building to some land he owned at the intersection of Hwy 20 and the grid road. Over the years the town gradually disappeared until now only the little store remains. The lady said that the original owner had sold the store to a couple who ran it for several years and then sold it to this lady and her husband. I believe she told me that she and her husband had run the store for 26 years. Among the items for sale in the store were tee shirts with pictures of the store on them. I got me a green one. Before I left, I walked across the road and got a picture of the Roadtrek sitting in front of the little store in Cymric.
We left Cymric and made our way down to Lumsden. From there we took SK Hwy 641 down to Rouleau. Hwy 641 is a gravel road.
It had been rainy and messy in Rouleau on my way up, but July 7th was a beautiful day so I decided to stop and go in and check out the Corner Gas set. I found out from the young lady that was running the gift shop that this was the second summer it had been opened. They sell different Corner Gas souvenirs. I bought a complete box set of the episodes on DVD and a souvenir car tag.
We left Rouleau and made our way down to Portal ND. We made the border crossing without problems and continued on to Minot ND were we gassed up and got some things for supper. July days in North Dakota are long so we kept on driving until we got to the Apple Creek Rest Area on I-90 east of Bismarck. We parked there for the night.
The next day was day 28, July 8th. We got up and got everything settled to travel. I checked the oil, water and tires and got back in the Roadtrek and went to start it and nothing happened. Immediately I thought something had failed and had run our vehicle battery down over night. I still had the house battery, the generator and a emergency jumper that I had bought and brought along on the trip for just such a situation, but before I broke out all of that I decided to check under the hood again. Upon close examination, I discovered that the wing nut on the battery cut-out switch had loosened. I tightened it up and got back in and turned the key. The Roadtrek started right up. Emergency averted.
We retraced out route back down through North Dakota and South Dakota. When we got back to the site of Bangor SD we stopped. I took another picture of the memorial. Notice how much the corn in the field had grown since our previous picture.
We drove nearly 600 miles on July 8th and by the end of the day, we had gotten back to Pony Creek Campground near Pacific Junction IA where we again spent the night.
Day 29, July 9th we left Pony Creek and headed toward Kansas City, when we got to Kansas City we departed from our original route and took I-70 toward St. Louis. On the way we past near Columbia MO so I got off I- 70 and drove down through the University of Missouri campus.
The University of Missouri campus reminded me a bit of the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa.
In St. Louis we picked up I-55 south and made our way down to the Hawn State Park where we spent the night.
July 10th, was day 30 and the last of our trip. We followed I-55 down to I-155 and crossed the Mississippi River on the I-155 bridge to Dyersburg TN.
From Dyersburg we went down through Jackson TN to Tupelo MS and picked up I-22 again and followed it home to Birmingham and then on to Pelham. We had been gone for 30 days, travelled 11,001 miles and burned 772.995 gallons of gasoline. It was a great trip and as they used to say in the Rockford Chronicle, "A good time was had by all."
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