We left our friends, the Chens, and went our separate ways.  We were in Jasper in 2004 and thought about taking a day trip to Edmonton to see the West Edmonton Mall.  At that time it was the largest mall in the world.  We thought it might be interesting.  However, after thinking about the 350 miles round trip in one day, we thought better of it.  We found out the next day that a severe storm hit the mall with hail, wind, and rain (maybe even a tornado) with flooding and roof collapses.  Glad we didn’t go!

This time though we did plan on going.  We stayed at a little campground north of Edmonton in Morinville.  Here is a view from the trailer door:

This was a Passport America site so we saved a bit of money but still had to fight mosquitos!  They also had a lake and we thought we might use the kayaks but never did.  We stayed 5 nights, did household things (read laundry) and went to the mall one day.

The mall is pretty big.  It has the waterpark, amusement park, and a small hockey rink.  It has about every store you would need, some even are doubled!  We put on a few miles walking around.  It was interesting but now we will have to compare it to the Mall of America when we get there in the future.

We left Morinville, heading back to the United States, and I didn’t want to even mess with Calgary as the ‘stampede’ was starting.  We skirted around it but stopped at a Lowes for a bathroom break.  During the stop, a Canadian Postal worker came up and started talking to us about the Airstream.  She has a friend that has a few Airstreams and she always takes pictures of them and she did so with ours.

We ended up after a pretty long (330+ miles) at a Casino in Lethbridge, AB.  It was a nice little stop and FREE!

The next day was crossing the border into Montana.  I didn’t know what to expect.  The last time (2004) we brought the trailer back into the states, the agents went into our trailer and took a bunch of our food.  This crossing was much quicker.  A few questions (that I can’t even remember now) and we were back in the USA.

We ended up in Great Falls for 4 nights.  This allowed us to see our friends the Erpelding’s who pastor a church there.  We also saw another friend that used to go to the church in Visalia but is now in Great Falls also.

We had a great time in Great Falls (new slogan?).