A couple of times I saw 5th wheelers that were towing a trailer behind with a car, quad bikes or jet skis
A trailer behind a trailer 
Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
Re: Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
Photos from Irricana, Alberta.
Advertising I saw for the big Dodge and Ford pick ups listed them as having a 5th wheel towing capacity of 11,000kg and for conventional towing 7,250kg, that's a lot of van
A couple of times I saw 5th wheelers that were towing a trailer behind with a car, quad bikes or jet skis A trailer behind a trailer
George
A couple of times I saw 5th wheelers that were towing a trailer behind with a car, quad bikes or jet skis
A trailer behind a trailer
GeorgeRe: Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
Drumheller was our next stop after Irricana. A couple of hours of motoring on undulating but dead straight road with nice green fields studded with natural depressions full of water saw us at Drumheller. Major roadwork slowed us dramatically; 20km of work at 40kph doesn’t do wonders for your time schedule 
The Welcome to Drumheller sign found us dropping from the grassland into a small canyon of dry earth and eroded rock, part of the Canadian Badlands. It was amazing how quickly it changed and the same when we left, reverting to grassland just as fast. Drumheller’s claim to fame is the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a collection of dinosaurs and fossils. Check out http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com for a great view of this massive complex. We only had a couple of hours to look around which certainly didn’t do it justice, visited the world’s biggest dinosaur at the visitors centre and headed on, late in the afternoon.
We made it to Stettler which left us a couple of hours driving to Wetaskawin the next morning. Stettler was a larger town of around 5400 people and with a trailer park in town we thought we might get out chance to stay in an old on site van 
As is turned out it only had old style cabins, not a trailer of any type in sight and it was pretty awful looking place 
so it was off to a motel once more, where for the 1st time on our trip we managed to score a jug 
It had a couple of mm of dust on it but at least we finally had a decent cup of tea. A drive around town didn’t find anything exciting in the way of vans, cars or anything else 
Back at the motel there was a large Dodge pickup with a Yellowstone 5th wheel outfit out the front and I managed a photo of a combined people/horse trailer at the lights. Advertising for the big Dodge, GMC and Ford pickups stated their 5th wheel towing capacity as around 28,000 lb or 11 tonne normal towing 16,000 lb or 7 tonne, may as well just jack the house up and put wheels under it 
An early start meant we made it to the Reynolds Alberta Museum at Wetaskawin just after the doors opened at 10am. Again we only had a couple of hours to spend there so it was a bit of a rush but for anyone with an interest in anything connected to motoring it is a must visit spot. It is huge cars, bikes, tractors, steam engines, planes and one caravan. Displays change and the special items on display when we visited were items from the storage collection selected for whatever reason by members of the staff 
They were spread around the museum among the permanent exhibits and there were lots of hands on interactive stuff for the kids big and small. One of the special exhibits was a 60s Chrysler Imperial hitched to a 1961 Airstream Safari which was in original condition and had a special history. See photos in next post.
Unfortunately lighting didn’t permit good photography
so after a lot of messing about with two cameras I just took mostly video so no photo of the van. I decided I’m not an Airstream fan, maybe because they just aren’t something we are used to seeing but I would have liked to bring the Chrysler home as a tow car
The post card shows the scale of the place, the museum is the building at top left, the smaller one to the right is the aircraft museum (airstrip adjacent) and the biggest building on the lower right is the storage facility. I bought a CD featuring some of the cars of the collection and when I watched it there were only two of the fifty cars featured that were on display on the day Fields out the back are used for ploughing exhibitions and there are a couple of massive drag lines now out there too
The museum contained a big library and a restoration workshop; check out the size of it
Sadly we had to move on and we were now heading back west to get to Jasper for our train in a couple of days but the town of Rocky Mountain House, was our next overnight destination.
George
at the visitors centre and headed on, late in the afternoon.
As is turned out it only had old style cabins, not a trailer of any type in sight and it was pretty awful looking place so it was off to a motel once more, where for the 1st time on our trip we managed to score a jug It had a couple of mm of dust on it but at least we finally had a decent cup of tea. A drive around town didn’t find anything exciting in the way of vans, cars or anything else Back at the motel there was a large Dodge pickup with a Yellowstone 5th wheel outfit out the front and I managed a photo of a combined people/horse trailer at the lights. Advertising for the big Dodge, GMC and Ford pickups stated their 5th wheel towing capacity as around 28,000 lb or 11 tonne normal towing 16,000 lb or 7 tonne, may as well just jack the house up and put wheels under it
cars, bikes, tractors, steam engines, planes and one caravan. Displays change and the special items on display when we visited were items from the storage collection selected for whatever reason by members of the staff They were spread around the museum among the permanent exhibits and there were lots of hands on interactive stuff for the kids big and small. One of the special exhibits was a 60s Chrysler Imperial hitched to a 1961 Airstream Safari which was in original condition and had a special history. See photos in next post.Unfortunately lighting didn’t permit good photography
so after a lot of messing about with two cameras I just took mostly video so no photo of the van. I decided I’m not an Airstream fan, maybe because they just aren’t something we are used to seeing but I would have liked to bring the Chrysler home as a tow car The post card shows the scale of the place, the museum is the building at top left, the smaller one to the right is the aircraft museum (airstrip adjacent) and the biggest building on the lower right is the storage facility. I bought a CD featuring some of the cars of the collection and when I watched it there were only two of the fifty cars featured that were on display on the day
Fields out the back are used for ploughing exhibitions and there are a couple of massive drag lines now out there too The museum contained a big library and a restoration workshop; check out the size of it
Sadly
we had to move on and we were now heading back west to get to Jasper for our train in a couple of days but the town of Rocky Mountain House, was our next overnight destination.George
Re: Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
Photos from Reynolds - Alberta Museum
Notice the Airstream is described as an 'artifact'. Couldn't photograph the van but you all know what an Airstream looks like, a big aluminium cacoon
Museum top left, aviation top right, storage shed lower right, that's my kind of storage shed
It would be great to have access to this workshop
George
George
Re: Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
The scenery through the Jasper National Park to Jasper was nothing short of spectacular; as it was all through the Rockies and the nice winding roads made me wish we had a nice powerful Mustang convertible for a day although it would have been a tad chilly We reached Jasper (about 4500 people) mid afternoon and took a B & B type accommodation for the night, we were due to depart the following afternoon on the train for Toronto so had a full 24 hours to look about. It was a pleasant place and we did the tourist bits that didn’t involve hiking, canoeing, going to high places and in general had a quiet relaxing time. The Fairmont Hotel, a few miles out of town, was a very grand establishment where we had a half decent coffee in a proper cup, AND with our first metal tea spoon which became a souvenir when we noticed it had the Fairmont logo on it ‘She’ was upset that the shops were empty undergoing renovation but I was relieved One of the pubs in town had a local Blueberry Ale which we found very tasty too
There was a lot of RV and rail traffic in town so I had a bit of a field day with the camera again, the most interesting item being a little fiberglass Scamp which is the modern derivative of the Boler. A cute little van with an older couple who weren’t too talkative, I think his lunch was ready.
An older Ford F200 with a slide on had some character and a Winnebago and Adventurer RV looked nice with a Rockies backdrop and VIA Rail scenic coach in the background.
RVs had their own parking areas at several places we went to and they were just filled up with rentals. There was an old Kombi van for sale on the roadside near our B & B but it was very considerably lightened by rust!
After an ale we returned the rental car to the station with a bit over 2500km for our 7 days drive from Vancouver and prepared to board the train. The next 3 days found us confined to the rail with not even a caravan sighting. It was an interesting trip but not one I would recommend. I’d baulked at doing the Ghan or similar in Aus because I figure there is only so much red dirt and Spinifex you can look at and thought the Trans Canada trip would be OK. It turned out to be flat green plains, trees, rocks and lakes, still a desert just more colourful desert in my view. Some miserable wet weather didn’t help and neither did the fact that when we initially planned it we had planned to go a month later which would have been in the Autumn but we had to bring the trip forward so it was the last week of summer and the trees had not started to colour. Otherwise I’m sure it would have been very spectacular.
Toronto and the west coast didn’t provide much interest from the caravan/RV point of view with hardly any on the roads compared to the east. We saw our first Airstream on the road in Niagara on the Lake, the only large van we saw on the road being towed by a car. Airstreams don’t do it for me though, this one was a more modern one with a bit less character than the old styles. (photo in next post)
After we had booked the trip I decided we might be able to make a detour to Detroit and look at a 1934 Vauxhall roadster an Aussie built one that escaped our shores back in the 70s. It is identical to my restoration project and I thought I’ll never be closer so we bit the bullet and headed down the 401 on the Labour Day weekend for a flying visit. The 401 around Toronto was a shock to the system, a freeway with SIX lanes in each direction.
It was well worth it for me to see the car, the only intact going one I know of while Barbara had the opportunity to see how the ‘retail therapy’ stacked up by visiting a Meijer store an absolutely massive thing with just about everything under the one roof and their own petrol station. If they ever come to Australia I don’t think we could have one here in Campbelltown, there isn’t a piece of flat land big enough 
And, we had a visit to a Wal Mart for the fun of it but I think we were the strangest people in it, I think those emails must be dodgy. We also found our first Tim Horton’s coffee and donut store someone on the train told me to try them after my complaining about the coffee. They turned out to be not half bad, coffee in a proper mug if you wanted it, which I did, and good value with a great range of donuts, about 30 types Our west coast experience was much better thanks to Tim Horton’s who had stores in most big towns and signposts on the freeway to tell you where they were, as did all the major food, petrol and accommodation chains. Signposts were a couple of km before the exit, at the exit then at the T intersections to show which direction and how far to what you wanted-great set up. I digress.
So, I’ll include a photo of what my long suffering restoration will look like when finished, in the next couple of years, I hope. It will even be almost the same green, apart from the wheels. Then I’ll be looking for a suitable van to tow with it, well I’m looking all the time really.
So that’s about it for our trip, we went from Detroit to Niagra Falls for a couple of days then onto Montreal as we had booked to leave from there. The Vauxhall detour to Detroit left us a bit short of time so Montreal was a flying visit the evening we got there after an 8 hour drive. We had to fly out at 8am the next morning. A strange place though, everything was in French and they spoke French, road signs all French and not displayed in English so apart from the airport sign and a stop sign I had no idea and was glad to be out of it. A “G’day mate” response to “Bonjour” got some English happening every time though Oddly the rest of Canada is required to be bi-lingual in their signage, all the food packaging and so on but Montreal doesn’t seem to comply and is just French. It’s like going across the border into the ACT and having them speak another language, just weird 
I’d like to do the Rockies by train on the Rocky Mountaineer, it would be entirely different to the driving experience, maybe one day.
As for the coffee, I was surprised that during the entire trip we never once even saw a sachet of instant coffee, anywhere I never thought I’d be so happy to have a cup of the stuff but it was the first thing I had when I got home, and really enjoyed it Plain old instant coffee, I had to wean myself back onto the long blacks
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
George
Q.E.D.
We reached Jasper (about 4500 people) mid afternoon and took a B & B type accommodation for the night, we were due to depart the following afternoon on the train for Toronto so had a full 24 hours to look about. It was a pleasant place and we did the tourist bits that didn’t involve hiking, canoeing, going to high places and in general had a quiet relaxing time. The Fairmont Hotel, a few miles out of town, was a very grand establishment where we had a half decent coffee in a proper cup, AND with our first metal tea spoon which became a souvenir when we noticed it had the Fairmont logo on it ‘She’ was upset that the shops were empty undergoing renovation but I was relieved One of the pubs in town had a local Blueberry Ale which we found very tasty too There was a lot of RV and rail traffic in town so I had a bit of a field day with the camera again, the most interesting item being a little fiberglass Scamp which is the modern derivative of the Boler. A cute little van with an older couple who weren’t too talkative, I think his lunch was ready.
After an ale we returned the rental car to the station with a bit over 2500km for our 7 days drive from Vancouver and prepared to board the train. The next 3 days found us confined to the rail with not even a caravan sighting. It was an interesting trip but not one I would recommend. I’d baulked at doing the Ghan or similar in Aus because I figure there is only so much red dirt and Spinifex you can look at and thought the Trans Canada trip would be OK. It turned out to be flat green plains, trees, rocks and lakes, still a desert just more colourful desert in my view. Some miserable wet weather didn’t help and neither did the fact that when we initially planned it we had planned to go a month later which would have been in the Autumn but we had to bring the trip forward so it was the last week of summer and the trees had not started to colour. Otherwise I’m sure it would have been very spectacular.
Toronto and the west coast didn’t provide much interest from the caravan/RV point of view with hardly any on the roads compared to the east. We saw our first Airstream on the road in Niagara on the Lake, the only large van we saw on the road being towed by a car. Airstreams don’t do it for me though, this one was a more modern one with a bit less character than the old styles. (photo in next post)
After we had booked the trip I decided we might be able to make a detour to Detroit and look at a 1934 Vauxhall roadster
an Aussie built one that escaped our shores back in the 70s. It is identical to my restoration project and I thought I’ll never be closer so we bit the bullet and headed down the 401 on the Labour Day weekend for a flying visit. The 401 around Toronto was a shock to the system, a freeway with SIX lanes in each direction. It was well worth it for me to see the car, the only intact going one I know of
while Barbara had the opportunity to see how the ‘retail therapy’ stacked up by visiting a Meijer store an absolutely massive thing with just about everything under the one roof and their own petrol station. If they ever come to Australia I don’t think we could have one here in Campbelltown, there isn’t a piece of flat land big enough And, we had a visit to a Wal Mart for the fun of it but I think we were the strangest people in it, I think those emails must be dodgy. We also found our first Tim Horton’s coffee and donut store someone on the train told me to try them after my complaining about the coffee. They turned out to be not half bad, coffee in a proper mug if you wanted it, which I did, and good value with a great range of donuts, about 30 types Our west coast experience was much better thanks to Tim Horton’s who had stores in most big towns and signposts on the freeway to tell you where they were, as did all the major food, petrol and accommodation chains. Signposts were a couple of km before the exit, at the exit then at the T intersections to show which direction and how far to what you wanted-great set up. I digress. So, I’ll include a photo of what my long suffering restoration will look like when finished, in the next couple of years, I hope. It will even be almost the same green, apart from the wheels. Then I’ll be looking for a suitable van to tow with it, well I’m looking all the time really.
So that’s about it for our trip, we went from Detroit to Niagra Falls for a couple of days then onto Montreal as we had booked to leave from there. The Vauxhall detour to Detroit left us a bit short of time so Montreal was a flying visit the evening we got there after an 8 hour drive. We had to fly out at 8am the next morning. A strange place though, everything was in French and they spoke French, road signs all French and not displayed in English so apart from the airport sign and a stop sign I had no idea and was glad to be out of it. A “G’day mate” response to “Bonjour” got some English happening every time though
Oddly the rest of Canada is required to be bi-lingual in their signage, all the food packaging and so on but Montreal doesn’t seem to comply and is just French. It’s like going across the border into the ACT and having them speak another language, just weird I’d like to do the Rockies by train on the Rocky Mountaineer, it would be entirely different to the driving experience, maybe one day.
As for the coffee, I was surprised that during the entire trip we never once even saw a sachet of instant coffee, anywhere
I never thought I’d be so happy to have a cup of the stuff but it was the first thing I had when I got home, and really enjoyed it Plain old instant coffee, I had to wean myself back onto the long blacks THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
George
Q.E.D.
Last edited by griffin on Mon Jan 10, 2011 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Canadian Holiday - but there's no place like home.
The last few photos:-
The Airstream at Niagara on the Lake.
The 1934 BX Roadster, Aussie built by GMH now living in Detroit, similar to my unfinished restoration project. I really need to get mine finished
I'm not too sure where I took this stylish (I thought) aluminium Travel Air van, it may have been Wetaskawin, snapped from the car as I stopped at a set of lights.
attachment=0]Travel Air caravan-c.JPG[/attachment]
George
The Airstream at Niagara on the Lake.
attachment=0]Travel Air caravan-c.JPG[/attachment]
George
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