Day 39 - We do small town Canada while Hobson sips electricity

This was the scariest day of the trip as far as not running out of excited electrons.  We left the Supercharger network in order to head south into the US and visit Glacier National Park tomorrow.  The lack of quick chargers on the route turned the 300 mile drive into an all-day affair as we had to charge twice which we timed pretty well for breakfast but not for lunch.  The second stop was planned to be long but was lengthened by the charger being rather a rather slow 32 amp plug so we stayed in town for what seemed like forever and then after returning to the car spoke for quite some time with Clark, a 22 year old Tesla fan who drove his Volt into the empty parking lot just to ask us questions.  As we are off the Supercharger network the car is a bit more of a rarity and even this morning before leaving we got questions from a guy from Saskatchewan and a Canadian originally from the Ukraine.

This is how Teslas show they are nervous about your judgement.  The left one is when we started on the trip.   The right one was when we got far enough away from the last charger to make Hobson nervous.  Of course there were no charger in our path on the map.  It wanted us to return to where we last charged.

The local high school art teacher combs junkyards and makes these creations.  The scarier one is in front of the school

So what did we do with our time outside of answering questions about the car?  In Invermere we wandered into town which was close by a great charger and ate a good breakfast, something we had been missing since we have been eating the free ones at the motels since we left Eric’s where he had spoiled us with great breakfasts.  At the long stop in  Cranbrook we went to the local history museum which told the story of the town.  It was started as a gold rush town and then a shrewd business man who owned most of the ranch land around gave the right of way through his property to the Canadian Pacific Railway which allowed the town to prosper again.  It also made him ungodly rich.  We then went to the local park where we watched dogs fighting over a ball.  One of them was much quicker and always got the ball but then the other would force her to let it go and alway s brought it back to the owner.  It turns out the bully was the son of the one that usually got it first.  She really did not raise him right.  

Cranbrook is so tied to the railroad that each corner of this surround for a tree on the road had a different locomotive.   This was a tree lined street and every tree had four different locomotives.

We drove right through this town as fast as possible.

They set up poles just for the osprey to nest in so they don't use the utility poles.

After a dinner in Whitefish where we had beef rather than fish we went to setup camp.  We have to camp again due to the lack of good chargers in the area so we are tenting on RV packed ground again.  We are learning though as we are using rocks to hold the fly away from the tent as putting stakes into ground packed for years by multi-ton vehicles is impossible.  This is the first time we have camped two nights in the same spot so it will be nice to leave the tent up.  Maybe this method will protect us from the rain we are supposed to get tomorrow.   

I labeled the rock but it is quite small type.

The scenery was great along the road

And there was a nice sunset which meant setting up the tent in the dark again

Speaking of weather, as life-long Easterners we thought the Pacific Northwest got constant rain and the middle of the country, especially the Southwest, rarely got rain.  Since then we have learned that it does not often rain in the Pacific Northwest in summer and afternoon thunderstorms are a fact of life during monsoon season in what we regarded as desert that would not get summer rain.  So here we are again in the rain shadow of the Rockies and the forecast is afternoon/ evening thunderstorms for the next three days.   These storms apparently originate in the Gulfs on both sides of Mexico and the water is trapped by the Rockies so falls on the eastern side.   Until now we only understood the weather patterns of the East Coast.

Regular Features

Statistics Corner

States involved: We are back in the US which is lucky as we are out of Canadian money and added Montana to our state list.

Charging

Invermere, BC – 1.5 hours - The town municipal building has a great Sun Country charger thanks to the rich guy who gave them away and the town that pays the electric bill we picked up a great charge while we ate breakfast.  This is a cute little hippie town that caters to outdoor sports like fishing and skiing.  There were lots of new condos going up everywhere maybe in anticipation of an influx of Americans fleeing the election results.

Cranbrook, BC  -4.5 hours – This town was nowhere near as prosperous as Invermere as as it depends on the Canandian Pacific Railroad for its survival it is a bit grittier but the charger was located at the Curling Center.

Church of the Day – This was a cute little church we ran into while we were killing time in town.

Coolest car of the Day – This Bronco is the perfect old car expression of the Montana outdoor spirit.

Song of the Day  - The Letter – The Box Tops – The sentiment about getting there no matter what was the spirit of the day.

Coolest Thing of the Day – Larry – Figuring out how to get us to Bigfork, Montana without too much overcharging at the slower chargers we had to deal with today.  Michelle wanted a lot more extra and we did have a bit more charge than we needed as we had to although we did receive lots of warnings along the way from Hobson  We arrived with 27 miles left which was over an hour extra at Cranbrook.  Although we wasted the hour Michelle was happy we had a cushion and Larry was happy he figured it out right even if we did not execute his plan.

Coolest Thing of the Day - Michelle – How quickly we got through the border and how nice the agent was.