Today was our first day driving the RV into Canada. The Canadian border agent mentioned that he saw a lot of the Great Alaskan Holidays RVs passing though his tiny border checkpoint on Chief Mountain Highway.

Since we drove directly from Glacier National Park to Waterton Lakes National Park, we didn’t stop by an ATM to pick up Canadian money. Luckily, this was no problem as Parks Canada/Parcs Canada takes Visa for park entrance fees and campground fees.

Our campsite was just outside of Waterton town. Unlike American national parks, Canadian national parks have towns inside of them with homes, restaurants, and other stores. We walked to a nearby restaurant called Wieners of Waterton that sold tasty hot dogs, sausages, and poutine. Afterward, we made a quick loop of the town. We found a WiFi hotspot near the playground and Valerie purchased our plane tickets home.

In the morning, we called Bison Ford in Great Falls, but they were too busy to take a look at our RV today (or even tomorrow). They recommended that we call Ford dealerships in nearby towns.  So, we called Courtesy Ford in Conrad, MT. They were kind enough to squeeze us in between 11:00 and 12:00 to take a look at the RV. The miracle workers at Courtesy Ford were able to fix the AC in about 1.5 hours (for free under warranty). Huzzah!

Today’s sightseeing stop was St. Mary and the east side of Glacier National Park. Even though the St. Mary Visitor Center wasn’t scheduled to open for 2 days, USNPS rangers helped us plot a course for tomorrow’s drive to the Canadian border, answered our park-related questions, and demonstrated the proper use of bear spray. We hiked along a trail near the old ranger station in St. Mary.

Our campsite was KOA in St. Mary. I would not recommend this campground.

Today was a long day of driving from Sheridan to Great Falls, MT. During today’s drive, we became convinced that our truck air conditioner (as opposed to RV air conditioner) was not working. We called Great Alaskan Holidays and they advised us to stop by a Ford dealership to have the AC fixed.

Our campsite was Dick’s RV in Great Falls, MT. The staff at Dick’s were friendly and capable.

The only sightseeing stop on today’s drive was at Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. It is a large pillar of stone protruding upward. We walked around it on a paved (but not handicap accessible) trail for about an hour before heading back to the highway.

Our campsite was Peter D’s RV Park in Sheridan, WY. Pete maintains a very nice campground with full hookups. The showers were spotless and there was a laundry room available. He even lent us a coaxial cable so we could hook up our TV to the included cable TV. If you need to park an RV in Sheridan, Peter D’s is the place to go.

We continued our drive west along I-90. Our first stop was Badlands National Park. The trails in this park are very well maintained and many of them are handicap accessible. (I love hiking on handicap accessible trails.) Valerie and her family thoroughly enjoyed the scenery as we stopped at a few of the vista points along the Badlands loop road.

Valerie’s dad purchased a National Park Senior Pass for $10 (lifetime). This should allow us to enter most NPS attractions for no additional cost as we make our way across the country.

Our next stop was Mt. Rushmore National Memorial. I thought the carved faces were quite stunning in the evening light and wanted to stay and look at them for a while. However, it was going to get dark soon and we needed to find a campground soon. Beside the giant faces, there isn’t much to see at the monument and I can see how some visitors might be underwhelmed and regret making the long drive to the mountain.

We ended up dry camping at the Travelodge RV in nearby Keystone, SD. The Travelodge hadn’t enabled their hookups yet because of the recent cold, so they let us park in their RV lot for free.

We were the very last RV to leave the Winnebago factory among the Spring Adventurers.

Our very first stop was a Super Wal-Mart. We split our giant shopping list into three parts and broke up into teams to buy our supplies for the next week. About 1.5 hours later, we met up and loaded our RV with food, supplies, and toiletries.

We were a little worried that we’d have trouble navigating the Iowa roads on our way back to I-90. That worry was unfounded. Between Forest City and the Minnesota border, the roads were straight, wide, flat, and empty. Rural Iowa is a fine place to learn how to drive an RV.

Our first campground was American Creek near the Missouri River in South Dakota. We arrived just before 20:00. The campground staff was friendly and helped orient ourselves with the campground.

We had to be at the airport by 16:30 today to meet Valerie’s parents and board our shuttle bus to Forest City. After checking out of our hotel around 12:00, we ate lunch at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for what we assume will be our last bowl of pho in quite a while. With a few hours to spare, we walked to the nearby Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and admired the free art. We picked up 4 banh mi from the same restaurant, picked up our luggage, and rode the light rail back to the airport.

The Great Alaskan Holidays technicians wanted us to “dry camp” the first night in our RV so that we can detect any major problems before leaving the Winnebago factory. This is the first time any of us have rented an RV in our adult lifetimes, so we had a lot of questions for the technicians. Many of our fellow campers were very friendly and helped show us the ropes.

Valerie was very cold the first night. Since the Great Alaskan team didn’t have additional blankets available, we will need to pick up more blankets at Wal-Mart tomorrow.

We started the day by walking through the Minneapolis Skyway system. I love sky bridges. To have an entire downtown area connected by them is a small fantasy. We happened to be walking around right around lunchtime. We saw swarms of Target employees heading to or from the local restaurants. Hungry, but discouraged by the crowds, we decided to try to find food at our next destination.

We went to the famous Mall of America (the largest mall in the United States). Again, we took the light rail from downtown. After wandering around the mall for a while and taking pictures with the giant Lego statues and roller coasters, we sat down for lunch at the food court. (In retrospect, we probably should have eaten lunch in downtown.) Aside from the amusement park and the giant Lego statues, the Mall of America is just like any typical American mall, except larger.

We went back to downtown to eat dinner at Restaurant Alma, which served an excellent 3-course dinner for ~$55/person. Valerie was excited that Restaurant Alma is a James Beard Award semifinalist.

In this episode of Valerie and Bryon Travel the World, Valerie and Bryon are going to drive an RV from Iowa to Alaska (accompanied by Valerie’s parents). We are going to pick up a brand new RV from the Winnebago factory in Forest City, IA and drop it off in Anchorage, AK about 18 days later. If this sounds appealing to you, you can sign up for next year’s Spring Adventure Package from Great Alaskan Holidays.

We flew from San Francisco to Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Belinda dropped us off at the Caltrain station.  We always leave lots of extra time for this transit since some terrible transit accident always seems to happen on this route.  Last time, a Caltrain fatality caused us to be delayed in transit by more than an hour.  This time, there was a Bart fatality.  It didn’t cause much delay, but maybe we should reconsider flying SFO if we can fly through SJC.

We arrived in Minneapolis around 18:30 and took the Blue line light rail into downtown for $1.75 each (including bus transfer). We hopped on a bus that took us to the Hyatt Regency, which Valerie booked on Priceline for the bargain rate of $60/night + tax. After setting in, we went out to Eatery 112, where we ate very tasty foie gras meatballs.

After the airboat ride, Valerie got to hold a baby alligator named Snappy. Valerie said that its skin was surprisingly soft. We took the bus to MIA and ate a quick meal at The Counter in the airport before hanging out in the American Airlines lounge for several hours before the flight. (Valerie was able to show her American Express card to get us in for free! Yay FlyerTalk!) Five and a half hours after boarding, we landed at SFO and Belinda kindly picked us up from the airport.