We visited Glacier National Park in July of last year, but were only able to spend five days — which was not nearly enough. We knew then that we would return for a longer stay in the near future, which turned out to be August 9-23 of this year. We spent two amazing weeks in … Read more Glacier NP and the West Glacier KOA
The idea of a visit to Banff National Park in Alberta can be a bit daunting — almost as daunting as trying to put all of the info about actually visiting Banff into a blog post can be. But, it’s the most beautiful place we’ve ever been and completely worth the hassle it takes to … Read more A Very Short Week in Lake Louise and Banff
We spent the month of June in the Black Hills area of South Dakota: Two weeks at Beaver Lake Campground in Custer; one week at Game Lodge Campground in Custer State Park; and we split the fourth week between Rafter J Bar Ranch in Hill City and Elkhorn Ridge RV Resort in Spearfish. This was … Read more The Black Hills of South Dakota – Custer, Hill City, and Spearfish
We spent one glorious week at the Colter Bay RV Park in Grand Teton National Park. The RV park books out far in advance, is on the expensive side, has narrow roads and less than level sites, and the cell signal is pitiful — but it’s one of the best places we’ve stayed. Located in … Read more Colter Bay RV Park – Grand Teton National Park
We absolutely loved our time in Moab. We had a tough few weeks before arriving in Moab. We had problems with the Airstream, a large project for work that was wrapping up, and a longer than usual business trip. We needed time to decompress and unwind, and our week in Moab was just that. From … Read more Magical Moab: Arches NP, Canyonlands NP & Dead Horse Point SP
We are Travis and Missy, originally from a small city in Wisconsin. After living in San Diego for seven years, we decided to purchase a 2017 Airstream International Signature 27FB. We launched our full-time life on the road on January 15, 2018. Read more About Us
Questions? Comments? We’d love to hear from you! Send a message, leave a comment, or visit us on Instagram. If we’re on the road, connectivity may be an issue, so give us bit to get back to you. Read more Contact
As we made our way from the Portland area to the Coast, we stopped for a night at a Harvest Host at Emerson Vineyards. According to the reviews, this is a popular stop that features live entertainment on Friday nights, though we were the sole RV on the Monday night that we stayed. We didn’t do any wine tasting, but did purchase a bottle of their award-winning Brother Red, which is a 5-grape blend. Minus the sporadic distant gunshots, this was a peaceful, private stay where we were able to test our newly installed solar and lithium batteries.
We had Ultimate Airstreams do some much-needed modifications to our 2017 27′ International Signature Airstream. We lived in it for a year and a half and decided to make some changes in order to make it more full-time friendly. We contacted Ultimate Airstreams back in April to discuss the changes we’d like make and to schedule an appointment. We worked with Ian to design a new layout that would work better for us and we dropped the Airstream off on September 3rd for a five-week renovation.
The factory-installed Airstream ‘couches’ are notoriously uncomfortable. Airstreams are not designed for full-time living, and the seating is a good indicator of that. The most important aspect in our new layout was having a comfortable couch. Like, a real couch. And that’s what Ultimate Airstreams did. Our couch actually started as a couch from IKEA that was manipulated and altered to fit into the Airstream. The cushions were reupholstered with a durable vinyl material that looks very much like leather in the Vintage Pretzel color. To replace the storage that was lost under each bench seat, two large drawers were installed under the couch. While the couch no longer converts to a bed, it is large enough for one person to sleep on, if needed. There are cup holders in the arms of the couch and two pop-up outlets behind it — one inverter and one regular. We absolutely love our couch and are finally able to watch TV in comfort!
The long bench seat was never really utilized in our Airstream — hardly anybody ever sat on it and nobody every slept on it. We replaced it with a desk, which has really changed our daily life. After about 21 months of setting up and breaking down the 27″ iMac every day, or leaving it sitting on the dinette table where it always seemed to be in the way, we finally have a functioning ‘office’. We are full timers that still work full time. There’s no end in sight for living the full-time lifestyle, so we needed to make our space work better for us. Thanks to the modifications, we have a dedicated work space by day and a comfortable lounging space by night that allows us both to see the TV without having to put the computer away every evening. We chose a butcher block top for the desk, which looks great alongside the cabinets and couch. When designing the desk, a must for me was to have a pull-out garbage can. The Airstream came with one tiny, under-sink garbage — again, not really meant for full-time living. We had a full-size garbage that would sit in front of the pantry, but we had to move it any time we wanted to open the pantry. Super annoying. We now have an out-of-sight, out-of-mind garbage as well as a drawer for storage above it.
(And because I always get at least one message asking about how we store the iMac while traveling whenever I post about it, read this blog post about the case we use and where we store while under tow.)
We purchased the desk chair from the Laura Davidson website. It’s a knockoff of the ridiculously priced Herman Miller Eames Soft Pad chair. It comes with rolling casters on it, but the website also sells these stationary glides. In order to keep the chair secure while towing, Kenny at Ultimate Airstreams installed hooks to which we attach a bungee cord that is wrapped around the base of the chair.
They found a new home for the fire extinguisher that always seemed to be in the way (Max’s collar got caught on it a couple of times.) They also fixed a few things that had been on our to-do list — replaced missing rivets, replaced the broken bathroom doorknob, made our door easier to open and close (it previously took a lot of muscle), and fixed our awning LED lights that have never worked.
We are beyond thrilled with the finished product! Ian and Kenny were fantastic to work with and they actually finished the project almost a week ahead of schedule, so we were able to pick it up early. Ultimate Airstreams is located in Clackamas, Oregon and is owned by Airstream Adventures Northwest, the five Airstream dealerships located in Idaho, Washington, Oregon and NorCal. If you dream it up, they can make it happen! We’ve been living in our newly remodeled trailer for a week and a half now and have commented almost daily about how nice it is and how we wish we would have done it sooner. However, waiting so long let us figure out exactly what we wanted/needed.
While Ultimate Airstreams was working on our home, we rented a condo in Portland for five weeks. It was located in the South Waterfront neighborhood, which is a clean, quiet neighborhood along the Willamette River. There’s a really nice, dog-friendly green space along the river, a farmer’s market every Thursday night in the neighborhood park, a few shops, an Orange Theory Fitness (which we both joined for a month), and a handful of food options within a few blocks of where we stayed, which was the The John Ross building.
Definitely a different kind of lifestyle than we’re used to!The South Waterfront Greenway was a great place to walk Max every morning and was only a block from our condo.The weekly farmer’s market where we’d stock up on goodies.There’s a Blue Star Donuts in the neighborhood, which was both wonderful and terrible. When in Portland, skip Voodoo Donuts and head to Blue Star instead.There’s also a vet in the neighborhood, whom Max had to visit after getting an eye infection at Cannon Beach. We saw two different doctors on two different occasions and they were both fantastic.
We didn’t venture out as much as we would have liked for a few reasons: We were busy with work; I (Missy) took a trip to Wisconsin to visit family; and the parking situation wasn’t ideal. The building has underground parking, but it’s not really built for a large truck. We technically fit without scraping the ceiling, but the assigned parking spots are very snug. If other cars were parked around us, it took both of us to get in and out of the spot — Travis driving and me directing him through a 27-point turn so we didn’t hit anybody. Not really ideal for exploring the city. However, we did make it to the following sites:
Washington Park: Home to the Hoyt Arboretum, International Rose Test Garden, Oregon Zoo, Portland Children’s Museum, World Forestry Center, and the Portland Japanese Garden, the latter of which we spent a decent amount of time at. The Japanese Garden is laid out so beautifully and is very serene. We grabbed a bite for lunch at their Umami Cafe. I would definitely put this on the list as a must-see when visiting Portland!
The Pearl District: It’s only about a 10-minute drive from South Waterfront to this neighborhood where you’ll find Powell’s Books, Deschutes Brewery, trendy boutiques, big-name stores, restaurants, bars, breweries, coffee shops, and galleries. There’s also a Whole Foods with an Amazon Locker where we had a package sent. If we were to recommend an area for someone to stay who is going to visit Portland, this is it.
Cannon Beach: It’s a little over an hour and half drive to Cannon Beach from Portland. It was a much needed and enjoyed trip by all three of us.
Studio One Theaters: A luxury movie theater with a more personal vibe. Our particular theater was set up and decorated like a New York penthouse.
We know there is so much more to explore in Portland and hope to get back some day to do so. After picking up the Airstream from Ultimate Airstreams, we stayed at Pheasant Ridge RV Park, about 20 minutes south of Portland. We spent a few days there while moving back into the Airstream and getting everything organized. We’d highly recommend Pheasant Ridge as a basecamp while the visiting the Portland area. Read our review here.
Pheasant Ridge RV Park is located 20 minutes south of downtown Portland and was a great place to stay for a couple of nights as we got moved back into our Airstream and reorganized after picking it up from Ultimate Airstreams. Even though it’s easily accessible from the I-5 and across the street from a shopping center (Target, Starbucks, Costco, PetSmart, etc.), it’s a very quiet and peaceful place to stay. They have one of the best features I’ve seen at an RV park — a separate laundry room specifically for pet stuff! The property has beautiful trees throughout that offer great shade, which I’m sure is very welcome during the hotter months. The sites are concrete with grassy yards. We didn’t use the pool or restrooms, but both seemed very nice and clean.
Site 80All of the trees and green grass give the property a park-like feel.
Pheasant Ridge is the perfect place to stay if you want to explore Portland. During our long weekend there, we saw a musical at Portland Center Stage at The Armory, which is located in the Pearl District. It’s only a 20-minute drive to this neighborhood where you’ll find Powell’s Books, Deschutes Brewery, trendy boutiques, big-name stores, restaurants, bars, breweries, coffee shops, and galleries.
For more about our Ultimate Airstream modifications and what we did while in the Portland area, check out this blog post.
We chose to stay at Portland-Woodburn RV Park due to its location between Springfield, Oregon where AM Solar is located and Clackamas, Oregon where Ultimate Airstreams is located. We had updates done to the Airstream at both places and booked our appointments with both back in April. We were able to schedule them close enough together that we only had five days between where we needed a place to stay and Woodburn-RV Park was a good option.
The RV park is located right off the I-5 and next door to the Woodburn Premium Outlets, which was a very popular place during our stay over the Labor Day weekend. We took advantage of the fact Oregon doesn’t have a sales tax and purchased a few things during our stay. There are a handful of restaurants within a short walk from the RV park. The sites are blacktopped and grassy, but offer no privacy from your neighbor. The property is clean and the people are nice. It’s about a 40-minute drive into downtown Portland. Woodburn is a nice little city with all of the services you might need, including a Walmart. For those that aren’t RVers, a Walmart is always nice to have as they have an RV supply aisle in which they sell the good RV toilet paper – the only other place I’ve been able to find it is Amazon, but it’s pricy. If you’re looking for something closer to the city, I’d recommend Pheasant Ridge RV Park, which is only a 20-minute drive. It’s a bit pricier, but it’s a beautiful RV park where we stayed for a couple of nights after picking up our Airstream from Ultimate Airstreams. Review for Pheasant Ridge coming soon.
When we bought the Airstream in June of 2017, we had the dealership install two 100w flex solar panels. We never upgraded the batteries to anything beyond what was installed at the factory, and even after replacing those first batteries with a new set (of the same), they were never able to hold a charge like we would need to successfully function without shore power (that’s what RVers call an electric hookup). We talked about upgrading the batteries for a while, and in doing research, found that our flex panels don’t generally have a long life expectancy either. In April, after 15 months on the road, we decided we wanted to add two more solar panels and upgrade to lithium batteries. We knew we were missing out on one of the benefits of this lifestyle, which is to be able to stay places without having to hook up. There are so many options out there for boondocking, especially in the West. We wanted to have the convenience and flexibility to be able to subsist for a few nights and not have to depend on electricity. We scheduled an appointment for late August with AM Solar in Springfield, Oregon, who we found to have rave reviews.
We originally were going to have them install just two 100w rigid panels, but decided to have them replace the flex panels as well. We now have four 100w rigid panels. We swapped our crappy batteries for two Battle Born 12v 100Ah lithium batteries. Our original converter has been disconnected and replaced with two lithium-compatible chargers. To complete the upgrade, a Victron battery monitor system was installed so we can monitor our battery levels as well as our solar input on our phones in the Victron app.
There are two big decisions that need to be made when upgrading solar and batteries: Lithium vs AGM batteries and Fixed vs Portable solar panels. You should make these decisions based on how YOU are going to use YOUR rig – don’t worry about how other people are using theirs. We weren’t looking to be able to live off grid 100% of the time, though we are fully capable of doing that now, but to have the flexibility and convenience to make decisions about where we stay independent of whether or not there’s an electric hook up. Sometimes we want full hookups, other times we don’t. We have a great setup now for the times we don’t.
There are some solar purists out there that feel that anything other than portable solar panels are a waste of money. Again, this depends on how you’re going to use your rig. For the non-RVers out there, when you park a trailer in direct sun, it gets hot inside. Alternatively, when you park in the shade, it stays cooler. For the people that like to stay off grid regularly, being able to park in the shade but still receive sun on the solar panels is a necessity. In cases like this, one would need to have portable solar panels that are plugged into the RV by a long cord, but sit on the ground and are able to be moved around and adjusted as needed in reference to where the sun is in the sky. We don’t like heat. When it’s hot, we like to use our air conditioning. In order to use a/c, we need to have an electric hookup as our inverter does not support running a/c. It’s possible to install an inverter powerful enough that will allow you to run a/c strictly off of battery power as opposed to shore power, but it’s very pricy, and as I said, we aren’t looking to go off grid permanently so it’s unnecessary for us. If it’s hot, we like to be on shore power. Therefore, we don’t need to be able to park in the shade and still get sun to our solar panels. We’ll save our dependent-on-solar-panels days for cooler temps that allow us to sit in direct sun without feeling like we’re slowing baking inside our Airstream.
Wholesale Solar has a great blog post that explains lithium vs AGM batteries better than I ever could, so please click here to read it if this topic interests you. For us, the deciding factors were that lithium has a much greater depth of discharge, a faster charge rate, and a longer lifespan.
So, what exactly what can we do with our fancy new batteries and solar panels? We recently spent about 24 hours at a Harvest Hosts to try our new system out. We made dinner in the oven, watched hours of TV, had the furnace kick in a few times, ran the fridge on propane, charged cell phones, used the water pump as needed, turned on lights, and used the stove to heat water for the French press. The lowest our batteries got to was 78%, and seeing as they can safely get down to 20% and we were not holding back on using power, we were very impressed. Even though it was raining when we hitched up and rained for about half of our 4-hour drive, we were back up to 100% when we reached our next destination, thanks to our solar panels.
While this project was not cheap, to us, the convenience it provides and the money we can save boondocking is worth every penny. The staff at AM Solar are consummate professionals and did an amazing job. Everything is under warranty for an unheard of seven years, so we have peace of mind that if any issues should arise in years to come, AM Solar has our back!
The finished product!AM Solar used one of the storage compartments under one of our twin beds to install the batteries and equipment.Battle Born lithium batteries come with a 10-year warranty.The battery screen in the VictronConnect app.The solar screen in the VictronConnect app.
What’s that sound?
The day before we dropped the Airstream off at AM Solar, we pulled into a campground in Cascade Locks, Oregon and noticed an odd rattling sound coming from the wheel area on the passenger side of the Airstream. Travis crawled underneath to see if he could see what was going on, but didn’t see anything obvious. Seeing as there was nothing we could do where we currently were, we hitched up the next day and continued to Springfield with bated breath. We knew there was an Airstream dealership/service center in Portland, so figured that was going to be our best option. After we dropped the Airstream off at AM Solar, we drove to our hotel in downtown Eugene. Along the way, we noticed a billboard for Sutton RV, the ‘Pacific Northwest’s Original Airstream Dealership’ which was located in Eugene.
Guys, this is the second time we’ve had an issue with the Airstream and both times we happened to be in a city with an Airstream dealership/service center. What are the odds?
We called them the next morning, which was a Monday. We explained our situation: weird noise; full timers; Airstream currently at AM Solar until Thursday; Airstream would be dropped off at Ultimate Airstreams the following Tuesday. It was a small window of time. They were busy. It was short notice. BUT, they told us to bring it in Thursday and they would look at it to at least diagnose the problem. We cancelled the first night of our RV park stay and extended our hotel stay one night. We picked the trailer up Thursday from AM Solar and drove 15 minutes to Sutton RV. Just 2.5 hours later we got a call saying one of our brakes was basically shredded and needed to be replaced. They had the part and the Airstream would be fixed and ready to go Friday afternoon. Yay! We were able to pick the Airstream up 24 hours after dropping it off and continue on our way to Portland. Kelly at Sutton RV did us a solid and was awesome to work with. While we hope we never have to see them again, we know we’d receive fantastic service from a hard-working and honest service department if a problem were to arise in their area again.
The old. When Kelly sent this picture he said, “Your holding bolts broke off and you had parts missing.” Yikes!The new.
Our Stay in Eugene
While AM Solar was working on the Airstream and Sutton RV fixed our brake issue, we stayed at the Home 2 Suites in Eugene. While the hotel was very nice – suite with kitchenette, indoor pool, free breakfast, free laundry, decent fitness center – I would not stay there again. There’s a very large transient population in downtown Eugene, which made us feel a little uncomfortable walking around. After living in San Diego for a while, homelessness is not unfamiliar to us, but we saw some really nasty things that were pretty off putting. Our recommendation for anyone getting work done at AM Solar that needs to stay in a hotel for a few days would be to stay in Springfield.
Our stay at the Cascade Locks/Portland East KOA was our second one-night stay in a row and the second stay in a row where I forgot to take a picture of our site. We were really torn about this KOA. The property is actually pretty nice, though I’m not sure what qualifies it as a KOA Holiday as opposed to a KOA Journey. It has a real woodsy feel, as there are a lot of trees that provide great shade. However, the streets are pretty narrow and those lovely trees can impede rigs trying navigate through the campground. We ended up with what had to be the worst site in the campground, which was site 106. It was a tight turn to get into the site and an even tighter turn to get out of it. We were directly across from the pool, which was fully patronized all day long. The site next to us had a travel trailer and three vehicles, which amounted to about 15 people and 15 people worth of noise. When we walked Max, we noticed that the rest of the campground was pretty quiet, so if we had been in pretty much any other site, we probably would have enjoyed ourselves a bit more. The campground is in a great location to explore Cascade Locks and the surrounding area.
After getting settled in, we drove into town to get some lunch. We got burgers at Bridgeside, a restaurant on the banks of the Columbia River on the Oregon side of the Bridge of the Gods. Because we brought Max with us, we sat on the patio, which we had all to ourselves. Cascade Locks seems like a great little town to explore, but we just didn’t have the time this trip.
We spent one brief night at Coyote Run as we quickly made our way from Glacier National Park to Springfield, Oregon, where we would be dropping the Airstream off at AM Solar to upgrade the batteries and add more solar panels. Our stay was so brief that I forgot to take a picture of our site. When we left Glacier, we decided to just keep driving until we didn’t feel like driving anymore, and this day turned out be our longest driving day of the year thus far. As we started to lose steam, I opened the Campendium app to find a place nearby. Coyote Run looked like a good option, and seeing as it was kind of in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t call ahead as we figured they wouldn’t be full. Well, we got lucky, because we ended up with the last site that would fit us. It was a buddy pull-thru site, so we shared our grassy front yard with our neighbor, which was perfectly fine. Most of the rigs seemed like long-term residents — the gigantic propane tanks give it away — who we assumed were employed by the large prison nearby. This is a very basic, small RV park right off the highway that worked well for our one-night stay. We didn’t use any of the amenities, but I did peek in the restrooms, which were individual restrooms with showers and they looked clean.
We stayed one night at the Cranbrook/St. Eugene KOA after we left Banff National Park. Cranbrook seems to be a popular place for RVers to spend the night before crossing the border back into the United States. This property became a KOA just this year and thus far, seems to be a KOA in name only. There’s signage, but not much else that differentiates it from its past life as the St. Eugene RV Park. This is a KOA Journey, but is nicer than most KOA Holidays that we’ve stayed at. It was once part of, and sits adjacent to, the St. Eugene Golf Resort and Casino, which is a beautiful property. Staying at the KOA gives you access to the resort’s amenities, including the swimming pool, hot tubs, steam room, sauna, and fitness centre. There’s also a spa, golf course, and casino on site, as well as a couple of restaurants. It’s a nice, quiet place to spend a night or two.
Site 23 is a level, gravel, FHU site with a large grassy area.
The park sits along the St. Mary River and is well maintained. The only negative that we found is that there are no trees, so you’re always in direct sunlight. It was pretty warm when we stayed, so I can see this being a drawback for longer stays.
Note: Just before we reached the KOA, Google Maps routed us down a 13km washboard gravel road that was VERY rough. The notice below was posted in the KOA laundry room, so it seems this is a usual occurrence.
Make sure to follow the directions above and DO NOT drive down this road.
When planning our trip to Canada, the border crossing was the biggest question mark for us. We didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be nothing to worry about and took less than five minutes.
We crossed at the Sweetgrass, Montana crossing, which is listed as Montana’s busiest border crossing and the only one that’s open 24 hours for commercial vehicles. There are six lanes, with one reserved for people holding a NEXUS card and two reserved for commercial purposes. There were two cars ahead of us when we pulled up, but they moved through very quickly.
When we pulled up to the window, the agent asked for our passports immediately and then asked the following questions:
Where are you headed?
How long will you be in Canada?
What’s the purpose of your visit?
Do you have any alcohol? How much?
Do you have any tobacco products?
Do you have any cannabis products?
Do you have any weapons?
Do you have a taser or pepper spray?
Do you have more than $10,000 cash with you?
Will you be selling any goods while you’re in Canada?
Americans crossing into Canada are each allowed to have 1.5 liters of wine -or- 1.14 liters (40 ounces) of liquor -or- 24 cans of beer, as well as 1 carton (200) of cigarettes, up to 50 cigars, and 200g of loose tobacco. For more information about the items you can and can’t cross with and the possible duties imposed, visit www.ezbordercrossing.com. There were also signs posted that stated “All cannabis items must be declared,” but we have no idea what the rules are for that.
He then asked to see Max’s rabies vaccination record. After that, he handed everything back to us, and we were on our way!
Approaching the border from Sweetgrass, MT…Waiting for our turn…And we’re through!
The city on the Canadian side of the border is Coutts, which is where we spent the night before driving up to Cochrane, just west of Calgary, the next day. There is a duty free shop in both Sweetgrass and Coutts, so you can buy all the alcohol and tobacco your heart desires without having to pay a duty fee. If we were to cross the border via this route again, we would keep driving past Coutts to Lethbridge, about 100km (60mi) north. Coutts is a tiny, dusty, agricultural city without many amenities while Lethbridge is the third largest city in Alberta, offering food and recreation options.
We crossed back into the U.S. at the Roosville, BC border crossing. It was much busier than when we crossed in Sweetgrass — maybe because it was a Friday instead of a Thursday, and there were only two lanes as opposed to three. The border agent gave us a hard-to-explain uneasy feeling, but again we had no issues crossing once answering his questions:
How long were you in Canada?
Do you have any fresh produce or plants?
Did you buy any items to declare?
This time, there was a gauntlet of cameras and devices to drive through before reaching the border agent’s window.
From there, it was less than a 2-hour drive to our destination of West Glacier. Be prepared and be honest when crossing the border, and you should have no issues. We recently read of a fellow Airstreamer forgetting to declare a couple pieces of produce at the same border crossing and were fined $300 and had their passports held until they paid it.
We spent five nights at the beautiful Bow RiversEdge Campground in Cochrane, AB, which is 40 minutes west of downtown Calgary. The city of Cochrane is super cute and clean and we really enjoyed our stay at this park. The one drawback we experienced is that they are strict about their check in time — we arrived an hour and a half early and they wouldn’t let us check in. We can appreciate adhering to the rules, except that when we tried to pull into our site at 1:00, the previous person was still there. It was a tad frustrating, but they moved on in about 10 minutes, so we were able to get settled in without any more issues.
Site 85 is a level pull-thru with a tree for shade, picnic table, a fire pit, and grassy area. The property is very well kept with lush, green grass throughout and hedges between the sites for privacy. We used the tidy laundry facilities, but didn’t step inside the restrooms, which have coin showers.
The campground sits along the edge of the Bow River with an off-leash walking trail in between, which was a great place to walk Max every morning and evening.
During our stay, we drove into downtown Calgary late one afternoon. It’s a 40-minute drive from Cochrane to downtown, or about 20 minutes to the outskirts of the city. Starting at the city limits, there are a number of Light Rail Transit (LRT) stations that connect to the city center, which is a good option to avoid expensive and difficult to find parking in the downtown area. Calgary is a very large city, the fourth largest in Canada in fact, yet very green and very beautiful. We walked around a bit along 17th Avenue, where you’ll find a lot of shops and restaurants. We also visited Olympic Plaza, the site of the medal ceremonies during the 1988 Winter Olympics where there’s a reflecting pond to enjoy on hot days that becomes a skating rink during winter months. We attempted to visit the Calgary Tower, but it was closed due to elevator repairs.
Back in Cochrane, we visited the Krang Spirits Distillery, which is a small batch distillery that makes gin, vodka, whiskey and fruit liqueurs. We got a tour of their facility and did some free tasting of their spirits. We went home with two bottles of liqueurs – Raspberry Krang Berry Spirit and Krang Krupnik Spiced Honey Spirit. The tour was very interesting and we learned that in order for an alcohol to be considered whiskey in Canada, it has to be in a wood barrel for three years.
We had delicious tacos and drinks at Half Hitch Brewing, which is only a few minutes from the campground.
Located right next door to Bow RiversEdge Campground (within walking distance) is the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre. They have a fitness center, indoor running tracking, aquatic centre, outdoor splash park, climbing walls, hockey arena, curling centre, indoor soccer, gymnastics, gym with basketball, and so on. We paid the drop-in rate to be able to use the fitness center. It was $20 for the two of us, but 25% off with a coupon from the campground, making it $15 Canadian, which is a little over $11 American — so, less than $6 per person, which is pretty reasonable.
Bow RiversEdge and Cochrane were beautiful and relaxing, and a great jumping off point for our two weeks in Alberta and British Columbia.
