2014 Leisure Travel Vans U24MB

2014 Leisure Travel Vans U24MB
2014 Leisure Travel Vans: Unity 24 Murphy Bed Photo from Triple E LTV Website: http://leisurevans.com

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The March West Leg Seven

Headed Home - Day Seven


June 10th
Calgary, AB to Home!
7.0hrs and 705kms

We are on our final leg home.  We left Calgary and pointed west once again!  Weather was nice and as we were driving Jan said we should take some pictures from here to home!  We drive it so much but we never take any pictures!

So now you know why there are so many photos!


Leaving Calgary with the Rocky Mountains in the distance

This really is a beautiful country

Must be going to Alaska
Two generators and four jerry cans of gasoline!

Interesting formation of soil

The Juniper Motel is just outside of Banff
We went to our good friends Rick & Cindy's wedding here in 1980 

Last of the spring run-off

More paving along the route

Lots of truck traffic outside of Golden, BC

No there's a job!
Hanging over the side of the bridge?

Two workers hanging off the crane

Glacier National Park

Rocky Mountains

We came across a semi-truck roll over

There was no traffic holdup

Hope no one was hurt?

Going to take some time to get this sorted out.

Tunnel construction had two lanes of traffic where there should have been one

Which caused a tight squeeze when the motorhome was meeting a semi-truck

This tunnel had normal traffic

Roger's Pass

Summit of Rogers Pass
Beautiful day for a drive

First Lupins we saw on the trip

On the west side of the Rockies

Another train for Jan!

Driving along the Shuswap Lake

Outside of Sicamous BC is a large fleet of house boats for rent

Twin Anchors House Boat Rentals

Do you need a hubcap?

There has been little rain and hot weather, already one crop of hay off of the fields

We are home now!

Put on 8,635 kms

Used 838 litres of fuel in Canada
and
151 litres (40 gallons) in the USA

Total of 989 litres used which equates to 9.9L/100 = 23.75mpg Imperial or 19.75 US 










The March West Leg Six

Headed Home - Day Six


June 9th
Assiniboia, SK to Calgary, AB
7.0hrs and 705kms


Departing Assiniboia, SK we continued west to Calgary for a visit and overnight stop with Jan's Brother & Wife.  We decided to head southeast of Calgary to avoid the rush hour madness of going through the city.  This route would take us through Bragg Creek, AB.


Jan, Mike, Tucker, Teresa & Craig

Lots of freight via rail crossing the prairies

Was it mentioned Jan likes pictures of trains

Big Sky Country Alberta

Lots of irrigation happening with the exceptionally hot weather.
Our trip in Saskatchewan and Manitoba saw temperatures of 35 Celsius

Bragg Creek Alberta
Foothills to the Rockies

Although this appears to be a large hotel in fact it is a private home

Reported to being built by Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie
Nine Car Garage

We have been making good progress on this trip!  The motorhome has been running well and no problems with the exception of the water pump.  Although we are now not sure if it is the pump or the pick-up line in the water tank.  Seems the pump runs fine if the water tank is 50% or more full, but when it is below 50% the pump starts acting up.  Maybe air is getting in the lines; we do have to trouble shoot to determine if this is the correct evaluation.

We spent a nice evening in Calgary and only one more day till we are home.






Monday, June 8, 2015

The March West Leg Five

Headed Home - Day Five


June 8th 
Winkler, MB to Assiniboia, SK
6.5hrs and 648kms




We had a great night's sleep parked in our Unity at Leisure Travel Vans parking lot!

Craig had the foresight to have called Steve in Service on Friday and set up a 07:30am appointment to replace the water pump.  Smart decision as there were other owners waiting to get in the door when they opened on Monday morning.

As we were getting LTV Kozad ready for the appointment Jan yells "Look at those"....  I turn around and look out the rear window and see two Unitys driving through the lot to the paint shop!


Unity Corner Bed Unit "Unpainted

Not as nice looking as when painted!

Our unit was whipped right in to the shop and two hours later we were set and on our way!  Will see how the new water pump works?  Here's hoping.s


Leisure Travel Van's Customer Waiting Room

Another View

Once our unit was ready we drove over to the Winkler Tourist Park which is right in town; great spot to dump out our holding tanks.  We saw another LTV Unity towing a Jeep Wrangler!  Once again, I could not grab my camera fast enough to get a picture!

We headed east along the southern part of Manitoba, who would have known we would be going through Miami before entering into Saskatchewan.  

Miami, MB
Who would have known!

We stopped in Souris, MB for fuel, lunch and a rest along the way.
A very nice little community.

Fuelling up in Souris, MB

Woodfire Deli, Souris MB

The Deli had a nice display of items to purchase

We ordered a delicious wood-fired pizza for lunch!

Lots of parking along the street and the Unity almost fits into a standard parking slot 




There is a beautiful municipal camping park in Souris, MB
We found that most small towns along this route had places to stay in town


The route we took through southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan is called the he Red Coat Trail roughly follows an approximately 1300km journey taken by the North West Mounted Police to bring the law and order to the Canadian West. From Fort Dufferin, Manitoba to the Old Man River in Southwestern Alberta where they established Fort Macleod, this was the Great March West.


Red Coat Trail

Nice Drive Through Southern Prairies - Canada

Northwest Mounted Police
Red Coast Trail Manitoba

Alberta Portion Of Red Coat Trail

So many old crumbling homesteads

Dutch Influence & Heritage

On our driving trips Jan likes pictures to be taken of a number of sites along the way. These include cows, clouds, lone trees, water towers, grain elevators and interesting vehicles along the way.











We arrived in Assiniiboia, SK and like the other prairie towns we drove through this one had a nice city campground which had full hooks ups.

Nice spot t the Assiniboia Town Camp Ground

Found a Monarch Butterfly!

Beautiful Butterfly
Unfortunately a few of these ended up on the grill of our Unity!

Driving in the spring and early summer across the Canadian Prairies comes with bugs!  Splattering of the windshield and front end of the Unity caused a lot of baked on wings, legs and bodies!

We had stopped to fuel up at a local PetroCan before bedding down in Assiniboia, and as we have done every fuel stop we attempted to clean the windshield.

Previously, all we really accomplished was smearing around the dead bugs!  But amazingly at this fuel stop we were amazed at how easy the windshield came clean.  

When asked what the secret formula was in the windshield station; we were told it was a mixture of the pink bug windshield washer, water and dish detergent!  Wow, amazing stuff...  so of course we bought a jug of the bug juice cleaner!


Turbo Power
Bug Wash
Windshield Washer