Two O’clock Creek Provincial Park Campground – July 21st

It’s 10:20 pm, Sunday, and still light out.  I am sitting outside by my campfire, site 19, with mountains all around me. Today I packed up and left Crimson Lake. But first I talked to some of the other campers about the hail storm last night. Many of them had broken ceiling vents, and some had their expensive awnings torn and broken.  One guy said a hail ball broke through the ceiling vent and landed on his bunk bed. And he said there were dents in trucks, especially the Fords and Toyotas, they had suffered the worst, but us GMCs  he said were ok. I haven’t checked the roof of my trailer, because I don’t have a ladder, but there are at least 4 dents the size of a toonie in the back wall of my trailer and lots of little dents in the front.

I packed up and said goodbye and then headed west toward the Rockies. 93 km west of Rocky Mountain House I stopped in at Nordegg. It’s a small town that used to thrive when they mined for coal, but that all stopped after the railways started using diesel. Now there’s a motel with a gas station, ($1.22 per litre) a couple of food vans, the coal museum, and its cafe which makes great pie and serves Seattle’s Best Coffee. There is no place to park or turn an RV so I just drove on the field /lawn and hoped when  I headed out, it would be ok.

My plan was to stay at the provincial Two O’clock Creek Campground in the Kootenay Plains Ecological Reserve. It’s a beautiful drive especially by Abraham Lake. I found a good campsite and headed out for a walk right away. I asked two different people if there were bears around and they said oh yes, it’s bear country and they are all around. So I didn’t go off in the bush too far! It’s very open here, huge meadows with beautiful grasses and wild flowers, a ridge that people use for a climbing wall, and mountains all around.

Everything seemed perfect until I turned on the water pump, and there was no noise, and no water. I reached up to turn on a light, but no light. And the fridge packed with all my new groceries was not working either. I plugged in the truck to see if I could get the battery charged a little bit, but there was no juice coming through.  Maybe the lightning from last night may have cooked my electrical system. Sheeit.  Here I was with fresh groceries, all ready to go hiking and stay in this beautiful place = so much for the best laid plans. It looks like the best option is to turn around and head out first thing in the morning, back to Rocky Mountain House. It’s getting dark now, and I can hear drums being beat in the distance. It could get pretty chilly up here tonight. At least my sheets have dried out.

A very fun suspension bridge!