A summary of our Saturday, spent preparing for our week-long road trip can be found here and here.  I won’t bother going over everything that happened that day, but needless to say, our trip was off to an interesting start, LOL.

Sunday marked Day One of Shasta & V Do America.  We said our goodbyes and off we went, south of Calgary towards the Alberta/Montana border.

Neither of us had really driven into the states, so we didn’t know what to expect at the border. Fortunately the line up was fairly short, and we didn’t have to wait long. The cute customs officer was very sweet, and rather than search our trailer, they just gave it a quick scan and sent us on our way. It was a relief to be in and out of there without any trouble.

Cut Bank, Montana was the first stop of the evening, to see the World’s Largest Penguin. We wandered around looking for it, before finally stopping at a little casino to use the bathroom and ask where we could find said penguin. The bartender was kind enough to direct us and allowed us to use the facilities.

We found the penguin just where he said it would be. We parked the truck and trailer in the lot of an abandoned drive-in diner (you know, the kind with the car hops that came out to take your order). The penguin was indeed very large, as you can see from the above photos.

283. See the World’s Largest Penguin

That accomplished, and the sun going down, our next item of business was finding a place to sleep. Our GPS (nicknamed Mags) informed us that there was a camp ground nearby, and so we headed over there, only to find the supposed location populated by houses, and a hill.

Not sure what else to do, we drove east towards Chester, hoping to see a sign for camping. We did see a sign, although the facilities were not exactly what we had in mind. The ‘camp ground’ was basically a park in the middle of town, like a playground, with a grassy area. It was well after nightfall by this time, so we said to hell with it, parked, and set about putting our tent together. Thank gods we bought head lamps before we left Calgary.

There was a hole in the air mattress, and so we made up a bed the best we could, although we were seriously lacking for blankets. It had been so hot that day we didn’t think it would get too cold at any rate. In fact we didn’t bother putting the fly over the tent, so that the entire ceiling was open to the stars above.

167. Sleep under the stars

I heard a tiny meow outside, and decided to investigate, only to find a small kitten huddled next to a tree beside our tent. I approached slowly, V close behind me, but he started up the tree, and when I reached out to touch him, he spat and hissed furiously. So much for that. He was stuck up the tree and continued to cry until after we fell asleep, but there was nothing we could do (he did manage to get down on his own, I checked the next day).

I woke up in the wee hours, freezing to death, cuddled as close to V as possible. We were both curled up tightly, but there wasn’t much hope for sleep. It felt like the night may never end, and I don’t think that I really slept again until the sun began to rise and warm us up.