This week, we finally made it to Drumheller, Alberta. We’ve been talking about this place for ages. Drumheller is famous for its fossil finds. Yes, that’s fossil finds, not fossil fuels 😉 Otherwise we couldn’t have possibly gone there… LOL. The evening started out with us wanting to walk Kye, but what we got instead were the most stunning landscape and thundercloud photos. This area is something! Not what you see every day!

Am I looking forward to this drone video!

We also went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum that is home to the largest fossil collection in Canada, and a lot of it you can actually see, millions of years old, and most are originals, not casts. It was mind-blowing! But it’s not ‘just’ a museum, active research and restoration work is done right there as well.

Fossil exhibition at the Royal Terrell Museum, Drumheller AB

The next morning, we visited the local Hoodoos. Now, who knows what that is? I didn’t. It made me think of Hodor. I guess everybody knows who that is, no?! 😉 Hoodoos, on the other hand, are rock formations where the softer rock beneath the harder rock is washed away so that what’s left looks like one-legged tables or mushrooms. How’s that for a scientific description, eh?! 😉 Took some more photos before continuing on towards Vulcan.

Hoodoos near Drumheller AB

During the week before, we found out that Peavey Mart and many other partners were involved in a Solar Park built in Vulcan AB and that much of Peavey Mart’s electricity actually comes from that solar park. And… it’s Canada’s first Solar Park! And…it was just finished a month ago! Naturally, we had to see it. We found over 100 solar panels of 260W each. That was quite some park! We had hoped to speak to somebody who could tell us a little bit more about the background of the park, but timing wasn’t on our side, unfortunately. The location of this park also reconnected us with our Star Trek past. Vulcan – get it!?! 😉 Rolf has been more of a ‘Next Generation-kind-a-guy’, while I’m a ‘Voyager-girl’. But then, everybody was into Enterprise one time or another, right? Again, timing wasn’t on our side, or we would’ve been there this weekend for the 50^th anniversary of Star Trek. There went my chance to meet Chakotay in real life…

Part (!) of the solar park in Vulcan AB

But hey, I don’t complain. Instead, we had a great lunch encounter with the friendly people from Center Road Eatery in Arrowwood. Great desert with a really nice cup of cappuccino! Need a reason for an electric outing? Go there! You might even be able to top up your charge at the local campground around the corner! Bring a TT-30 adapter, though.

In the evening, we enjoyed our stay at the Aspen Crossing Campground. Loved the trees, the flowers, the caboose cabins, wish we could have had dinner in the Dining Car. Truly a nice campground! We’re not always that lucky…

Aspen Crossing Campground

Now, we want to be in Yorkton before July 17 and still have a long way to go. Since the Northern route to Saskatoon didn’t work out, we were missing one crucial charger, we took the Southern route via Medicine Hat (charged at Peavey Mart!), Swift Current (charged at Kal Tire!), Moose Jaw (charged at Winmar!) to Davidson. We had planned to go a little further every day now, otherwise, we might never make it to the East coast this year. 😉 This meant that, in addition to over night charging in campgrounds, we needed at least one mid-day charge as well. The Plugshare and/or Sun Country Highway Apps make finding those chargers easy, since it shows you where those chargers are, how fast you can charge and whether others are checked-in (= currently using the charger) or not. We are grateful to local businesses like Peavey Mart, Kal Tire and Winmar for providing us with charging opportunities. And for companies like Sun Country Highway and Sound Solar for providing the actual chargers and solar installations. Without you guys, our trip would not be possible. So, kudos to you for being innovative and supportive of alternative forms of energy and transportation! And in return, we spend our time spending money at your place or at least in your area. That doesn’t only benefit you guys, but also the companies located around you. Therefore, they should be VERY happy and grateful for what you are doing, too!

Driving through a beautiful country!

At Moose Jaw, we did what we were ‘told’ to do (thanks, James ;-)…), we visited the Moose Jaw Tunnels. Yes, Moose Jaw is famous for its tunnels! What an entertaining outing! You get to see the Tunnels two ways, we picked the ‘Al Capone’ option and ended up as bootleggers in his employ. I had no idea Al Capone was connected with Moose Jaw, and here we are, standing in his office, and bedroom and escaping through the underground tunnels from a ‘police raid’. Unfortunately, before we got any whiskey. Ah well, I like beer better anyway.

So, safely escaped, we dropped our car off at Winmar close to our campground for a 80Amp/204V charge. Heaven! – but only for two hours until bed time ;-). The Saskatchewan EV Club was very supportive and organized an event for us for the next morning at exactly that location. Why? Because Winmar’s roof is covered in solar panels and thus, we were able to charge on sunshine – the best way of all.

A busy morning talking to EV enthusiasts while charging the car via solar power.

Winmar, a disaster recovery company, is planning to switch their entire fleet to electric cars or range-extended vans. At their Moose Jaw location, they generate more power with their 37kWp setup than they need to power the store and the fleet. A big ‘Thank you!’ from us goes to Winmar, the Saskatchewan EV Club, Sound Solar and Sun Country Highway for getting local EV enthusiasts and owners together to meet us! And a special ‘Thank you!’ to Winmar for caring for future generations and letting us charge on sunshine!

And if you guys are now wondering why there is no technical information on the X or the camping trailer or solar panels in this post, I can answer that: That’s Rolf’s job, he’s the man for the dry stuff 😉 and he’s supposed to be working on something really technical. I think he picked ‘Chargers’ as a topic. So stay tuned, his post will be covering the ‘other’ side of our trip soon.