Mossleigh Alberta - 2023

 

Today, we head to Aspen Crossing campground in Mossleigh Alberta, about 40 miles south of Calgary.  It’s about 100 miles from here.  I guess last year, the campground they stayed at in Calgary, was really tight.  Like your slide almost touched your neighbor’s slide.  Glad we weren’t going there.

Again, our window for leaving was between 0930 and 1030 (checkout is at 1100).  We left about 10ish.  We couldn’t arrive until 1300 so we took our time. A lot of the folks were stopping at the Flying J truck stop about 47 miles away for fuel, so we stopped there too, but just to burn time.  We will get fuel somewhere else that’s cheaper.  It was $1.39 a litter there, and we got it for $1.35 on last day we were in Mossleigh.  There was an optional stop at a Bomber Command Museum nearby the Flying J, but, what we could tell, there wasn’t a lot of parking, so we just continued on to the campground. 

The campground was huge!  We were in one of the original sites.  We had our pick of which site we wanted, so we picked the one that looked the most excluded.  Of course, after we got settled, we saw/smelled the holding tanks for the campground and when the wind was just right…  The site itself was a nice spot with full hookups and 30 Amp service.  We stayed here for 3 nights.

Later that day, the caravan was having a LEO (Lets Eat Out) at the Diefenbaker dining train car in the campground.  Maybe they weren’t ready for such a crowd because it took forever to get our OK food.  Two hours later, we were leaving the restaurant. 

The next day, we hopped on a tour bus and headed to Calgary for some sightseeing.  First stop was a Heritage Park Living Museum.  When we arrived, we were met with a tour guide who told us all about the park and most of the buildings within it.  The park wasn’t open during this time, so that was nice to get a tour before the rest of the tourists showed up.  The place was like a little town with buildings from different eras.  They had a farm, a settlement, a fort, train station and an active post office.  The train shop was nice; it had several engines, and a snow removal car.  The other train building had passenger cars in it.  Each one is different from the other.  They also had a gasoline alley section that had dozens of different gas pumps and some classic cars.  That was nice.  Here are the pictures we took.

From there, we headed into downtown Calgary.  We stopped at the Calgary Tower.  This was similar to the space needle in Seattle.  We went to the top, checked out the city.  I took a picture of all the murals I could see. (it was something to do while we waited for lunch).   We could also see the ski jump they used for the Olympics.  After that, we headed down one floor to the restaurant for lunch.  This was a spinning restaurant, so as you ate you can get a 360-degree view of the city.  The food was good and the service was good too. (This was also included in our tour.) After that, we headed back to the campground.  These are our pictures.

Wouldn’t you know it, the bus started acting up.  We had to pull over several times for about a minute each to let it cool down.  It made our trip back take much longer.

While we were at the heritage park, we picked up a sample bottle of Maple syrup from Canada.  The next morning, Terry made me some waffles with it.  It was much sweeter than other maple syrups I have had.  It was really good.  Try some if you get a chance.

When we first arrived to the campground, we signed up for a champagne brunch and train ride on the Aspen Crossing Railway that was right in the campground.  So, on our free day, we had champagne and brunch.  The views from the train were not spectacular in our minds, you might have liked them if you like looking at farm land.  It was also smoky that day from the wild fires north of us.  The food on the other hand was delish!  Best train food we have ever had.  

At the end of the train ride, there was these hoodlums that robbed the train!  But they were nice hoodlums, they only took your money if you offered it.  Here is a little video of that.

After the train ride, we hopped in our truck and headed to Vulcan, Alberta.  They named themselves the Star Trek capital of Canada.  It was cool; they had street lights that were like the USS Enterprise.  They also had a separate room in the visitor center that had a bunch of the different monsters that was on the original show.  To see them, you had to pass through one of those sliding doors that was on the ship.  It startled Terry.  Outside, was a USS Enterprise monument.  Here are the pictures we took.  From there we headed for some Petro and then back to the campground.

Let me take a moment and talk about bird watching.  These birds need to start looking out for my RV!  My windows are not a portal to another dimension.  They will only make you dead!  Don’t believe me?  Just ask the two dead birds on either side of the RV.

Well, I believe that’s it for this place.  Next stop Banff!  See you there.