Just thinking back to the 2017 August 21st eclipse in Wyoming and could not find the air temperature data we took… so here it is, maybe again:
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For the 2017 August 21st Total Solar Eclipse, we were onsite in Wyoming taking images with a 13 year old Canon DSLR with a 75-300mm lens, on a manual non-tracking tripod. Every few minutes the tripod had to be moved to recenter the sun. We were taking 1 image every 1 minute.
The raw result was this, the sun all over the frame:
For weeks now I have been trying to figure out a process to centre and crop these 200+ images so that the sun is centered and not moving around the frame.
I finally found the software: PIPP, and the process.
Here are the same three frames as above, but centered and cropped to 500×500 pixels from the original 3072×2048 pixels
Much better results!
This is the first pass of an animated .gif (warning 20MB!) of 176 of the 200+ images. Some of the images were zoomed to a different scale, some were touching the edge of the frame or had other problems that caused them to be deleted from the sequence. There is still some wobbly motion and I am not yet sure why it is there… will be processing some more to find out.
There were also some dropped frames of the diamond ring effect… the process could not figure out what was what and just dropped them out of the sequence. Will see if those can be added back in as well.
Click on the static image to the right to see the animated .gif image:
I used this as a starting point:
https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/example-uasge/example3
PIPP is available for free at:
https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/downloads
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At mostly the last minute, we decided to drive to Wyoming to witness the 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse. Why Wyoming? Mainly because the historical weather records showed us that this was the best bet for clear skies. We had also been through the area in 2009 and were somewhat familiar with it, and there were destinations we wanted to see again. So we made the plans and on Friday August 18th morning 6am, we headed out.
The intent was to find a campground somewhere west of Chicago, but circumstances beyond our control, namely +60 minutes on the 401 highway trying to get through the city of Toronto, and worse yet, 1 hour 45 minutes from encountering the end of the line at the Bluewater bridge in Sarnia, to getting through US customs. Arrg!
We ended up in the city of Peru, Illinois, much later than hoped and packed it in after 12 hrs 18 min + another 2 hr 45 min or 15 hours on the road and 1225km (765 miles).
Day Two, or Saturday as the locals called it, had us travelling west as far as possible and find a campsite before sunset for ease of setup. We did approx 10 hours that day and 1120km (700 miles). Clear day with high temperatures in the low 30sC. We ended up in a small campsite that could have used a little more work. The tenting area was near the only creek in the area and we were inundated with mosquitos. Double Ugg.
Day Three (Sunday) was intended to be a short day so we could stop at Wall, South Dakota and get some souvenirs… which we did! Then a leisurely drive up to our destination, the KOA campsite at Devils Tower Wyoming. We arrived relatively early after only a 4 hours drive 450km (283 miles). It was a great campsite with a great view (more of that later). Mostly it was to rest and prep for the next day, Eclipse day. We had filled up with gas near the end of the day, as we were preparing against pumps being empty in the Eclipse Zone. We checked the next day weather forecasts and things were on track for a three hour run due south to the centerline. Another 30C day with temperatures that night plunging to near 12C.
Day Four, Eclipse Day! (Monday)
We were up bright and early, just after 04:00 local (Mountain Daylight Time) or UT-6 and headed out shortly afterward. We stopped and topped off again with coffee and gas in Newcastle and continued southward to light traffic. Passing through Lusk and then Jay-Em a distance, suddenly there were cars everywhere parked in ditches, well off the highway and shoulders. We picked a spot just north of the 2nd Rawhide Creek Bridge, not knowing exactly how far away the centerline was or where exactly we were. But the thought was with so many people, there may not have been space further ahead.
We set up to perfect weather and amidst a lot of technical issues with mounts and cameras and power, the eclipse came and went and was 100% awesome. The trip back was not nearly so smooth. While 90%+ of the people left after totality, we stayed until the end of the event, another 90+ minutes later. We packed up and headed north and ran into a traffic jam approx 3km south of Lusk and it stayed stop and go for over an hour before we finally got into town. Stopped off for a bite to eat and ran into Jennifer from Toronto coming out of the Subway shop! Amazing!
Afterward we kept going north and ran into yet another huge traffic jam a few km south of the turnoff to Rapid City. That one was MVC that slowed us down. We managed to get back to camp much later than expected but still early evening, where we were able to partake in their nightly screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind! Amazing!
It did get cold so we packed it in. Too tired to do any astroimaging. Another 12C night.
Day Five (Tuesday) was meant to be an easy day, about 5 hours of driving with stops in Deadwood, Wall and then a slow tour through the Badlands to our campsite inside the Badlands. Deadwood was fun. We have only seen Season1 of the TV series and are looking forward to the remainder as soon as possible!
We stopped in Wall again for supplies and then headed into the Badlands, going the opposite direction this time from the 2009 trip. Awesome terrain and scenery. Highly recommended! The campsite was basically in the desert and we had a Park Ranger, Ranger Ed, give a great talk on the background of the park, and a guy from the Tucson Astronomy Club with a C11 showing us Jupiter. Kim managed to look out the tent window all night at the stars. Very hot and dry, over 33C. Not so cold in the night, maybe 15C.
Day Six (Wednesday) was a big travelling day, albeit not backtracking the same route we took on the way out. We had hoped to make it further east than we did, but then there was that pesky time zone change and we lost an hour of time and sunlight. So we managed 9 hours of driving to get into West Salem Wisconsin just as the sun was setting, 923km (577 miles).
Day Seven (Thursday) we had hoped to make it all the way home, but another pesky time zone change left us well short and after 6 days of driving, we were getting cranky. Rain had started to fall in bits and pieces as well. Getting through or around Chicago again was even worse then last time. Maybe an extra 1.5 hours to get by. The border and bridge crossing went well, maybe 10 minutes in total. We ended up near London Ontario just before sunset and decided to call it a day.
11 hours and 1165 km (727 miles) later.
Day Eight (Friday) saw us encounter horrible 401 traffic through and before and after Toronto and the 5 hour estimate turned into 6-7 hours before we pulled into the driveway 415km (260 miles) later.
Total trip was over 6100km in 200 hours
Was it worth it? Totally!
Here is a better map of the eclipse zone showing the relative positions of Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska. We were on the blue centerline in Wyoming near the Nebraska border.
This is a closer view of the Wyoming/Nebraska border and shows where we set up, on highway 85 south of Jay Em, near the creek/bridge just north of the centerline. We believe we at
Lat 42 deg 25 min 03.09 seconds North
Long 104 deg 21 min 22.56 second West
with a total duration of 2 minutes 28.8 seconds of Totality
From:
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2017_GoogleMapFull.html?Lat=42.41752&Lng=-104.35627&Zoom=17&LC=1
elevation 1399m (4590 feet)
42° 25′ 03.09″ N <—> 42.41752° 2m 28.8s (total solar eclipse)
104° 21′ 22.56″ W <—> -104.35627°
Umbral depth : 97.48%
Umbral depth : 1.4km (0.9mi)
Path width : 109.4km (68.0mi)
Obscuration : 100.00%
Magnitude at maximum : 1.01442
Moon/Sun size ratio : 1.02958
Umbral vel. : 0.744km/s (1665 mph)
Event (ΔT=68.8s) Date Time (UT) Alt Azi P V LC
Start of partial eclipse (C1) : 2017/08/21 16:24:58.2 +44.5° 120.5° 288° 13.0
Start of total eclipse (C2) : 2017/08/21 17:46:19.8 +55.5° 146.7° 108° 07.6 -1.1s
Maximum eclipse (MAX) : 2017/08/21 17:47:34.2 +55.6° 147.2° 200° 04.5
End of total eclipse (C3) : 2017/08/21 17:48:48.6 +55.7° 147.7° 291° 01.5 -0.6s
End of partial eclipse (C4) : 2017/08/21 19:13:33.8 +59.3° 186.3° 111° 08.4
If we had made it to the actual centerline, totality would have lasted 2 minutes 28.9 seconds
Lusk elevation 1599 m (5246 feet)
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Farewell Dog River
Nov07
on November 7, 2016
at 09:32
and modified on November 7, 2016. at 09:33
Posted In: life the universe and everything, travel
Farewell Dog River Saskatchewan. We visited the set of Corner Gas on August 30th 2006, located in Rouleau Saskatchewan (south of Regina). It was great! The image above is one of many that we took.
Today we see news that the set has been torn down.
“The tank has run dry on an iconic piece of Saskatchewan’s landscape. After more than 10years, the Corner Gas set near Rouleau, Sask. was torn down on Friday.
The set was built in 2003 to shoot 13 episodes of the CTV show Corner Gas. The first episode aired in January of 2004, and when Corner Gas became an overnight sensation, the set stood for six seasons and a movie.”
http://regina.ctvnews.ca/end-of-the-line-for-dog-river-corner-gas-set-torn-down-in-sask-1.3146178
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On a recent camping trip to eastern ontari, we came across a wonderful dinosaur park, very near Upper Canada Village near Morrisburg Ontario.
It was a nice waling pathway that led through the trees from dinosaur to dinosaur. They were pretty tremendous!
Reasonable admission pricing and picnic tables to stop for a picnic bite.
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Battery Bistro
Aug26
This is the view from the Fort Henry Battery Bistro cafe, easily the best view in all of Kingston.
They built a wooden deck up off the parade square, allowing you to see over the battlements of the Fort and allow you to see Lake Ontario, Wolfe Island and the wind turbine farm.
There were many boats out on the water this day and even the Wolfe Island Ferry went by a couple of times.
The only drawback is the weather. Pick a nice day to go as there is no shelter!
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A Light at Night
Jan04
on January 4, 2015
at 13:10
and modified on January 30, 2015. at 13:59
Posted In: life the universe and everything, travel
Upper Canada Village is a heritage park in the village of Riverside near Morrisburg, Ontario, which depicts a 19th-century village in Upper Canada. We first visited it earlier in the summer of 2014 and had a great time.
They reopen for a few weeks in the winter with a spectacular light display, horse drawn wagon rides, a ferris wheel and a miniature train. Our timing could not have been better.
Wednesday December 31st was a bare ground/no snow day. Thursday January 01 was a very bad storm with multivehicle collisions on the 401 highway that closed it down for most of the day. Friday however was a sun/cloud day with the highways cleared and a good 4-5 cm of snow on the ground. We arrived just past sunset and spent a glorius 3 hours walking around in -8C enjoying the marvellous light show, rides, hot drinks in the tavern and much much more.
Yes, we had to look down as well as up as there were live hay burning horses roaming the streets, leaving hot steaming deposits on the roads! All in all it was a worthwhile 2 hours drive and we look forward to going back again next year!
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Great tourism weekend
Aug11
This past weekend was great for weather, with warm to hot temperatures and a good time to play tourist in the local area.
Upper Canada Village
Upper Canada Village: (wikipedia)
endeavours to depict life in a rural English Canadian setting during the year 1866. Featured at the site are over 40 historical buildings, including several working mills (woollen mill, grist-mill and sawmill) and trades buildings (blacksmith, tinsmith, cabinetmaker, cooper, bakery, cheese-maker). Farming is demonstrated through the growing, harvesting of processing of heritage vegetables & livestock.
We spent three hours wandering around, looking around, asking questions, taking pictures and chatting up the locals. It was and is an authentic working village of the era. They make bread daily with techniques of the day and sell it in the gift store. The same goes for cheese… milk comes in daily and they make it by hand, package it up and store it for a couple of months.
We did not get a chance to visit every single building and exhibit but are planning on returning for an event weekend. We did the next best thing by buying some of the hours old bread and cheese for dinner that night.
Beau’s Brewing
On the way back from the Montreal area, we stopped off in Vankleek hill, midway to Ottawa. And there we found Beau’s Brewery:
We are a local, family-run and totally DIY company. We brew interesting, award winning, tasty beers using the highest quality, all natural ingredients like certified organic hops & malts and local spring water. We have names, not titles. We brew using equal parts art & science.
We had first heard of them at a Canadian Organic Growers Eco-Farm conference a few years back in Cornwall, and have been supporting them by buying their products when we can in our area. There are many more types of beer onsite than in the stores and it was wonderful to be able to sample among the ten offered. After that you cannot help but walk away with some of our own favourites.
St. Alberts Cheese Factory
The last stop was at the St. Albert Cheese Factory, still working out of temporary digs due to the devastating fire on 2013 Feb 03 that wiped out the factory completely.
Their products were also sampled and tasted and purchased and we headed home before the ice melted in the cooler.
Surprisingly, they had a full selection of goods for sale, including some very good ice cream.
Apparently production is still going on in temporary facilities nearby. They hope to reopen the new and improved facility later this year.
Carp Garlic Festival 2014
The next day was a trip to Carp, Ontario, just west of Ottawa. It was their annual Garlic Festival and since we had never been, we stopped in to take a look.
It was a good festival.. lots of garlic booths and enough of a few others to make it a regular Farmers Market as well.
We managed to pick up at least one new type of garlic that we don’t already have.
Also a highlight was a lot of ethnic food vendors… we never see authentic Himalyan food in our home area for instance. We settled for traditional Mexican (which was fantastic… fresh corn tortillas!) and some local poutine.
As a regular Farmers Market they also had other items which we picked up… local fresh corn and cabbage, and a bunch of dill.
It was good, but the travel distance involved says we probably will not return to this, as there are similar Festivals closer to home. On the same weekend for instance, the Perth Garlic Festival ran and on Saturday August 30th, 2014, the Verona Garlic Festival is on.
Diefenbunker Blast Tunnel
Almost next door from the Carp Garlic Festial, held at the Fairgrounds, was the Diefenbunker Museum.
From http://diefenbunker.ca/history-of-cfs-carp/
The Diefenbunker was commissioned by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1959, as part of his government’s reaction to escalating tensions in the Cold War. The purpose of the bunker was to house key members of the government and military in the event of a nuclear attack on Canada.
The site was completed and began operation in 1961, and remained in continuous operation until it was decommissioned in 1994. During those 32 years, it was also Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Carp, with a staff of 100-150 people and a 24-hour shift rotation. It was the site of some of Canada’s most top-secret communications throughout the Cold War. At all times during its operation, the cupboards and pantries were stocked with enough fresh food and rations to feed 535 people for 30 days and the building was prepared to go into lockdown at any moment.
The Diefenbunker was given National Historic Site status in 1994, and CFS Carp was closed the same year. The building remained empty until the foundation of the museum in 1997.
We took two hours to go through most of the bunker. Of special note was a lot of vintage communications gear from the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s, some of which we have actually used in the past. The bunker design, the furnishings, all were reminscent of 1950s design and lifestyles. Many rooms were refurnished in period style, while other rooms were turned into information displays.
A very unassuming entrance (much smaller than we were expecting) with a nuclear bomb just inside the front doors 🙂
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ottawa cfl stadium
Aug06
on August 6, 2014
at 07:47
and modified on August 11, 2014. at 11:35
Posted In: life the universe and everything, travel
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Images above: ottawa cfl stadium north side bleachers, 5 yard line, ottawa cfl stadium south side bleachers
We followed the Saskatchewan Roughriders to their first game at the new Ottawa RedBlacks new stadium at Lansdowne Park.
We got our seats about a month before the game and still could only get two together near one of the endzones. As you can see, we are around the 5 yard line, and only 6 rows up. Surprisingly we were able to see a lot of the game, especially since there was a lot of action around the endzones 🙂
The pregame party at the Aberdeen Pavilion was very good. They opened up 3 hours before the game and kept us busy until 5:30, when we were able to enter the stadium.
This was only the 2nd game in Ottawa and the staff and signage still need work. We entered at the nearest gate, had our barcoded tickets scanned, and then had to exit the stadium area from the north side to cross over to the south side, getting “scanned out” and then scanned in again at the other side.
A couple of signs would have helped.
Otherwise the stadium looked complete, the seats well designed and comfortable, with cup holders at knee height. Very useful that last item.
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Prince Edward County Wine Tour 2013
Aug25
on August 25, 2013
at 09:58
and modified on September 5, 2013. at 15:20
Posted In: life the universe and everything, travel
Another wine tour of the Prince Edward County region yesterday (Saturday August 25th, 2013).
Our aim is to visit new ones and a couple of old favourites every year. After 10 years we are very close to having visited and tasted our way through the county.
This year started with a trip across the Glenora ferry with our first stop at Devils Wishbone (https://www.facebook.com/TheDevilsWishbone)
They were up and running last year when we drove by, but were closed?
Another nicely refurbished barn and some good stuff. We tasted several but purchased only a bottle of 2011 Chardonnay.
The next stop, and the farthest drive, was Half Moon Bay Winery (http://www.hmbwinery.ca/. It was way out on the southeastern tip of the county.
There we picked up a single bottle of Half Moon Bay: 2012 Chardonnay unoaked
A stop at another winery along the way back to the western end of the country was disappointing.
Exultet was closed with a little sign in the door. Oh well.. on to our next stop, Sandbanks.
Sandbanks has grown from a small shop in the basement of the house to a huge sales centre with good parking and a lot of traffic. This was the busiest we have ever seen the place, and staff called it a normal summer weekend day. There were over 50 people along with a school bus tour and the place was just bubbling over with bubbly.
We picked up 6 bottles there, as it it still one of our favourites. x2 Dunes 2012, a 2011 Riesling, a 2012 Baco Noir, a new one for us a 2012 Mouton Noir and another new item “Love” a black currant aperitif.
Onwards to another new winery, Lift Haus (http://www.lifthauswinery.ca/). Right across the road from Lacey Estates, which we visited many years ago but have not yet returned to.
Lifthaus we left without any purchase after trying many samples.
The last winery stop was Sugarbush, a pleasant surprise, albeit a little hard to get around and down the stairs into the shop at the rar of the house.
We picked up a 2011 Chardonnay, and a 2012 Riesling there and will be back next year.
Some of the wineries will have another years batch ready to go in late September, early October and we are considering dropping by then as well.
The last stop of the trip was something new… a distillery. Gilead (http://www.66gileaddistillery.com/) does vodka and rum. We tested out the smaller samples (compared to wine) and I came away with icky tastes of flavoured vodka akin to moonshine. Hank liked the Rum but they were out until the fall. It was on the pricy side as well but it was still a new and good experience.
A stop at the Waring House in Picton left me with the first disappointing meal there ever, along with slower than normal kitchen service, especially since we beat the rush of a full house by at least an hour.
Home across the Deseronto Bridge and back to watch the start of the Saskatchewan Roughriders game, recorded earlier in the day. It wa a very long day and we did not make it through the whole game, but had to pick up in the morning over coffee. Strange that… watchign a football game with coffee instead of beer!
Good but scary game, Saskatchewan came out on top.. barely, against the worst team in the west. Gotta do better next week against the worst team in the East (Winnipeg) and the week after again against Winnipeg.
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Friday September 21st, 2012 is the last full day of summer in the northern hemisphere. A good day to reflect on how good the summer was, how short the summer was, and on how many chores need to get done before the frost, before the freeze and before the snow.
The heck with that… time for a roadtrip! And Pizza! And Beer!
Hmmm.. sounds better than the solstice BBQs we have!
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Fall’N’Stars in Review
Sep19
FallNStars is a star party held annually and jointly with the RASC
Belleville Centre and Kingston Centre.
We switch leads each year to share the work and responsibility. 2012 was
our 13th annual, counting the inaugural DSNOS (Dark Sky Night Observing
Session) at Presquile Park in 2000.
The event is basically the rental of an area (the Camp Sagonaska Boy
Scout Camp in the Vandewater Conservation Area near Thomasburg Ontario)
each year in September, generally around a new moon weekend.
Attendees can choose from weekend registration or a Saturday day pass.
Typical events include a opening rocket launch on Friday, swap meet on
Saturday along with a series of presentations in the afternoon, a group
photo and a catered dinner.
Observing opportunities are daytime Friday from noon on, Saturday all
day and Sunday morning; stellar observing Friday and Saturday nights.
A main feature is the low cost of the event with low camp rental rates
and low dinner rates. The financial goal of the event is to not lose
money, as we are not out to make a lot of money. Profits or losses are
shared equally between Kingston and Belleville.
Most people camp in tents or small trailers in the field with their
equipment, but there are also a limited number of bunks in the longhouse.
The washroom facilities are primitive but we do our best to make your
time spent there as inoffensive as possible
Typical attendance is between 20 and 30 people. The longhouse capacity
for dinner is approximately 36 comfortably with maybe 50 as a hard upper
limit. The field can easily accommodate 75-100 campers if not more.
Tree growth and increasing levels of light pollution is turning the
event more and more into a social gathering moreso than a darksky
observing session. The opportunity to see and share with others, their
equipment, techniques and knowledge are the big draw for many.
A few years back Kingston did not have the volunteers needed to lead
during our rotation, and Belleville stepped up to cover the gap. Thanks!
We are proud that the event has continued for this long and hope that it
continues on into the future.
Thanks to all of the volunteers over the years!
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This was our 13th annual Fall’N’Stars Star Party (including the inaugural DSNOS). We’ve been at the Boy Scout Camp Sagonaska for 12 years now.
The Event started on Friday September 14th, 2012 at noon, when we opened up the camp and got our own camping gear setup.
We were expecting an early thunderstorm that afternoon and it did finally show up. Lots of rain and wind but it died off and went away in the mid-evening. We actually got some observing done Friday night.
Late evening the Meade DS2090 azimuth drive system started making bad and loud noises, so we shut that down for the rest of the night.
The night was cold and damp with heavy dew and most packed it in early, what with it being a long day.
Saturday morning saw cold and humidity and a lot of socializing by the 30 people that eventually drifted in.
We took apart our Meade DS2090 drive and discovered worn nylon gears in the drive train. Great. No telescope tonight.
In addition the deep cycle lead acid battery we were using for dew heating, died during Friday’s run. It was 8 years old so not too much of a surprise, just a disappointment. So we ran a long 12vdc power extension cable from the van for the night.
A swap meet was held and a few items went here and there. We picked up a lunar meteorite and a martian meteorite for our personal collections and a lunar meteorite for the centre collection.
The afternoon talks started a little late, no problem! and finished early enough for another break, then the group photo.
Mark Coady, myself and Rose Marie Burke gave 20 minute talks on Light pollution, SCO 2011-2012 and barn door trackers, respectively.
The caterers arrived on time at 5pm with another great meal in the longhouse. I really like the fact that they bring their own plates and utensils. In the olden days we spent a lot of time washing up afterward.
After dinner we went into the photo contest prizes, congrats to Rose Marie Burke! Then to raffle prizes. Congrats to Susan Gagnon, winning her 2nd telescope in as many years! Lastly the door prizes… contributed by many attendees and commercial vendors.
We had so many we had to go around twice.
A quick nap and we were ready to start observing for the evening. Kim was checking off her Exploring the Universe Certificate requirements while I was experimenting with the new ultralong exposure capability provided by a new version of CHDK software for the canon powershot A540 camera.
It got cold that night as well.. down to 3 deg C. The next morning was foggy and once the sun came up was actually reasonable to pack up in. At least we did not have to pack up in the rain.
We headed out around 11am as we had commitments back at home for 1. It was a nice 60 minute drive back home. And another two hours unpacking. phew!
Next year. No telescopes and accessories. Just binoculars we think.
Each telescope took up a lot of room including an accessory box, a large battery/power system, an observing table, ground carpet and more.
The skies are not quite as good as we get at home, and we have the advantage of a fully setup observatory to work from.
Modifications need to be made on our 20cm dobsonian scope “Starbuck”, namely adding in better dew heaters in the Telrad finder, adding heaters to the secondary mirror and maybe to the primary mirror as well, or maybe just a fan.
The 2mx2m carpet worked out quite well. Dropped items were quickly and easily found. And no one tripped over power cords.
The Kingston Centre has the lead for Fall’N’Stars 2013 and the first order of business will be to set up an organizing committee and set a date.
New moon is Thursday September 5th. Friday-Sunday Sept 6-8 looks like a good candidate.
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Interesting story behind Vermillion Bay (2009). We came in to the private camping area and found a nice area along the water 
. Started a fire, and had dinner. Then we took our chairs to the dock, of course I had to put my foot in to see how cold it was, it was chilly. As we sat on the dock we watched these large battalion clouds coming through that were very scary looking 
.
We turned to look east and found this nasty looking inverted 
tornado looking cloud.
There was only one other camper there that night, but it was a beautiful night. The trains however were going through like every hour, and that kept us awake.
We got up the next morning to rain and we followed 
this, ahead of us on the road and the black bears that crossed the road.
We later heard on the radio that Vaughan was struck by a tornado from the same storm system, that created quite the destruction
We were lucky. We had no wind, only light drizzle in the morning, but I will never forget the battalion clouds.
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Flashback: 2009 August
Sep13
2012 I was just trying to remember that route we drove back in 2009 August, from home, out west across the top of the US and back home through Canada. So I’ve fired up google maps and will attempt to recreate the trip by listing the cities we drove through.
Day 1 (saturday): Ontario: Kaladar, Eganville Pembroke, Petawawa, Deep River, North Bay, Sudbury, Espanola, Blind River, Thessalon, Sault St Marie. Michigan: Munising, Marquette, Negaunee and Champion.
1173km
Day 2 (sunday): Michigan: Covington, Wakefield, Ironwood. Wisconsin: Ashland, Superior. Minnesota: Duluth, Aitkin, Crosby, Brainerd. South Dakota: Sioux Falls.
983km
Day 3 (monday): South Dakota: Mitchell, Chamberlain, Badlands National Park, Wall, Rapid City, Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, Keystone, Deadwood, Lead, Spearfish, Belle Fourche. Wyoming: Hulett, Devils’ Tower National Monument.
853km
Day 4 (tuesday): Wyoming: Moorcroft, Gillette, Buffalo, Fort Phil Kearny, Sheridan, Bighorn National Forest, Greybull, Cody, Yellowstone National Park. Montana: Gallatin National Forest canyon campground.
800km
Day 5 (wednesday): Montana: Livingston, Big Timber, Lewiston, James Kipp Recreation Area (Missouri river), Malta, Morgan. Saskatchewan: Monchy, Climax, Frontier, Shaunavon, Eastend, TRex discovery centre.
665 km
Day 6 (thursday): Saskatchewan: Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.
127km
Day 10 (monday): Saskatchewan: Maple Creek. Alberta: Medicine Hat, Taber, Lethdridge, Vulcan, Calgary
536km
Day 11 (tuesday): Alberta: Strathmore, Brooks, Medicine Hat. Saskatchewan: Maple Creek, Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Regina
760km
Day 12 (wednesday): Saskatchewan: Balgonie, Wolseley,
Broadview, Whitewood, Moosomin, Brandon, Portage la Prarie, Winnipeg. Ontario: Kenora, Vermilion Bay.
888km
Day 13 (thursday): Ontario: Dryden, Thunder Bay, Nipigon, Macleod, Longlac, Fushimi Lake Provincial Park.
883 km
Day 14 (friday): Ontario: Kapuskasing, Cochrane, North Bay, Petawawa, Pembroke, Eganville, Napanee.
1067km
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