On the road at last! After a three year hiatus due to Covid, the de Tocqueville Tour is underway once again! During the interim period we managed to travel all the way out to Gaspe Quebec (and back) and did trips in Europe and North Africa – but at no point did we go to the US. That would change today.
We started out in mid May under sunny skies in mid 20’s (Celsius) marred only by a thick haze courtesy of extensive early spring wildfires in Alberta. Normally our trips start with a trip to the Chuckwagon Cafe in Turner Valley, but given our southeasterly route today, we opted for breakfast at Smitty’s in High River.
After breakfast we headed south on Hwy 2 until Granum, taking 519 to highway 23 and then from there south onto Hwy3 into Lethbridge. Heading south on Hwy 4 we came to the US border crossing at Coutts. The last time we were at Coutts was on the return leg from our Western states tour in 2019 in mid October. At that time winter had set in and driving temps were south of 0. Much better this time around with temps in the mid 20’s.
Coutts had been the seen of protest surrounding Covid mandates and restrictions. The crossing was effectively blocked by truckers, and a weapons cache was found. Our Premier is embroiled in a controversy around her inadvisable interventions to affect the prosecution of some of the protesters. While the crossing was ‘back to normal’ for our passage, it still took 25 minutes to get across.
We headed south on I-15 to Shelby before taking Hwy 2 east . Shelby is a major container hub for BNSF (Burlington Northern Sante Fe) Railway, so no surprise we were delayed at an RR crossing. We arrived in good time in Havre for the night.