Lumpy-Alaska Highway-2004 Thumbnails

Dawson Creek, BC to
Edmonton, AB and Calgary, AB: Sept 5 thru 7

Comments: I'm finding now that I have to accept the idea of riding in the flatlands. The roads were a little bit hilly and twisty after Dawson Creek but gradually became straighter and flatter. Still, the riding was good. I routed myself through Grand Prairie and had lunch there at another Smitty's Restaurant, and then headed toward Edmonton. At Valleyview, I called it a night and put up my tent at Sherk's Campground. I liked this place a lot. They had good washing machines, and good showers, and a nicely kept RV and tent camping area.

The next morning I called my biker friend Shane in Edmonton (some know him as "Sassy MacNair") and let him know that I would make it to Whitecort in the afternoon, so he arranged to meet me there in a Canadian Tires parking lot. We rode together from there to his apartment, which is in the University district of Edmonton, just off White Ave. I enjoyed a walk we took up and down White Ave. Its one of those places with shop after shop lining both sides of the street for several blocks, all catering to the whims of students and the "hipper" crowd. After that we had dinner with his girlfriend joining us, and I sacked out on a bedroll in his living room. The next morning we had to get up early so Shane could make it to the University on time for work. He gave me a nice fresh Cuban Cohiba as a parting gift, which I smoked that evening at my camp, and I have told a number of people since then "if all cigars smoked and tasted like that I would smoke them every day".

I regret that I took no pictures in Edmonton. The last five pictures on this page were all taken around Calgary.

With the bike all loaded on Tuesday morning, I headed for Calgary, with a stop for gas and breakfast at a McDonald's of all places (Canadian McDonald's are just like U.S. ones). From there I headed south on the long, straight divided highway until Calgary. There I decided to go into downtown and look around, which lasted at least 3 hours, and I also found myself in a neighborhood called Inglewood, which was mostly home to antique shops, but was also the home to the Harley restaurant shown in the pictures. Toward the end of the day I headed south toward Lethbridge and ended up camping in a city campground in a tiny town that may have been Coaldale. Being off-season the camping was free, and it was a nice campground except that it was near a railroad switching yard and all night the sound of train cars banging against each other hard would wake me up. All in all it was still a good place to camp. It was there that a family from Holland (they were in an RV on their way to see the Grand Canyon) gave me a big slab of salmon to take with me that they had smoked themselves, and it was the best salmon I have tasted to date. Even better than Jerry's Meats in Juneau (and they are hard to beat). The secret must have been in the peppercorns. It was covered with them.