Our quick departure was complicated by a nearly flat tire on Chris’ Honda Civic.
As a result, my stress over having to cover nearly 250 miles by 1:00 p.m. was aggravated by the fact a quick stop for gas, and sandwiches for breakfast, had also to include dealing with not only the one low tire but Chris’ resulting concern over the other tires. Nor was she at her best, having slept little and suffering from a cold. Yet we managed to get out of Grande Prairie and onto the road at about the time the sun was rising over the prairie.
The highway between Grande Prairie and Edmonton is referred to as Moose Row because of the population of moose in the area, and the big ungainly animal’s penchant — familiar to us after five years in the Fairbanks area — for walking calmly onto highways in front of oncoming vehicles. As a result, warning signs were common as we drove eastward toward Valleyview, then turned southward toward Whitecourt and Edmonton.
We encountered more areas of road work, but were able to maintain 100 km/h (about 62.5 mph) consistently enough that when we stopped for gas in Whitecourt I was beginning to relax and believe that we would make Edmonton in plenty of time. A few miles short of Edmonton, our route came to the Yellowhead Highway, one of Canada’s designated Trans-Canada routes, and we actually encountered a freeway-style interchange that ramped us smoothly onto this important northern artery. It seemed we might be quite early. Then came the split.
There was the main Yellowhead going one way, and something called Route 16A that was supposed to be going to downtown Edmonton. According to my Rand McNally road atlas, the route we wanted appeared to be freeway, while the other looked like mere expressway, so I guessed that the route leading downtown wasn’t the one we wanted. A few miles further on I realized my error, and had to look for a connecting road. Fortunately such a road appeared fairly quickly, and we got onto the right highway. Later on, based on my understanding of the directions, there needed to be a right turn, and I took one that seemed to be at the right place but wasn’t labelled the way I’d expected — but which turned out to be the right one after all.
When, after wending our way through heavy traffic and finally reaching our exit, we found Earl’s Crossroads — the restaurant where my cousin Morris was to meet us — it was about five minutes to one o’clock. Chris was suitably impressed with the achievement, but I have to confess that luck had a lot to do with it.
With a cloudless sky overhead and unseasonably warm temperatures, the two cats in Chris’ car were a focus of concern, so she had to find shade in which to park. While waiting for her to emerge from whatever corner of the vast mall parking lot that she had retreated to, I found Morris near the restaurant, and at length the three of us got to a table and sat down. Morris is the elder son of my mother’s elder sister and is about as close to Mom’s age as Chris is to mine. He and his wife Mary had visited once in Sacramento when I was a boy, and had taken my mother and me to lunch on a later visit to Sacramento, but we’ve had more contact by e-mail in the last few years than by any other means at any other time. Still, we had a pleasant visit, and good food. It was unfortunate that the timing of our pass through Edmonton precluded Mary joining us.
From Edmonton it was a relatively quick two hours to our next overnight stop, a small town a few miles off the main highway to Calgary, called Olds. The hotel there had an indoor pool and hot tub, and an attached coffee shop where hotel guests got a small break on dinner. We took advantage of all of these features, feeling a little surprised that such a long day — the greatest distance of any day of our trip — had been so well planned and executed, and that we were not more tired.
Little did we suspect what our reluctant companion Taz had in store for us.
