This & That – 5/18/2013

We departed Hinton later than normal, taking advantage of Safeway to stock up the groceries and using the Wi-Fi at the Mall before heading north on Alberta Highway 40, also known as the “Bighorn Highway.” We started right out with a short bit of construction.

We missed a picture of the sign on Highway 16 just before the turn, “Scenic Route to Alaska.” Much of this road has very wide clearings on both sides of the road which makes it much easier to spot animals moving towards the road.

We saw several deer today and two moose – one stripping leaves off the trees near the highway, the other lying dead alongside the road.

The signs suggest logging in the area but we never saw a logging truck – they must have been enjoying the holiday.

There was a big coal operation just north of Grande Cache and a notable amount of well drilling, apparently oil, as we got closer to Grande Prairie.

We drove a few miles on wet roads today including a short stretch of fairly heavy rain. Even so, we were looking at 70 degree temps at 5 p.m. local, at least until the sun goes behind one of those dark storm clouds.

We hadn’t paid attention to this being a holiday weekend and the four “user maintained camping” areas along the route were very full, but the one we wanted had a level spot near the highway which we claimed for the evening. We staying just southeast of the Cutbank River bridge with many other people but the price is right - $0.

We’re far enough north that we really appreciate the black sleep masks that BJ found before we left home. Much easier than dealing with extra black-out curtains or insulation panels. 

We’re seeing a lot of people using credit cards with a chip imbedded in them. The user must input a pin number in order to use the card. It uses a different reader that has a special slot in addition to the normal slot for reading the magnetic stripe.  Seems like they would be more resistant to fraud.

Posted at the Dawson Creek Visitor's Center.