Just a quick blog post and images before heading forwards on into Saskatchewan. Hope you enjoy the photos.
Road life’s been going pretty well recently. Leaving Edmonton was super built up and was definitely more precarious than arriving, but darting traffic and getting hit by the gusts from passing trucks keeps you on your toes / pushes you along nicely. It didn’t take too long to be out of the city and back in the depths of rural farmland, where the fields begin and are consistent throughout the day – green wherever you look, loads of barley fields and the biggest round hay bails you’ve ever seen. It’s often really similar to riding through the countryside back in the UK but without the hills.
One major positive shift is that it goes dark again, which makes the whole travel part seem a lot more thrilling – obviously it didn’t happen overnight but there’s now a lot of darkness and cooler temperatures from about 8pm. Whilst it means not as much road time, it also means overall quality of sleep and body clock is vastly improved. It’s now possible to be fully recharged after camping rather than just a bit rested, which is awesome and has a big effect throughout the rest of the day. There’s been a lot of stealth camping happening – beside a baseball pitch was probably the best, and now that the stars are on show again the night photography has re-started.
In a rest stop near Ross Creek, at sunset it looked like a perfect night. The sky was an intense red, but the cloud cover was minimal, until about 3 hours later when the mother of thunder and lightning storms began. It lasted maybe two hours, and offered intense rain and the type of lightning where you can’t pin down where it’s coming from, it’s just happening all around you. It was super dramatic with huge flashes of bright white light and shaky rumbles of thunder, but being in a rest stop there was a bunch of lampposts and trees and all that good stuff so it never felt sketchy. I doubt there’s anyone on earth who could sleep through those roars, so I digged into the RadioLab podcasts (check out the episode – ‘Limits’) and hunkered down with a chocolate spread sandwich. Yep. Happy days. Typical view:
I’m just writing this post whilst passing through Lloydminster, on the way east. Down the road is the start of a new province, Saskatchewan – it’s crazy really because it didn’t seem like much time was spent in Alberta compared to everywhere else. Nonetheless, those simple road signs are a great boost and a literal indicator of progress. Onwards to Saskatoon. Intrigued to see what this next province will bring.
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290: Edmonton – Ross Creek
291: Ross Creek – Mannville
292: Mannville – Lloydminster