That was a cold night. We have recently slept easily through a few cooler nights without turning on the furnace and so thought last night would be the same. Nope, something about last night made the 5C feel colder than it was. Should have turned on the furnace or put on the heavier blankets.
Today we leave the mountains and drive across Alberta, the landscape will change significantly and our thoughts will transition towards going home. It will take a few days, but we still expect to arrive home in about a week.
Leaving the park we came across a herd of female Elk with their young laying beside the park entrance, a nice surprise for this time of day. From the park we headed into Jasper for a quick stop before getting back onto Hwy-16 and heading East toward Edmonton.
The first hour or so the road roughly follows the Athabasca river out of the mountains, it is running very high and appears to be close to flooding. Before long we pass the last of the high mountains and enter the foothills. The road rolls up and down and is far less challenging than that of yesterday. There are more trees in this part of the province than we expected but as we approach Edmonton more arable land appears as a harbinger of what lies ahead.
We take Hwy-216 and skirt around Edmonton as Friday afternoon rush hour has started and Hwy-16 through the city center is congested. A short 30 minutes later we rejoin Hwy-16 and are now on our way towards Lloydminster.
We stopped for fuel in Vegreville and also found that the town has the worlds 3rd largest Pysanka. Mounted on a post in a park at the East end of town is a giant Ukrainian Easter Egg. It was made for Alberta’s Centennial in 1974 and rotates with the wind.
We are well and truly away from the forests of western Alberta and now find ourselves driving through rolling farmland. Looking to the right or left as we pass roads leaving the highway we see that they head straight across the landscape for as far as we can see.
Eventually we arrive in Lloydminster which actually sits on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Tonight we are staying at the 4th Meridian Brewery. Tomorrow we will cross Saskatchewan and hopefully enter Manitoba.
