Monday’s drive saw flat grassland and crops give way to rolling, tree covered hills. Christmas tree shaped firs standing along side of white trunked birches gave the landscape a distinctively “North Country” feel.
We drove quite a long ways (about 530 miles); deciding to cover the miles along this stretch so that we would be able to take a much more “leisurely” pace from here on (where the scenery is more interesting, and there are more parks and places to stop.) We spent the night at Williamson Provincial Park on Sturgeon Lake, just a bit east of Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada. Campsites were nice and plentiful (all the weekenders had gone home). And the lake was peaceful. This morning, gulls and a pelican were busy feeding in the shallow edges of the lake.
In the 5 days of driving since we left, we have covered 2500 miles with 1700 left to get to Denali, Alaska. We have gone from Central Daylight time, to Central Standard time (setting our watches an hour earlier), to Mountain Daylight time (no watch change necessary) and today –Tues- we will cross into pacific Daylight time (again a watch change 1 hour earlier). Alaska will be on yet another time zone (another hour earlier). I am sooo confused………..And to further complicate matters, we keep heading north, where there are many more daylight hours. Last night the sun didn’t set until after 10pm!
Other changes – temperature- Yesterday the high was around 72 degrees and it was 50 degrees when we woke up this morning. So nice to be out of that sweltering heat back home!
The weather has been mostly nice. The pattern so far has been beautiful mornings with stormy looking rain clouds moving in mid-afternoon, followed by pretty good rain showers, clearing up by evening.
Internet and cell phone service is spotty. My nifty Virgin Mobile internet does not seem to work here in Canada, so we have to get “connected” where we can find Wi-Fi (campgrounds, maybe, or visitors centers, and other public places). Cell phone service seems better, with just some remote stretches with no coverage.
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