Day 32 August 2, 2024 Drayton Valley Alberta to Strathmore Alberta 225 miles
We thought breakfast was included but really it was you can order breakfast. We had the Senior Special which was just fine. Thankfully no flat tires today. We got away about 9:15 after filling with gas.
We saw about 20 oil wells scattered here and there. Most were not pumping. If they were pumping they were going very slowly.
The terrain continues to be mostly flat with very large fields of grain or grass hay. There must be different kinds of grain because the colors are different. Most has not been harvested yet. Occasionally we see a herd of cows. Then we saw a herd of bison. The fence surrounding them was tall and looked very strong. The roads go for several miles in a straight line. The hills are usually small. We didn’t have to get in first gear for a hill today.
A lot of advertising is done on parked semi trailers. They are parked in a field and painted on both sides with whatever the ad is.
Oh my gosh we actually passed a vehicle. Never mind that it was a farm tractor going very slowly. We really have not seen much farm equipment on the road. Some of the farms are obviously very large based on the size of the farm yard. Some of them have at least 10 large silos and two or three large out buildings.
The wind is continuing strong today. There is an extreme heat advisory in affect in southern Alberta. Highs expected in the low to mid 80s. It was 81 when we stopped for the night.
Today’s traffic has more RVs than yesterday. There are some small lakes here and there with virtually no trees. We passed one RV park that was nearly full. They were parked on gravel with very little grass and trees. Doesn’t seem like fun to us. The other addition is horse trailers. A bigger rodeo must have ended or is about to start. The Calgary Stampede ended mid July.
We noticed a couple of corn fields. The corn is very short and has not tasseled out. Then a truck full of shredded corn stocks passed us going the other direction. Shreds of corn were flying everywhere including in our car.
Lunch was in the Trochu Lion’s Club gazebo. The gazebo was made of parts from a silo. Then a picnic table was added to the middle. With the wind we felt quite comfortable.
An extremely rare event. One of the fields actually had an irrigation line. We had not seen one in two days. A few miles later was another one.
We arrived at the Wheatland Hotel about 4:00. It has a lounge with slot machines and pool tables. They most likely make more from that than the hotel.
The car ran fine today. Since we have been driving without any major hills the gas mileage has improved to 19 MPG.
Spoffords Travel 