Beaverlodge Motor Inn, Beaverlodge, Alberta
Casio QV30 photo
I tried to get up early, but my unfamiliarity with my pannier
packing, caused me to take a while, so I didn't actually get out until about
6:00 AM. I stopped at the restaurant in Beaverlodge that had the most pickup
trucks parked in front: the coffee shop at the Beaverlodge Motor Inn. The
place was the local equivalent of Ellies Country Kitchen in Williamston.
All the farmers, implement dealers, etc. were there and whenever one customer
left another came in to take his seat.
I took off flying. The tailwinds were wonderful. I rode 27 miles
in 90 minutes (18 mph).There wasn't much to look at today. The terrain is
open fields of grain.
When I rode over a ridge and first saw Grand Prairie, I was surprised
by the size of the town (about the size of Fairbanks, but newer and more
centralized). I didn't remember it from my marathon drives (when we moved
to Michigan from Fairbanks, I drove the entire way in 6 days).
On the way into Grande Prairie, I stopped at a truck selling
cherries fresh picked from the Okanogan Valley (inland from Vancouver, gets
California weather) on the roadside. I bought a pound, they were great.
When I got to town I sought out a bike store (my bike was fine,
but I needed a couple of straps for my ThermaRest, so that I could free
up space for food) and wanted to consult an Apple Computer dealer (to obtain
Norton Utilities for the Mac in order to recover a failed optical backup
disk). I ended up spending several hours at HiTech, the computer dealer,
where I got great help from Bill Dunne and Robert
( Rob ) Wiebe. I wheeled my bicycle right into the store and parked
it against a computer display, flag and all. I must have come as quite a
shock to store personnel, but they treated me very well. They allowed me
to use one of their Macs for most of the afternoon.
Though HiTech had no PowerBook disk drives in stock, by utilizing
a network connection to a desktop Macintosh, we managed to install Norton
on my disk drive-less computer and when Norton couldn't recover my lost
data, I backed up my system folder and the rest of my data to another optical
disk.
By then it was around 4:00 PM, so I got directions and headed to a grocery
store to stock up for my 2 day ride away from services. The grocery store
was quite crowded so I was concerned about bicycle security, but they had
a greenhouse building attached to the building which was accessible only
from inside the front of the store, so I wheeled my bicycle into the store,
past the cashiers and into the greenhouse. It would have been hard to steal
the bicycle and get away through the store without attracting an awful lot
of attention as I did.
I bought all the food I could fit on the bike. I paid for it and went to the greenhouse to load it into my panniers. In fact, when I realized I had room for more, I went back for more. My bicycle was at its heaviest that day; around 130-135 lbs. In addition to all my camping gear, all my clothes and my heaviest equipment options, I was now carrying 3 full water bottles, several bottles of prepared Gatorade and some dry Gatorade, a baguette, some hard rolls, some sweet pastries, rice, pasta, apples, bananas, bagels, cream cheese, Black Diamond Cheddar cheese (one of my favorites), trail mix, doughnuts, etc. I was loaded.
Heading west on 84th street in Grande Prairie, I fought the same
furious winds I had so enjoyed in the morning.
When I called Alberta Tourism from Dawson Creek, and in discussing my plans
ever since, I had expressed the intention to camp at O'Brien Provincial
Park just south of Grande Prairie on my way to Grande Cache. I headed there--at
the bottom of a hill used for skiing. Halfway down the hill, I noticed a
park sign saying "day use only." When I got to the park, sure
enough it wasn't a campground, but a picnic park. I was so tired and heavily
laden that I dreaded the idea of climbing back up the hill and riding to
Grand Prairie to look for a campground. I was blown away. I rode through
the park looking for a ranger, then stopped to peruse my map once again.
It IS a small world. As I was standing there, James, one of the Apple Technicians
at HiTech, who was picnicking there with his wife Jodi and another couple,
saw me and asked me to join them.
I ate dinner with them (my food, their watermelon). A ranger
(warden) came along and I explained my predicament to him. He told me it
was okay to stay there under the circumstances, but noted that it was high
school graduation night and there could be some trespassers carousing into
the night, though there would be "wardens" patrolling through
the night.
The park was real nice--huge trees (100+ years old) and there were lots
of wild roses -- the Alberta flower.
I pitched my tent after 9:00 (when the park closed) then waited
up for a while to see what the high school kids might do.
About 10 high school graduates arrived about 11:00 PM, drank some beer and ran through the woods west of me, but never bothered me. I managed to fall asleep around midnight (it wasn't really dark).
Worried about bears, I had left my food in the panniers on the
bike. Around 3 AM, I heard small animals scratching at my panniers and food
bags, so got up and rigged up a line to suspend the food from a tree. Awakening
in the middle of the night destroyed my rest.
38 miles.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997