ROUTE 66 (DAY 23)

After the sun went down it really cooled off over night so I woke up feeling pretty cold. Nick and Renae were planning a 9:00 am departure on their three day vacation so I got up to have some breakfast with them and see them off. We had some coffee and got to talking and next thing we knew it was almost 9:30. After they left I finished making my breakfast, showered and shaved and then decided to ride into town. I needed gas and I hoped for some photo opportunities.
It looked like a beautiful morning but the smoke trails from the fires kept a haze over everything. This is very frustrating to me to have this condition in such an amazing place for scenery. Here is a shot just a block from where Nick and Renae live. It's really quite spectacular even in the haze.

Here is a shot taken in town from the gas station looking up at the ski mountain.

My good friend back home, King, had suggested I try to contact his daughter who also lives in Fernie. I left a message but she hadn't responded by 2:00 pm so I made the decision to move on down the highway. I ultimately got a message from her but by then I was in Lethbridge, Alberta. The highway between Fernie and Lethbridge is quite spectacular if you love huge mountains and clear mountain lakes and rivers.

Just north of Fernie is Sparwood. Because the whole area has half a dozen large open pit coal mines many tourist attractions involve mining themes. Just as I was going into this awesome sweeper curve in the highway I saw this incredibly massive mining truck. It's the largest truck in the world and because they use these in mining they had it out on display.

One other thing I really wanted to do was check out Frank's Slide. You see, back in 1903 there was a tiny town called Frank which sat at the foot of Turtle Mountain. One day the whole side of the mountain broke away and came thundering down on top of the town. They had to cut through it for the road, river and railway but other than that it remains the way it was in 1903. You get a funny feeling standing looking out at the mountain and the carnage below.

Today I decided to simply go back home through the Canadian Prairies. I had considered dipping down into the northern states but I should be home by July 25th which is one month and that's enough for me.

Once you leave the mountains it gets very flat again with farmer's fields that go off to the horizon. When I got to Lethbridge, AB it was 5:00 pm and although I hadn't ridden very much I needed to look for a campground. I was within an hour ride to the town of Champion so I decided to call Ged, Penny's older brother, and see if he might put me up for a night.  I had stayed with him two years ago and knew that he would be happy to hear from me.

Ged was wonderful. We bonded right away and had to check out his latest automobile project. For dinner we drove his little hot rod Mustang up to the nearby town of Vulcan and had Chinese. 

Now back at his place, we flipped on a movie. We couldn't find anything we liked and Ged was fading fast. He wound up going to bed and I updated the blog.