We knew from last year that we would be dealing with several big hills and valleys and there was, of course, the BIG hill not far outside of Grande Prairie.
Today's drive was going to be through rocky and rough geography. There are not many nice flat stretches except when driving through some of the towns along the way.
Last year when we drove this stretch we went through a long band of smoke from the BC wildfires. We knew that this year Grande Prairie had many days shrouded in smoke and at least one day when it had rained ash so we were not really sure if we would encounter more smoke or not. I have tried to follow the fire situation and this year it seemed like they had the fires better controlled by this time. As it happened, there was no smoke this time. There was one time, though, that we could see open flame and black smoke coming from the forest ahead of us.
Once we rounded the big curve ahead of us we saw the source of the flames - a gas well that was burning off the impurities. Either that well was not there last year, or they were not doing a burn at that time. In fact, we saw more evidence of the oil and gas industry this year than we did last. There were several pump jacks working that were not there during our last trip.
I called a mobile repair company to come to look at our rig after we got to Grande Prairie to address our heat problem. He should be there tomorrow night so just one more night of the temporary heater and we should be fine. At least we hope so.
We decided to stop at Valleyview for a rest before tackling the last bit of the drive. This is where the highway splits with one side going to Peace River and the other continuing on to Grande Prairie.
The Valleyview rest stop was around a curve and completely off the highway. At first we thought we had taken a wrong turn but we were pleasantly surprised. a stand of trees hid the highway from view and there was a big turning area for trucks and rigs like ours. The rest areas off the Canadian highways were few and far between so this was a very pleasant surprise. It was very scenic here and a nice place to have a little break.
So far, Meander has managed the hills pretty well. We still have to use the slow poke lane but the hills seem much more manageable this year. Of course Rick has had a lot of practice will hills on this trip plus we had experience on our side, having done this stretch of road once before. Still, I hated to see this all too familiar sign.
Now I don't want you to think we are the only ones who find the hills challenging. They do add a slow-poke lane on the big hills for a reason. we even managed to pass someone on a hill. He was towing this huge piece of farm equipment.
Finally we were within the last 100 kms of our trip and we got to THE big hill. We remembered this from last year and had been sort of dreading it all day. The approach was scenic, then you could see the rough landscape and we were there.
So I know I keep going on about this hill. Last year when we did the drive we were towing my much smaller Toyota Yaris and the first warning of this hill was a sign on the side of the road that told us there was an area for trucks to attach their chains. No other notice of a steep hill or a grade warning, just a notice that there was an area provided to put chains on. It was a big hill. The trip down was curvy and did not seem to be too bad grade wise and then you had to climb......and climb....and climb. Last year we were down to 30 km/h before we got to the top. We were towing the Jeep this time and that was probably twice the weight of the Yarris. But, like all things you dread, the anticipation was far worse than the reality. Maybe it was the fact that we had done it before or maybe we had just made the hill larger in our imagination but more probably Rick was much more skilled handling these hills since he had so much practice this year. In any case we got up that big hill and didn't bottom out our overheat this time. Now we could relax and enjoy the rest of the drive. Well all 45 minutes of it.
We got to Grande Prairie and headed for the park that was to be our home for the next 3 weeks. I was once again using my phone and Google maps to navigate. This time it wasn't that our usual GPS wasn't working or we did not know where to go (it was beside the place we stayed at last year) but there was a lot of construction in the area and Google maps has he advantage of knowing where the road closures are and routes us around them. we had to go over a lot of dirt roads again but we arrived intact. Rick just hooked up our electricity so our fridge would be fine and then were were off to see our grandson.
This is why we traveled 5000 kilometers!
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