Longview Burger

Day 1: Chain Lakes, Alberta

Distance travelled: 455 km

Cumulative distance 455 km of course.

Maximum speed: 139km/h

Moving average: 104km/h

Temperature range 5.0 – 19.4

I packed till 9:00 p.m. last night and was patting myself on the back for being ready so early. Our plan was to be on the road at 8:00 a.m. so Nan wisely went to bed around 9:00 p.m.I had this big plan I was going to sit in the hot tub for 20 minutes with a glass of wine and celebrate my organizational skills. All I had to do was send the invitation to the blog and program the Spot Tracker with the emergency messages. (I have to actually anticipate bad scenarios and program a request for help. There are three possible messages, all of which go to our guardian angels Danielle and Rod. Their task is to review our call for help and sort out how to assist us, such as dispatching a motorcycle tow truck to the last place pinged on the Spot map. A fourth scenario is a message to a disaster monitoring service which is basically “send everything”.)  However, I spent till 11:30 p.m. doing those final tasks so no hot tub for me. In fact, no 8:00 a.m. start for me either since I couldn’t bear to get up early enough to be on the road by 8:00.

Locked and loaded and ready to roll. 

Nonetheless, unlike Nan, I was awake before the alarm at 7:30 a.m. Environment Canada said it was minus 0 at the airport and suddenly, I was in even less of a hurry. However, we were meeting my niece Anna and her husband Jeremy in Longview for lunch. It just happened to be their anniversary as they were celebrating a blissful 51 days of marriage. Our original plan had been to be on the road at 9:00 a.m., which would allow us ample time to get to Longview by our appointed meeting time of 1:00 p.m. however, an 8:00 a.m start would have allowed us a tour through Kananaskis before getting to Longview.

As always, last second tasks around the house – filling up Nan’s tractor with diesel fuel so the babysitter could cut grass, putting chemical in the hot tub, a final swish around the bathroom and Nan making smoothies for breakfast seemed to derail us from our plans and our actual departure was 9:30 a.m. So, depending on who’s counting, anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half behind schedule.

At departure time, the temperature had climbed a whopping 5 degrees. We were immediately cranking the heated vests and in my case, heated hand grips (thank-you Stan for your foresight!). After a slight diversion, we were bombing down the Queen E Highway fighting with the tractor trailer units and pickups, all doing 130 km/h and tailgating us in the process. It’s not really fun having a pickup truck less than one car length behind, made more worrisome by the fact that I didn’t have good vision in my rear view mirrors due to all our crap piled high on the panniers. To get a look behind, I would have to stand a little on the pegs before a shoulder check and changing lanes. This is primarily why it is a rarity for us to ride on Hwy 2 as so many out there seem to be out to prove their manliness behind the wheel. Fortunately, I am confident in my masculinity so I only drove 90. KIDDING!

We arrived at Longview and the Twin Cities Hotel Saloon. If you have a hankering for a GREAT BURGER, (the Longview Burger) this is the place and well worth the ride/drive. Barely 400 km from home, you will be guaranteed to be hungry by the time you get there. The place is popular with the motorcycle crowd, mostly people on day rides from Calgary and fortunately, not like the hotel at Sunnybrook, which is popular with the biker crowd. Which we learned the hard way. Sadly (for her), Anna had a chicken burger.

Wow, that's a lot of "1's"!

After Longview, it was a short 38 km to our first day’s destination of Chain Lakes Provincial Campground, about halfway between Calgary and Crow’s Nest Pass. There was road construction on the way and we stopped for a flag gal who waved at us like we were a jumbo about to miss the runway. She had a box of Tim Bits by her side, which I eyed with envy. “Hey, about a Tim Bit!” I said. Nope. “I’ll pay you for one!”, I yelled. Nope. “I’ll pay you $100” I screamed into the communicator so that Nan would be able to hear me, too. She claimed that Tim Bits were hard to come by out there. (Longview does not have a Timmy Ho’s) so NO DICE!

It seems so ironic that the temperature had climbed to an amazing 17 degrees and the sky here is filled with smoke. I always associate smoky skies with hot weather but we are sitting here at the picnic table with jackets and toques. Funny, I always associate camping with good weather, too. Our next door neighbours here in the campground have two dogs, which is awesome for us because we have gone a WHOLE HEART WRENCHING DAY without a dog fix. Or at least since 9:30 a.m. Bandit is a ten month old pup of Golden Lab mixed with indistinct breeding, the result of the neighbour’s male getting loose one night. Molly is Bandit’s foil. Bandit immediately proceeds to warn us that any closer to his parents will result in our instant death until Nan picks up a stick and it is immediately “play with me!” Molly does not even notice our presence because all she can do is play with Bandit. As it turns out, Bandit is a great fan of margaritas. How would we know this? BECAUSE NAN BROUGHT MARGARITAS! Never a dull moment. 

No matter how much space is at a premium, somehow Nan always manages to find room for something special. 

Can you believe this? She is actually measuring.

Bandit (left) and Molly working a stick.

Tomorrow we are off to the booming metropolis of Yaak, Montana. When I was planning the route for this trip, I noticed on Google Street View that Yaak is busting at the seems with four buildings. Two of which are bars. Sidearms allowed, would be my guess. I do not expect to post tomorrow night because we will be on the U.S. side of the border and it is highly unlikely I will pick up Bell Mobility. So, don’t be disturbed if you don’t see a post tomorrow night but when we get to Armpit Omak on Monday night, I’ll post two days worth. If you don’t see a post Monday, it is because somebody in Yaak took a liking to us. (Oh, oh).

Chain Lakes campground.

Today's entertainment for Nan.