End of Day 4

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As I said in yesterday’s entry, it was planned to be a short day today. It wasn’t as short as planned though. We stopped on the East side of Edmonton last night as the rush hour traffic was horrendous. We figured we would beat the morning rush, but it doesn’t ever seem to subside. We got to the West side and stopped for our first sit down breakfast of the trip. Truck stop food up here is about the same as the lower 48. So after a leisurely breakfast we headed for Grande Prairie, and oil changes for the bikes. On a gas stop, about 2 hours from Edmonton, Mike decided to do a check that he had all of his belongings. A reoccurring theme here is that the service providers don’t speak the same language as the customers. So back at the hotel in Edmonton, Mike had provided his driver’s license to Hamud (sp?) so that he could find his name in the guest registry. Mike failed to get his license back, and didn’t discover it until this point, 2 hours later. We spent about an hour at the gas station coordinating through Mike’s wife to get the license to him at Grande Prairie. Liz did a great job of fixing Mikes lapse of awareness. I now check to ensure Mike has everything he showed up with at each departure. If it hadn’t been for this, it would have been a pretty uneventful day. Back to the ride, there is a point when you leave an area that is just desolate, and get to wilderness. We passed that point today. Scenery became very enjoyable. Other than the minimal traffic, there are wide spots in the road where they cram every American fast food joint in with a few gas stations and some hotels, but they are few and far between. We are now going up and down hills, and the moose warning signs don’t have distances that they are good for. We dropped our bikes off late (see previous reason for delay), so they wouldn’t guarantee that we would get them bake today, but no later than noon tomorrow. We’ll be at mile 0 of the ALCAN about 1:30 after we actually leave Grande Prairie. Dinner tonight is going to be at Mr. Mikes Steakhouse and bar.Already trided the loacl beer, and it is quite good, Moose Antler Lager, one horny beer. A measly 291.9 miles today, but the best scenery so far. UPDATE - Mike has his DL back.

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