FRIDAY July 9, 2010

OK, another day without a mishap. Not even close. Today was a fairly mellow day, just lots of beautiful scenery and mostly good roads.

The day started a little later than usual because Mike slept in until about 630. I had my gear packed, my tent down and stowed and a pot of coffee brewing before he got up. I actually went over and looked in Mike’s tent to be sure he was breathing….seriously! I thought with all the noise I had made taking down the tent, etc. that he would have woke up…he had ear plugs in!

So we got up and hit the road right away and then stopped in Grande Prairie for breakfast, a visit to the Harley store to get a cargo net and see if I could get my engine guard bent back to a more normal shape. The guys told me they would have to take it off, put it in a vice and bend it back but that the chrome would probably crack if they did that. Like I care about the scratched up chrome that is on there now! Didn’t matter because it would have taken too much time and we didn’t want to wait.

It was another 3 hours from there to Jasper plus the two hours we spent stopping to gas up, stretch, get something cold to drink and take pictures. We finally, FINALLY, saw some moose today. Unfortunately, because there is NO shoulder (they call them sharp shoulders but my shoulder isn’t sharp, I ground it smooth a couple times now. So, getting photos is tough since you can’t stop and the speed limit is 100 KPH! What we did was pull over on a side road nearby and Mike put his camera on his handlebar mount and road back and got photos as he went by, both directions.

Once into Jasper we saw more mountain sheep, got some photos and then got to our hotel. We meet up with Keith and now we are sitting in the room (no A/C, what’s with that?!) having showered and gone to dinner. Keith is down getting our laundry and then it will just be a quiet evening. Should be interesting in here tonight with the three of us snoring! Where did I put those ear plugs?