July 5 - Vermilion, Alberta

We are in Vermilion, Alberta this evening, about 150 miles east of Edmonton. We bypassed Edmonton (a city of over 700,000 with over a million in the surrounding area) by going on some smaller roads north of the city. That worked fine for one of the roads but the second one was even smaller, turned to dirt, and then had a sign that said "No trucks." We were forced to turn around and retrace our route. For the first time, we (i.e. Mike) had to back up the truck and trailer. He did a fine job under my direction. :-)

We eventually made it to Highway 16, which we followed to Vermilion. Once again a long day, stopping finally at 10 p.m. We first went to a Super 8 but were told they had no rooms available. Turns out the oil industry buys a block of rooms for their workers and this is why they had no rooms. Speaking of the oil industry, ever since entering Alberta we've seen little oil rigs here and there, dotting the landscape, amidst fields of grain or canola or some other kind of plant.

We stopped for dinner at a Boston Pizza joint and parked the truck/trailer in the nearby Walmart parking lot. We parked next to an RV that had an interesting license plate, en francais.

Translation: Retraite = Retired
The four phrases in the corners = No time (no hours to keep), no address, no telephone, no money.