One thing about Canadian’s, they don’t like to eat too early in the morning. We continually have problems eating before 8:00am, even in touristy areas. Even getting coffee in our hotels/motels before 8:00am is impossible. We went to the Loaf this morning which opened at 8:00am. The owner had the front door propped open and invited us in . . . had to wait 10 minutes even for coffee. As you can see the G is usually ‘chomping at the bit’ to get on the road. Got all his duds on already!!

But it was worth the wait. We all had ‘The Works’, which reminded me of the full Irish breakfast, only no blood sausage. That should hold us for a few miles down the road . . . which are predicted to be VERY wet today. A 70% chance of rain in the afternoon near Pincher Cr, our home for the night.

After riding through 10 mile construction area with LOTS of trucks, torn up road and no shoulder we came to Sparwood, which is the home to the ‘Largest Truck In the World’.

You can see the size of it when comparing the children climbing in the wheel well. The truck was made in the 70’s and assembled on site. It would make 300 trips, 12 minutes each way, before it was down for 15 hours of maintenance. In the 90’s the turbo charger blew up and it was too expensive to fix the truck so now it sits outside of the Chamber of Commerce.

The rain spit on and off all day. Cloudy, cold and windy. Today we would cross over he Continental Divide for the second time . . . it’s out there somewhere!!

After much climbing, we all rolled over the top . . .

. . . including Hercules!!!!

Greg was there too . . . but the G had already rolled  over the top.

I had the ‘find’ of the day, a pair of orange sunglasses with lime green bows. Helped make the day a little brighter!!!

A big downhill once again brought us back into Alberta. We will stay in Alberta until we cross back into the United States, in two days.

Lots of lakes again, including this one with the MASSIVE outthrusted crust.

I heard a train approaching as I came upon a bridge and waited for it to pass . . .

. . . scurrying ahead I caught a view of it passing along the lake.

It was an ugly weather day so when we came to the Rum Runner and it was about 1:00pm we decided to spin in for some lunch. This is actually the first day we have stopped for a formal meal around noon . . .

. . . but with a dry  roof over our heads and 1/2 pound burger in our tummies, the world soon seemed right again. No drinking though . . . 27 more miles to ride on this 72 mile day.

They had lots of mounts in  the Rum Runner including this beautiful specimen. Would love to see one of these sauntering across a big field. Going the other way of course!!

One of the last towns we passed through before we reached Pincer Cr was Lundbreck, home of the ‘Oldest Liquor Store in the West’, or so they claim. It’s closed now. The price of liquor here in Canada may have driven them out of business!!!

Right outside the store was this ‘off the road’ tricycle, compete with bell to scare away bears!!!

Soon we came to the Frank Slide. One day in 1903, at 4:10am, a huge piece of limestone 3/4 of a mile long and 450 feet deep broke off the crest of Turtle Mountain slamming into the town of Frank, population 600. In about 90 seconds homes, buildings and lives were destroyed. 70 people were know to have died in the slide.

Not much looks very different from the day of the slide in 1903.