Friday, March 6th

Well this is our last blog post of the season for the winter of 2018-2019.
  Our day started in High River as you may recall.  We woke up to a fog and temps of minus 4C, so for the Fahrenheit folks that would be about 24 F.  I went out to scrape the frost from the windshield and warm up the truck before breakfast.

  The hotel breakfast was very good.  They had a hot as well as continental style option and enough variety to suit anyone.  We filled ourselves and then headed out.  I was anxious as we seldom drive in fog, so wanted to get an early start and we were mobile by 8 AM.  The range of visibility wasn't too bad, probably around 200 yards.  When we got on the highway it was just enough so we could travel at about 100 km, I opted to follow a large truck for a while kind of on the edge of seeing his tail lights.  It didn't last too long and the sun started burning its way through, so that by the time we got to shortly before Calgary it was pretty much a non-event.  It was rush hour in Cowtown but we took the Stoney Trail, which is a bypass to the east side of the city.  It moved along at 100 km's and was much lighter traffic than going right through the center on the Deerfoot Trail.
  From there it was uneventful all the way to Red Deer where we fueled at the Costco on Gasoline Alley.  It was still pretty chilly, so we didn't spend any more time than necessary and back on the trail.  It can be a bit of a rodeo getting through there with the construction at the south  end of the city, but it moved along well.  By the time we got close to Edmonton, we opted to take the bypass at Nisku going through Devon.  We stopped at the truck stop in Acheson to top up the fuel and have a burger at A&W.  Marg doesn't care for their burgers as the onions are raw, but I find them nostalgic, as I ate lot of them when I was young and single.  It always amuses me as Marg's first job was as a car hop at A&W, so must have eaten her share of them.
  Traffic leaving E town was busy, at there was some construction on the westbound lane.  By the time we passed Spruce Grove it settled down and we pointed the needle to 118km [the RC's usually tolerate 10 over, so that is my safety margin].  It was pretty good going, but the highway is riddled with frost heaves, so lots of bumpy areas.
  We were stopped at a train crossing the highway right in the middle of Whitecourt and Marg said I wonder if that could be Kevin.  Want to phone him, sure I said.  Sure enough Kevin was in Whitecourt, but had pulled a train through that exact spot a half hour before, so he was not the culprit.  Kind of funny as I missed him and it went to his voice mail, so my message was I was stuck behind the train and if it was him could he move it.  When he called back we had a good laugh, just a coincidence that he was working there at the time.
   We got to Valleyview in good time and made a pit stop at the rest stop east of town.  By the time we stopped I detected the start of a migraine, so asked Marg whether she wanted to wait for a while or drive.  She opted to drive from there, so I put the eye mask on and kind of zoned out for a while, dozed I guess.  When I awoke we were through almost to the big Smoky river.  She really motored along, I guess that was about 40 minutes later or so.  She drove all the way into GP and we stopped for a few groceries at Superstore.  Last night she had called the pharmacist, so I checked and sure enough her medications were there and waiting.  Good thing too as she was on her last pill on one of the more important ones.
  I drove from there home [about 5 minutes] and within minutes of pulling on to the driveway Roger pulled up.  He helped me unload and then picked up Daniel who helped us unpack.  Roger left for work, they had a late pickup scheduled that he went to load.  Daniel stayed for supper, it was pizza and he was a big help.  When we finished, I went with him so he could drive himself home.  He was excited about that as he hadn't been driving a whole lot this winter.
  Our track record - we pulled into GP at 4 o'clock giving us 815 KM's or 506 miles, so a much easier day today.  That gave us 3,378 KM's for our 3 day total.
  Thank you for following our winter stay in Arizona.  It was fun and we enjoyed sharing it with you.  Signing off until the fall when we plan to go south again.