AK1 Day 5

MS Day 5 – 8 Jun 12, Friday

Edmonton, Alberta to Grande Prairie, Alberta

Mileage – 288

WX – sunny and warm

States – Alberta

CA 16, CA 43

Note 1: We left Edmonton hotel around 6 am thinking we would miss all the traffic; WRONG! Getting through Edmonton was painful because of the heavy traffic and stop lights.

Note 2: While paying for the room in Edmonton the clerk charged me for 2 days instead of 1 day. I then discovered he actually was charging for the wrong room and a different person. There also was a communication issue (non-English). I finally gave him my driver’s license so he could see my name and get the correct room/bill. Of course with all the confusion I left my driver’s license at the desk. I only discovered this 3 hours later when we stopped for a fuel stop. I immediately went into a panic and figured I would have to ride 6 hours round trip back to Edmonton to get the license just to get back to where we were. I tried to get Jim to continue since he had to get his bike serviced in Grande Prairie and I would catch up later that night. He would not consider this and was going to ride the round trip with me. We finally started to think of alternate solutions and I called Liz (my beautiful and resourceful wife). I asked her to see if she could contact FedEx or any other source to have it sent overnight to our next hotel. Her effort to make this happen is a story in itself considering this was a Friday afternoon and no one seems to work on week-ends in Canada. Liz finally made arrangements with Purolator courier to pick up the license at the hotel, take it to Air Canada who flew it to Grande Prairie that evening. We continued on to Grande Prairie and dropped the bikes off at the HD dealer for service. They provided a shuttle to the hotel. That evening I took a cab (paid for by the hotel) to the airport and picked up my license. ONLY cost $300 for that little lapse of memory and of course I now owe Liz some kind of compensation yet to be defined.