Day 41 Vikings, Oil tanks & Dirt Roads!

We left Hinton 7.20 am….Fuel was so cheap here 189.7 under $2.00 that’s a bonus…. John had packed the cold bag with my Brekky…so not sure what do get when once we were in the car and set off for our new destination, and sure enough good old Tim Horton’s popped up… they still fit it wrong with my order but it was enable….only can eat 1/2 one each time but that’s heaps…
Our freeze bag is becoming an issue with all the fridges being so tiny and most either have no freezer section of its so small getting all my bricks frozen is an issue…anyway yesterday I managed to put what would fit in the freezer and the rest under the fund hoping they would freeze and surprisingly they did….. but it gets harder and harder to know ahead of time with ea h booking if they can be,l with either a freezer in your room or take it to the reception to place in their freezer….once here at Llyodminster… The Royal Hotel…the little freezer here was the same issues with putting them in it was small…asking at reception and apparently they only have a fridge…really 🤔🤔🤔🤔 Anyway I did the same as yesterday but the fridge isn’t as full I got rid of a lot of stuff…. So hopefully the bricks under the fun’s will freeze….

As we left Hinton I noted heals and heals of mine equipment….Last night when we did the Beaver Boardwalk where we started was heals of what looked like single mens units and further downs were heals more…Again I said to John I bet there is a mine here too many units for it not to be…And sure enough leaving today confirmed it with all the mining equipment in property after property…Some small, towns along the massive unreal 4 Lane Hwy also had heaps of equipment…

The day was pretty boring really I slept a lot..only got to see 1 deer and 6 Prairie Dogs running for their lives not to become tyre victims…
In total today we had 500ks + of rain…it rained nearly the whole trip…good steady quite heavy rain…

So we made it to Edmonton in time for M/Tea with a plan of Looking around... so John took me straight to the amazing Legislative Building which sadly is being revamped and has lots of covers over its external…so taking pics of it was minimal….the rain really got going at this stage…
We tried to find a place for MTea which was a challenge…but found a Bakery Coffee shop near Downtown Edmonton…After we had finished there John was willing to take me to see sights but in all truth the weather had turned so bad I felt it was best we set off….So off we set…on,y Navy wasn’t listening to John and kept taking us a different way to what he kept putting in…after a bit of hassle we hit it to work..The main way would have taken us down the main freeway John felt going back roads it might be more interesting…. And after getting off the boring PineTree lined freeway it was a pleasure to see the Interesting rural hwys and back roads.. So much so even if it was becoming dirt…as we zipped along you could start to all these large black tanks the piping for the tanks wasn’t as big as the Gas pipes like we have in Aust and blow me down next thing up popped Gas piping as well….So as I did I said to John ha ha 😂 I bet it’s oil…..of course in his usual how do you know that…I said because the piping to these big tanks is different to the piping in the gas ones…so as we went further and further into the rural heartland more and more and more were popping up in amongst all the neatly ploughed and now growing crops….I bet these farmers linger all these oil companies taking some if their good cropping land….and they literally were dotted everywhere…mind you we did start to notice newer homes in proprietary so guessing some money must go to the farmers….Eyyy as they Canadians say…

Before had made it to the oil fields we had stopped or rather driven around trying to find somewhere to eat for lunch at a little town called Viking….and sadly we didn’t find any little Vikings with red hair running around.,,But I did find a Troll Garden with 3 Billy Goats Gruff on a little bridge…it was started by 2 guys in 1999 and sadly you can see that even though it gets mowed the items all over the park are showing much age and deterioration…..Guess the passion of the next generation is not what these old men had….Anyway no lunch spot found…but lots of massive new trailer homes or as we call,them caravans were parked in driveways and lots of homes looked done up…so I mentioned bet there is a mine or something around here for this place to look refreshed…just like that other ghost type town we saw on the way over…and yep worked out it’s Gas, Oil and some Coal around them there parts…so guessing many making money from that…A quick stop at the only place we could Burger King and go be honest the chicken burger John got and hit chips were spot on….all fresh and for once crisp…

It was here we did another trek through the dirt roads to discover all the oil fields…just before we made it to our accommodation to night on the edge of town you could still see the old type oil rigs pumping away…the new ones must work on a different process where it pumps it to the tanks on the properties and gets collected from there…

I had asked John just before we got here how big is this town….he said only small, but as we approached the town there were more and more billboards….So I said to a John 😂😂( he us the only one I can talk to you know 🤔😩🤪 ha ha) this place will be big too many billboards…I dint think so he said….So as we drove in to Lloydminster and immediately heaps and heaps of Massive Motels and Hotels…takeaways, Maccas, Burger King, Wendy’s, Smokin Joe’s and the list goes on and on this was a big place…but you could see with shopping centres plus the motels and takeaways it was all new…so the oil production around these here plains must have a big spin off…
Our Hotel looked run down from the outside but the room, is big and spacious with 2 queen beds bonus….A tiny fridge, but a real kettle and a coffee maker, plus a microwave….yeah we did well, this time…plus our the door is washing machine you pay for and a massive free ice machine…plus this place is actually quite huge…wings coming off it everywhere…the restaurant here sadly was shut over the 3 days for Canada day plus extras so we headed across the Hwy to what we were told is a steak house but bonus they had an Irish ☘️ Pub as well…as it turned out they only serve same meal as the Steak House…the very, very friendly but loud waitress convinced us to get the special….it was absolutely massive meant for one person…my glory we only ate half and still enough for 2 + more…it was Nachos, Deep fried dry pork, stuffed potato skins and deep fried onion 🧅 rings. Needless to say the old tum didn’t cope and ended up crook…ohh well it sounded good…just too much heavy foods…

Turns out the girl serving us was a Newfie….as they call themselves From Newfoundland…..
Back to our room starting to rain again hope no more tomorrow…

A bit of History about Lloydminster it is a bit of a strange place due to the border running fair smack up the Main Street! Which has caused many an issue over the years! So if you have the time the following info fills you in on some of it issues! Quite comical really but guess for them frustrating!!

Lloydminster is a Canadian city which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administration. Commemorating Lloydminster's distinctive bi-provincial status, a monument consisting of four 100-foot survey markers was erected in 1994 near the city's downtown core.

Although the majority of Lloydminster's population once lived in Saskatchewan, that ratio has long since been reversed; in the 2011 Canadian Census, nearly two-thirds of the city's population lived in Alberta. In 2000, the city hall and municipal offices were moved from Saskatchewan to Alberta in a location right along Meridian Avenue, also known as 50th Avenue, which runs along the Fourth Meridian.[citation needed]

Despite its bi-provincial status, Lloydminster was not exempted from anti-smoking legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Citizens responded by initiating a referendum against the wishes of the mayor, as permitted in the charter, which resulted in the enactment of a citywide anti-smoking bylaw. The matter has become moot when Alberta enacted its own anti-smoking legislation, which was the solution that the mayor and council preferred.[citation needed]

Lloydminster's distinctive situation is reflected in other legal matters, including its time zone. Most of Saskatchewan does not observe daylight saving time, instead staying on Central Standard Time year-round. However, Alberta mandates daylight saving time. Lloydminster's charter allows the city to follow Alberta's use of daylight saving time on both sides of the provincial border in order to keep all clocks within the city in synchronisation. This has the effect of placing Lloydminster and the surrounding area in the Mountain Time Zone along with Alberta. During the summer, the entire city is on GMT−06:00—Mountain Daylight Time while the rest of Saskatchewan is on Central Standard Time.[15] During the winter, Lloydminster is on Mountain Standard Time with the rest of Alberta, which is GMT−07:00.

The provincial line divides the city in two aspects related to communications. Telephones on the Saskatchewan side are assigned to area codes 306 and 639, the two area codes assigned to that province, while land lines on the Alberta side have numbers in the 780 and 587 area codes, the two area codes assigned to northern Alberta. Similarly, Saskatchewan addresses have a postal code with a forward sortation area designation (first three characters) of "S9V", and addresses in Alberta have postal codes beginning with "T9V". All postal codes in Canada beginning with the letter "S" are assigned to Saskatchewan, and those beginning with "T" belong to Alberta.Read more