Whitecourt, Alberta

Whitecourt Alberta is where I stopped for the night, I am about 1900 miles into this, I think I am about a month late being here as the sign at the entrance to town says Snowmobile Capital of Alberta…..darn always a day late and a dollar short. I have to say a big WOW about Edmonton, that is one big bustling and growing town. No recession there, new highways being built everywhere, new tall builidngs and much other new construction going on. I had to stop at the Edmonton Mall just to make my daughters jeaulous, they would love going to that place….It used to be the biggest in the world but now its in third place passed up by Mall of America and the big mall in Dubai, and all places are owned by the same guys…..Scenery is starting to get more rolling hills and whitecourt is dominated by oil companies with trucks and workers everywhere, most trucks caked solid with mud and the motels say take your muddy boots off before coming in. There are 5 motels several stories tall being build right around this place that I am at and this place is brand new……Nice to see people working and making a decent living around here. So I am about 200 miles from the British Columbia border and now I will start gaining some major longitude as I turn and head mostly north. If you look on a map and see how the lay of the land is you will see what I mean. Getting all this windshield time gives you a lot of time to listen to music and to think. Several times I have stopped and go to holler to get the beagle out of the truck as she is always with me. I had a white bag laying on the passenger side seat and I would see the white out of fhe corner of my eye and think it was her fat belly laying down there. I have also spent a lot of time thinking about my mom. Its been just over a month already since she left us and I have had many memories of us going over  all the years and the last few weeks I spent with her. After her funeral it was almost like I ran away because we had our vacation planned and then now I am on this trip but thoughts of her are still always there and it still hurts a lot. One of the last things she said to me a few days before was that she loved me and that she was sorry for putting me thru this. I told her don’t be sorry and that I liked taking care of her…..but I do have to say we did have fun watching bonanza and gunsmoke……well I better get moving and see what cd’s I can find to listien to today. Thanks for checking in. Pete