Sunday, the day after arriving in Wetaskiwin, my mother in-law, Mary Lou, and I drove up to Edmonton to pick Linda (my wife) up from the airport. While I rode around on my bike, Linda had arranged to drive her Mom around to visit relatives around Alberta and meet up with me along the way.

We started this twisted journey by heading to Edmonton; Linda, Mom and Roy in the car and me taking a less direct route on the bike. We joined up again at Linda’s brother’s house on the north side of Edmonton. We had a wonderful time visiting Brian, Kathy, Mathew, Cameron and Kellene. Later, we were joined by Amanda and Kris.

Tuesday saw me back on the road again, heading to a rendezvous with Linda and Mary Lou at her brother’s (Don) home in Calgary. But, as goes the theme of this vacation, I took a series of secondary roads that took me through Ponoka, Three Hills, Drumheller before finding getting into Calgary. Don and Sharon where gracious host, as usual, and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner and a chance to visit with Don & Sharon as well as Betty and Terrance who stopped by.

Wednesday morning I left a little later and cruised down to Vulcan for a few photos of my Vulcan in Vulcan. It was westward-ho then and off to Longview where I had heard there was a great little steakhouse worthy of the few extra miles. After a light lunch of a great mushroom soup and a peppercorn New York Strip steak, I pushed south on Hwy-22 to the Crowsnest pass Hwy and then back onto a secondary highway that took me to Sharon and Stan’s, just north of Pincher Creek.

I had some concerns about riding out to Sharon and Stan’s as they live off a gravel road. After hearing it was only about a mile of a paved highway I figured I give it a go and just take it slow. Unfortunately, the road crews wanted to make sure the back roads were all in shape for the return to school and they dumped several truckloads of fresh gravel on their road only a few days prior to my arrival. Let me tell you, riding a heavy cruiser over deep loose gravel is not fun. I did maneuver the gravel pile without incident and Sharon greeted me with a very welcome cold beer. Linda and Mom arrived an hour or so later and we all had a good visit.