St. Mary, MT to Edmonton, AL, Canada June 27, 2010

In the previous post I wrote about passing through customs into Canada. That was the start of a long boring ride to the RV park west of Edmonton. The let-down of leaving Glacier National Park and that area only intensified with the flat straight highway, Rt 2, that goes through Calgary to Edmonton.
We stopped for fuel and used the restrooms at a chain grocery store about 11 AM. While Ernie finished getting his diesel fuel, the rest of us went in to the store. This set of pumps had cement/iron pillars protecting the pumps on either side, front and back. Ernie didn't realize that the front area was too short to let him pull completely clear of the pump area brfore swinging around to the parking lot. He just scraped the back corner of the 5th wheel and took off a little of the rubber strip. Another customer then helped him back out of the pumps as we came out of the store.
Not a nice welcome to Canada.
Along the highway there were no rest areas as we are used to in the states on the interstate highways. This Rt 2 is a divided 4 to 6 lane highway, sometimes with an access road on each side.
Any signs for the small turnout rest areas were placed too close to the exit to be very useful and many of the areas were only pulloffs with trash cans. No services at many of them. When we approached an exit where there would be a town with services the names of such services or businesses were crammed onto one sign that we could not take time to read.
One time we actually stopped alongside the highway to use the bathroom in the RV with traffic going by at 110, that's K/ph, about 68 mph at least.
Later we turned off at an exit marked "Rest Area". The next sign pointed to "Rest Area" with an arrow. we followed it. Then another sign with an arrow to turn. We followed it. Then we were on the access road on the opposite side of the highway going south. "Where is it?" we asked each other, we do have a walkie-talkie set to use between vehicles.
There was a closed up restaurant/lounge with a large parking lot so Ernie pulled in there to reconnoiter our situation. As we came out of that lot there was a "One Way" sign on the access road pointing south. Hey, there's got to be a way to get back the way we want, eh!
Well there was, 10 K back and then around the clover leaf and back north. a half-hour wasted. The signage here lacks information beyond the bare minimum or more than you can take in as you speed by.
More later.