Another dreary, rainy day. Right off the bat, our group got caught behind a slow moving piece of construction equipment, and by slow, I mean no more than 40-45 miles an hour. It was so wide that we couldn't pass it. After about an hour and a half, we came to a T in the road, they turned the same way we did, but Phil layed on the horn and we moved in front of them. As did the rest of our group, then with bad timing all around, we pulled into the next truck stop for a potty break. Of course, with bad timing, the construction equipment went the same way we did and got ahead of us again!! Then we came upon a road construction site that was at mud level. At one point, probably the potty stop, a few of our rigs got ahead of us, and watching them go through this site was like watching them navigate a roller coaster. Up and over and around, it's a wonder no one got stuck.
We finally pulled into our campground for the next two nights, Eagle River Casino and RV Park. This is a fairly new park, some of the sites still need leveling and they forgot to put gravel down. After days of rain in this area, it's nothing but slippery clay/mud! When I went to get out of the truck, I slid off of the running board as it was covered in mud!
We opted for dinner at the casino, as we had $10.00 discounts from the casino. No buffet, we ordered off of the menu, not bad.
June 21, 2019
We woke to no rain this morning, which was really nice!! Drove to the Forest Interpretation Center on the other end of town. Saw a video explaining the lumber industry in this part of Alberta and Whitecourt's part in it. We then toured the Center. I had ordered pizza for our lunch and it arrived just as everyone finished the tour. After stuffing our faces with great pizza, we cleaned up our mess, then followed one of our guides to the Alberta Paper Mill, back on the other end of town, actually across the highway from the casino.
The mill had donuts and coffee for us to eat while we listened to a safety and informational talk about the mill. We then divided into smaller groups for our tour of the mill. The first thing we did was go up about 3 flights of stairs, which nearly killed all of us!!
The mill is nearly all controlled by computer, and has 'command center's' for each operational section and process. We followed the entire operation, from the wood coming into the mill to the finished product of newspaper. It was very interesting and everyone enjoyed it...except for the stairs!!
Phil and I went home and took a nap!!
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