50, 70, 90, 100, 110, 50, 90

Sound like a winning lottery ticket?  I thought it did, but because I never buy lottery tickets, I really had no clue.   Looking it up, I found that, apparently, lottery ticket numbers only go from 1 to 45 or 1 to 50, depending on the game.  The truth, then, is obviously that I did not buy a lottery ticket in British Columbia.

Instead on Friday, September 9, we founder ourselves caught up with the "twinning" of the TransMountain oil pipeline. The original pipeline was constructed in 1953 and has safely transported oil from near Edmonton in Alberta primarily to the U.S. midwest to feed the zealous American appetite for oil. Now, for a mere 21.4 billion dollars (CAD), the duplicate pipeline (the "twin") will increase the pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day to enable Canadians to benefit more from the pipeline.  The new pipeline will move enough oil to replace at least 1,400 tanker truckloads or 441 tanker rail cars every day.   

Fascinating?  Well, maybe, but ... why is this relevant to two Americans on vacation in Canada?   Because twinning a 1,150 kilometer pipeline (about 715 miles) involves a huge amount of construction, much of it along Highway 5a from Kamloops to Valemount in BC, a stretch of road that made up most of our drive on Friday.  Every few kilometers, we went from a 100 km/hr or 110 km/hr speed limit to 70 km/hr then 50km/hr for a couple km, then a friendly "Thank you, Resume Speed" sign sent us back to 100+ km/hr only to throttle us back in another few kilometers.  This speed up, slow down, speed up cycle was interrupted only by the occasional "Prepare to stop" sign that sent our speed to 0 km/hr at all too regular intervals during the higher frequency fast, slow, slower, fast cycles along Highway 5a.  It was enough to drive the brakes, the driver, and the passenger crazy (and make poor Lazer carsick).   

Thank goodness for the plethora of provincial parks in Canada.  We stopped north of Clearwater (BC, not Florida) in the North Thompson River provincial park to have lunch and stroll up to a viewpoint that gave us a much needed break and a beautiful view of the confluence of the Clearwater and North Thompson rivers.

And the view at the end of All That Construction... of Mt. Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, took the edge off of all the frustration of driving miles and miles and miles (km and km and km) of nonstop construction.

Whew... glad I didn't have to spend the whole day grouchy!