What do you get when geyser meets gravel? This stuff, which I am calling packed tarsands, a suitably Albertan moniker for this kind of road surface. Although real tarsands are a naturally occurring phenomenon, this one is human-made. It's essentially a gravel road that's been sprayed with oil (the stuff is so cheap around here these days, why not use it as road spray?) and then packed down hard by traffic and baked in the sun It makes for a remarkably smooth, dust-free (boo-hoo) surface. The only problem is the sun. On hot days, the oily gravel gets gooey; you can feel its stickiness on your tires, like you're riding through molasses. This particular gravel is unusual in that it has an unmistakable odour, a certain eau de tar. I'm not a fan of packed tarsands, any more than I am of those other Alberta tarsands. Perhaps one day the Europeans will lobby to boycott Alberta's real dirty oil.
First, came
the sand flies, clouds of the tiny bastards, rising up out of the grass to
greet us as we began pitching camp. Then, only minutes later, a stray dog peed
on my tent. Seriously. Centennial Park Campground on Lake Joseph, about 75 km
southeast of Edmonton, “The Best Kept Secret in Leduc County” (or so says the
sign), was not making a good first impression. Besides which, the designation
“Lake’” seems a bit generous for what is really a slough, a shallow pond that
can’t be at any point as deep as my bike is tall. But all
that didn’t really matter. We’d escaped the frantic city that afternoon, our
bikes packed with minimal camping gear, and soon enough we (that’s Val, Penn, me,
and the sandflies) were watching a long, mellow orange sunset across the “lake,”
glasses of whisky and cans of Pringles on the picnic table, the campfire
crackling (and its smoke baffling the flies), with plans for new cycling adventures being
hatched.
