The Second Day

We woke up bright and early the next morning. We had a breakfast of itty-bitty cereal boxes and fruit. At 9:00, we sat the kids down on a hill and handed them their next clue.

Clue #1 - "Visit Outer Space. Drive to the town of Vulcan. Go to the space ship visitor centre. Once there you will need to play the Vulcan Space Adventure." Cameron and Daniel are good with a map so we were first to leave the campground. Paul and Karl were right behind us. Both groups of boys had chosen the same route. Unfortunately, we ran into a detour and as I, in the lead, tried to figure it out the other car chose an alternate route and slipped ahead of us. We gave up on the detour and followed behind. We found the town of Vulcan and Sonia drove past the intersection to turn into the Visitor Centre putting my car back in the lead and giving us the needed minute to get in the doors first.

Cameron and Daniel paid for their game and were told to go watch the video explaining how the game worked. We watched an incredibly cheesy video mocking Star Trek. Cameron laughed all the way through it. The doors in front of us slid open and we entered the "bridge". Cameron chose the center command station, Daniel the right and I got the left. This automatically made Cameron the captain, Daniel the gunner and me in charge of shields and the light speed button. Cameron had to put his hand through a round machine that tracked his movements. Where he moved, the computer followed. He guided the ship and locked on targets. We were attacked numerous times but the boys really loved it when enemies tried to transport on to the ship and holographically appeared. The game lasted between ten and fifteen minutes and the guys had a blast.

In the meantime, Karl and Paul had to wait in the centre for their turn in the game. They discovered the visitors centre was a lot of fun on it's own. There were costumes to try on and cardboard cutouts to pose with. Eventually they got their turn playing the game. Karl was captain and Paul was gunner. They too loved it.

Clue #2 - "Visit the Past. Find the Atlas Coal Mine in East Coulee. Once there you will need to join a guided tour of the mine." This drive was our longest of the whole trip. My guys, with their fifteen minute headstart, quickly came up with a plan and happily went on their way. As we drove I would call out interesecting highways so the boys could keep track on their map. As I called out one highway number, Cameron announced, "That road would be good. We should take that. It would be shorter." Unfortunately, we had already driven by the road. He insisted we turn around. We turned and discovered that the road we had just passed was only the south running half of the highway. The north running was at least 10 minutes back the way we came. Cameron was still determined this new road was going to be faster so we headed back on the highway we had already travelled. Just as we came to the correct road, we watch Sonia's car drive by going where we had just come from. We made our turn hoping that this "shortcut" didn't just cost us our lead. This new route was some serious back roads. We drove for an hour and a half on gravel roads. I went 45 minutes without seeing another vehicle but we did see some lovely scenery.

We arrived at the mine at 12:45 and signed up for a tour. The next available was at 1:15. The kids were sure that this half-hour would mean that any lead we may have gained would be lost. We explored the buildings around the mine waiting for our time. We had gone back into the main building just before 1:00 and heard the girl at the front desk tell a couple that they filled the 1:15 tour and the next people to sign up would have to take the 1:45 tour. The boys were ecstatic. At 1:10, we went to the meeting point just as Sonia's car pulled in to the lot. Apparently, Karl had been choosing the major roads to plan their route. At two different points in the drive, Paul suggested alternate routes that would be shorter but Karl insisted. Eventually Sonia pulled the car over, looked at the map with the boys and showed Karl how Paul's ideas are the better routes. She emphasised how the team needs to listen to each other and they started working better together but they had lost a good chunk of time.



The tour was very cool (actually as it was over 30 degrees that day, it was crazy hot but you get the idea). Cameron tried to push a coal car filled with kids. Daniel sat on the bumper of one coal car to show how small the seats were for the pony drivers (They had horses that lived full-time in the mine). We all climbed in to a coal car and bumped along a section of track with an engine propelling us. We walked up this decrepit looking mine building called the tipple which was where the coal got sorted. We came away from the tour enlightened but dying of the heat.

While we battled the heat on our tour, Sonia wisely insisted Paul and Karl buy water for the tour and run through the sprinkler they had running on site. Their group began their tour at 1:45 while we were up in the tipple. We passed them as we exited and insults and goads were exchanged. Both our guides told different stories so it was fun to exchange information later at the pit stop.


Clue #3 - "Visit the Gophers. Find the Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington. After you have walked through the museum, find the map with the town's fire hydrants. Using the map, walk to all twelve decorated fire hydrants." Torrington was very easy to find for both groups of kids so after giving their drivers directions both cars were filled with sleeping children. My car arrived to town first. My vehicle had two sleepy and disorientated kids in it so we missed several huge signs pointing us to the museum and we blindly drove around town until we stumbled across it. Although we had taken Cameron here before, this was Daniel's first visit so the boys took their time looking around the museum. They loved the little stuffed gophers in their cute outfits posed in different scenes from around the community. Eventually they got around to finding the required map and started their hunt for the fire hydrants.


We were less then half-way through finding the hydrants when Paul and Karl arrived at the museum. They too spent their time looking through the museum as neither of them had been there before. They were delighted to find our car still outside the museum when they started looking for the hydrants themselves. They knew they had made up some time and were still in the running to win this leg of the race.

Clue #4 - "Pit Stop. Head to the Pit Stop for this leg of the race, Watipi campground on Lacombe Lake, 5km north of Blackfalds on Highway 2A." Cameron and Daniel were confident they had won this leg of the race as the other car was still in Torrington as we left and we had such a nice lead earlier. I cautioned them that we could still get lost and informed them that Paul lives in the area so he may know exactly where to go and we could still lose. This got the gloating down a bit but did cause a bit of a ruckus when we had a hard time finding highway 2A in Blackfalds. By following the signs once we got to the correct road, we discovered the pit stop was actual tipis. As we pulled in to the finish line, Cameron and Daniel clearly came in first. As winners of this leg, they each received a $20 gift certificate from their favourite comic shop.

We had run into some weather on the way into the campground but Sonia driving 10 or 15 minutes behind us got the brunt of it. She had to pull over while the hail bounced off her car.
The second team arrived about twenty minutes after us and we all enjoyed hot dogs and smores that night. The kids played tag and Trevor taught them kick the can, which they loved. At 10:00, Trevor launched some fireworks that he had bought for the trip. They were very beautiful and a great way to finish off a very fun day.


Quote of the day: "It is kind of too bad this is a race. If it wasn't, we'd have more time to spend at places." ~Paul