The Fort is a working town, as I've heard it described. I spent Saturday morning going to yard sales and it was like a ghost town. We pitstopped at Starbucks, well...we were in the neighbourhood. That's only my 3rd latte since I've been here. OK so maybe I'm addicted to lattes. Anyway, I went to a lot of different neighbourhoods and at first glance it appeared that people were home. There were multiple vehicles in the driveways and afterall it was Saturday morning. But no one was around. It was so quiet. No one out walking the dog or washing the car and very few children out playing. The only people who seemed to be around were those having the yard sales. It felt a bit odd. But people work shift work in this town. There are no weekends here. Art told me that people don't drive their personal vehicles to work, buses pick them up and take them out into the oilsands. Hence all the vehicles in the driveways. It was hot, the air was not moving and the AC is broken in the van so getting Josiah in and out was leaving me in a sweat. People were actually having garage sales not yard sales, as everyone here has a garage, so I couldn't just drive up and take a peak, I had to physically get out of the van and walk up to the house. I didn't bother collapsing the stroller after I'd been to a couple of houses. I would just stuff the stroller into the van and quickly slam the door hoping I wasn't going to bust a wheel off. This saved me a step though. Then we'd drive on to the next garage sale with me hanging my head out the window like a dog trying to catch a breeze. The neighbourhoods are so large that people put their signs out on the main road with an address but since I don't know any of the streets I just had to hope that it wasn't too far off the beaten path. If I got really lucky there were a few signs with arrows leading the way. I didn't want to get lost as I had a limited amount of time to do this. I had to pick Art up at work, they get off at 12:30 on the day before their weekend off. I had to allow about 45 minutes for the drive out to the job site. I managed to get a few toys for the kids and met a few Maritimers but all in all not a very successful venture.

On the way to Long Lake Josiah fell asleep thank goodness. There is pretty much nothing to see. For anyone who knows Alberta you just head south toward Lac La Biche. There is a small town, Anzac, then Fort McMurray First Nations, Gregoire Lake Provincial Park, which you can't see unless you drive in and then an upscale subdivision in the middle of freakin' nowhere. Weird. I don't know, maybe they are execs from the oil companies or something. It just looked real strange out there all by itself. In between all these places there was nothing but trees and the odd house. Not even beautiful really because you're in the middle of the woods so there's not much to see. Then you come to a turn off which takes you further into the woods to Long Lake which is the name of the plant that the guys work at. Not much to see there either. After a short drive you eventually come to a security gate and they don't let you through unless you work there so I didn't even see the plant. It is a ways up the road even deeper into the bush. Just outside the gate there is an area of clearcut where there are what looks like hundreds of vehicles and then a bunch of trailers. I thought it must be a storage area but it turns out it is a living camp, a transition one, for people waiting for better accommodations on the main site. I guess it's the bottom on the barrel. Mediocre living conditions and terrible food! By mediocre I mean they don't have all the perks the other camps have like a gym, a common area etc. It's just a bunch of trailers sitting in the mud. No protection at all from the elements. It was sweltering and I couldn't put the windows down because we were being swarmed by deer flies and giant mosquitos. If we had to wait too long we would have baked but Art came out a few minutes later in a taxi. We made the long drive back to the Fort stopping briefly to check out the provincial park. Looks like a fun spot, there's a beach, yahoo! Will spend some time there on the weekend while Art is off.