Yeah, I can see you waving. :roll:
D)
Yeah... with my middle finger... I had a 2 hour wait, and it was cold enough that my 6-pack of pepsi froze. Also, try to find a shop open between Christmas and New Year's. Got my truck back 20 minutes before the shop closed for New Year's Eve.
Just had a thought as to another reason why they might have gas-powered backup in that location... The interchange to the south-west has had some of the most occurrences of copper theft in the province. Around the same time as the gennie went in on the highway sign they installed some radio gear on the lamp standards. My guess is that they can remotely tell if the lights are working.
Those signs all have lead acid battery backups. The controller cabinets are similar to the large ones at intersections. The lower half of the cabinets are full of those cells that look like oversize lantern batteries. In the upper half they have a ~1000W charger/inverter similar to what you'd have in an RV, plus the sign controller and dial-up modem. Originally though, these installations had retro-reflective flip-disk signs, which would hold their message in the event of a power failure. With the new LED ones, no power = no message, thus the likely reason for gas-powered backup on the most treacherous routes.