The clouds had left and we awoke to a sunny morning. It was a fresh and clean start for the journey. Grand Prairie, Alberta was about 60 miles East of British Columbia. The first order of business was to find the Millenium Sundial. You gotta love a roadside attraction.
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| 40' Millenium Sundial |
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| 9:30 AM start of day for us |
Just a short drive down the road and were in for the treat of Beaverlodge, Alberta and the world famous Beaver Statue.
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| Me and the Beav! |
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| Tom and his Beaverish Smile! |
It was a start of a wonderful day and it was going to prove to last. We entered into BC and a few miles more and were in Dawson Creek, Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway.
In March of 1942, after feeling a threat from Japan, Canada and Alaska joined forces to build this 1500+ mile road from Dawson Creek, BC to Delta Junction, Alaska which would then connect to the road going to Fairbanks. It only took 8 months and 12 days to complete the AlCan Highway, now known as the Alaska Highway. Dawson Creek celebrates this joint venture with a few monuments in the center of town as well as a friendly visitor center offering as much information as one can handle.
The original road was crude as it was literally just rammed through the wilderness. The road has been shortened over the years as the yearly maintenance due to washouts or slides have given he opportunity to straighten the road out a bit.
Here is were the journey really began. And this is also were we got our third and final ding of the trip.
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| Final Ding |
As always is the case, we needed to get some petro along the way. Sometimes we win out by finding a reserve along the way and sometimes we don't. Tom saw a sign for a left turn to a reserve. We took the chance. We were down to 80 miles left in the tank, so we took the left on a fine road. We traveled about 15 miles in when we ran into a work crew and a flagger.
We decided to carry on and after they waved us through the construction site to repair a major washout. We kept on going down into a valley and after another 10 miles or so, we saw the reserve. It seemed to consist of a single farm. No petro. Maybe there is more of it further down the road. Maybe? Let's go see. More and more miles, almost to the point of no return says the 50 miles to empty light.
We finally gave up when we reached the 40 miles to empty. Stopped the car, had some lunch and let the dogs sniff around the area. Now we had to go back up. I don't know why the return is always shorter, but soon we were back at the washout. I took a picture of this lovely flagger who liked Luther & BuddyJack as they poked there heads out the window.
Fortunately, there was some petro a few miles up the road. We continued Northwest along Rt. 97 headed towards Fort Nelson. We stopped at a wonderful health food store called Down to Earth and then had a bite to eat at Dan's Neighborhood Pub.
Our meal was mediocre but the service was good. I asked the server for a good location in town to run the dogs. She recommended the river we crossed as we came into town. It seemed like a good idea, so I asked her if they allow renegade camping at the river. She stated, non-chalantly, "Do you have a gun?" It took us by surprise, but I guess the bears come down to the river and may find us appealing. Tom quickly took note and put the end to the thinking of renegade camping.
She then told us of the Liard Hot Springs located about 3 hours away. It was 5ish and the doors closed at 8, so we decided to book it to the hot springs. We stopped out of town and played some fast ball with the dogs and then back in the car to reach our next destination.
We traveled at a gast clip, hoping to get to Liard by the time that it closed. It was a pretty drive, although it would have been nice to be doing it in the morning as we were passing signs for the "Best Cinnamon Rolls in the World" and then the "Best Cinnamon Rolls in the Galaxy." We had no time to stop, though.
We never reached our destination. At least not that night. The highway was cutting through the mountains, and the timing was just not going to make it work. We decided to stop at Summit Lake, a beautiful spot in the BC Rockies. It was going to be perfect for the dogs in the morning as the lake was large and clear. I had been promising them a swim since we left and there has not been a good spot until we reached Summit Lake.
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| Our Campsite for the night |
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| Water everywhere |
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| Summit Lake |
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| Wildflowers |
We set up camp, paid our bill and settled into the tent. The babbling stream could be heard as there was no other noise around. We played some cribbage and went to sleep. The nights have turned to days, but it seemed that Tom was doing okay with this never-ending days, as he slept as well.
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