Feeling Blessed

The first picture is of Ben & Me at mile marker 0 of the Alcan Highway. Next is the bear crossing right in front of us. Then the mama bear with her triplets. And, finally one of the many streams we stopped along. (No, Mike, Bob hasn't fished yet. No license. He plans to get a day one for the trip home.)

Thursday, May 19

We grabbed a Tim Horton's breakfast to go and started up the Alcan Highway. Throughout the day we saw miles and miles of rolling piney hills with pretty rivers and streams. The vastness of the wilderness along the miles of fairly good highway with so little civilization just amazes us. We crossed the Peace River, which was huge, and went into Fort St. John. Lots of oil, natural gas, forestry and agriculture are the industries in this region. The population in town is 19,000 with 60,000 in the surrounding area. The town had everything which continues to surprise us this far up.

Then, back to the wilderness. We had to slow and stop while a large black bear took it's time crossing in front of us. Then down the road, we spotted a mama bear with her triplets. We just stopped and watched them tumble and play and sit up and look at us. We felt blessed beyond words to be in the right place at the right time to have such an opportunity.

We kept seeing Sunseeker Motorhomes along the road and sometimes in groups. At a rest stop, we met a couple from Austrailia and found out this was a tour group of Austrailians using 22 motorhomes traveling from Seattle to Anchorage. We ended up meeting several of them throughout the day. They were in our age range with a great sense of humor. However, we decided to stay ahead of them for camping.

We went through the small town of Ft. Nelson where we thought we might stay, but didn't like the looks of the campgrounds, so we pushed on to keep ahead of the Sunseekers. I do want to make note that throughout this trip to date, in the states and in Canada, that there are Subway Restaurants on every corner in even the most remote towns.

As we left Ft. Nelson, we started to climb again as we entered another part of the Rockies. We finally stopped at a campground called Toad River. What a treat as we parked in the quiet pines with a great view. We met a few other couples around our age and chatted and sat out till almost dark watching for moose. As we waited, we watched large beavers working on their dam. No wonder they call them busy beavers.

In the night, I heard our neighbors little dog bark, meanwhile, Ben was fast asleep. We had left our blinds open over the dinette as I wanted to be able to see out. I got up and peeked and there were two huge moose right there beside our trailer. I woke Bob up and we watched till they drifted off. What a gift! (That's 5 moose so far, Prudie.)