What's 80 Extra Miles!

These are examples of how the land and road looked on the way up Highway 40 to 43 to 2 to Dawson Creek. The last picture is of two moose out in a field.

Wednesday, May 18.

We did laundry and took our time getting on the road as we were told it was only about 4 hours into Dawson Creek and we planned to explore and spend the night there.

Not long after we hit the road as we came down out of the mountains, we spotted two moose. They were way out in the field, but they looked right at us.

We saw land that reminded us of many other areas. First it looked like northern Michigan with hills and pines. Then it looked like northern Wisconsin with hills, pines and increasing farm lands. Then it got very flat and you could see for miles like places in Montana. We saw lots of very large farm equipment with huge fields.

The town of Grand Prairie was on the way up and it was modern and big with a lot of new construction. I just don't expect to see these kinds of modern towns this far up. Dawson Creek was smaller and a little more rustic.

We saw a large black bear beside the road just past Grand Prairie. He just sat and looked at us before running into the woods. We weren't quick enough with our cameras,partly because we were so fascinated.

Our trip to Dawson Creek ended up being a little longer than planned due to my goof with the map. We were supposed to go from 43 in Grand Prairie to 2 north. Well, it turns out there are two 43s and two 2s. Luckily Bob kept watching signs and knew something was wrong after driving so far and never seeing any signs for Dawson Creek. We stopped in a gas station and figured it out. Thank God we weren't way out in a remote area. We had gone 80 miles out of the way, but found a highway to cut back across. The back road was very interesting and Bob was very gracious about it. We're still friends, but we were ready to stop at the campground when it was over. (Now I owe him. Darn!)

We made it to mile 0 of the Alcan Highway. Here we go!