Wednesday, June 11, 2008

 

Tim went to the auto parts store early this morning to get some oil for the vehicle and found out the time was one hour earlier than we expected.  I guess we crossed into Pacific Time zone yesterday and didn’t even know it.  We had cereal and juice for breakfast.

 

Today we get on the Alaskan Highway as it begins here in Dawson Creek, British Colombia.  There is a place in town at the official beginning of the Alaskan Highway called Mile 0 so we had to get our picture taken there.  There were many people getting their picture taken so we asked someone to take a picture of our whole group. 

 

The Alaskan Highway was built in 1942 to be a military highway.

 

The Alaskan Highway is a two-lane road and so far it have been paved with some areas very nice with a shoulder and other places there is no shoulder.  We went through one area that didn’t have any markings on the road for the centerline or the edges of the road.  There has been a little bit of construction.  Of course since this is only a two-lane road, any construction reduces the road to one lane and means we have to stop and wait for our turn.  Some parts of the road are gravel and we are not sure whether that is temporary until it can be fixed or if it is fixed.  We are currently stopped at a construction site and they told us it would be a five to ten minute wait. They are filling a very large chuckhole with gravel.  We are actually waiting for the work to be done not waiting for our turn with the traffic.  The chuckhole is one lane wide and the equipment is in the other lane so we will wait until they are finished before we proceed.

 

Our first stop this morning was at the Shepherd Inn where they specialize in fresh baked items.  Their baked goods were very big so we decided there would be enough for everyone to have a taste.  We bought a cinnamon roll, a blueberry muffin, a raspberry bar, and a no bake cookie.  They were delicious and worth the stop.

 

There are signs all along the highway warning us to watch out for wildlife but most of the way the signs have seemed like they were teasing us.  We have heard that there are bears, caribou, deer, stone sheep, elk, and moose.  We got to see stone sheep, deer and a moose.  The moose was actually in the road in front of the vehicle ahead of us.  Once the moose decided to move, he tried to run and it appears that God didn’t make them for running quickly or for great distances like horses.  The moose ran like he was pretty uncoordinated.

 

Becky remembered Muncho Lake as a place her family went to when she was a child.  They also went to Liard River Hot Springs so we are planning to go there tomorrow.

 

We have been driving most of the evening in beautiful sunshine but when we got the our final destination (our campground) it started raining and the temperature was cold so we were sad that we would have to set up camp in the rain.  After we registered and pulled the campers around to the campsite the rain quit and we got to set up camp without rain.  Thank you God. 

 

We cooked spaghetti over our camp stoves and had French bread, corn, salad, carrot and celery sticks and it was the best meal we have had for a few days. 

 

Driving today was from Dawson Creek to Muncho Lake.

 

Mileage for the day: 457

Temperature high: 60’s

Camping fee: $34.00

Price for gasoline: $1.66.9/liter