Day 5 – Fort Nelson

Today, we had a shorter drive, around 300 miles, all in BC. Now that we’re on the Alaska Highway, we’re using a guidebook called MilePost.  It’s a great book, it lists all the gas, groceries, restaurants, hotels and points of interest for every mile of the entire 1390 mile road.  Jeff used it to plan our route and hotel stays.  

There weren’t too many places to eat on today’s route, so we stopped at a Safeway in Dawson Creek to get some lunch food before heading out.  Later in the morning, we saw sign for Duhu Lake and picnic area, so we drove down to the lake for lunch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful day, warmer than we expected – around 90.  No more canola, there are some rolling hills, and the Rocky Mountains are visible off in the distance.  As far as you can see, there is forest.  In the afternoon, we stopped and hiked around Buckinghorse Lake:

 

 

 When we got to Fort Nelson, we drove the jeep into the Muskwa River:

As we drive further north and get closer to the Arctic Circle, the days are getting long – tonight, sunset is 10:12 and sunrise tomorrow is at 4:22.  When we get to Deadhorse, there will be 24 hours of daylight!

Cut Knife and Beaverlodge

Yesterday was the longest driving day so far. It was only 14 miles longer, but due to traffic, road construction, and 2-lane highways, the driving time was about an hour longer. We drove the rest of the way through Saskatchewan, all the way through Alberta and entered British Columbia:

We saw a lot more canola – I looked it up and found that canola is a made up name from Canadian and oil, it’s a hybridplant developed in Canada in the 60’s and 70’s.  There are 10 million acres of it planted here, it’s one of their largest cash crops. It’s also nice to look at:

Also a lot of small towns with interesting names like Cut Knife and Beaverlodge. There is a huge statue of a beaver in Beaverlodge:

We ended the day in Dawson Creek , BC. Today, we start driving on the Al-Can, or Alaskan Highway:

Moose Jaw

Today (well, yesterday) we drove through northern North Dakota and the province of Saskatchewan, driving past cities with names like Moose Jaw.  The landscape was very peaceful – miles and miles of crops.  As far as you can see, on both sides of the highway, there are fields, with an occasional farmhouse.  It looks like a very lonely life – thank you, farmers!  They grow a lot of canola – it’s really pretty, bright yellow:

 

 

   We knew we would have to worry about buying gas in Alaska, but it actually started to become an issue earlier.  Early in the day, according to the GPS, there was a town with gas, so we planned a stop.  When we got to the town, we found that the one gas station was closed.  In fact, the town consisted of a couple of dirt roads, a few houses, and a post office.  We drove on and stopped at the next town.  It was pretty much a gas station and 2 houses.  Hanging on the bulletin board in the store part of the station , there was an interesting picture:   

We covered about 680 miles again, we stopped at Saskatoon for the night.    

Culvers, Mall of America

Today we saw lots and lots of corn driving through Illinois, and something new that I don’t remember from when we lived there – wind farms with hundreds of wind turbines.  In Wisconsin, we passed by the Dells, bringing back memories of visiting the huge indoor water parks during the long, very cold Chicago winters.

We stopped for lunch at a Culvers – a Wisconsin-based chain that serves the best hamburgers – or butterburgers as they call them- and really delicious frozen custard. We like Culvers so much, we plan our driving around their locations!

 

We also drove through Minnesota – lots of miles covered today!  I had never been there – St. Paul/Minneapolis looked nice.  We stopped at the Mall of America – I didn’t think I would like it, but I did. It’s got everything for a winter break with the kids- an aquarium, indoor water park, indoor Nickelodeon theme park, huge Lego store, every store you could imagine and movie theaters and restaurants.  We really should have gone there instead of the Dells!

After dinner,  Culvers 🙂  we drove to North Dakota.  Glad the hotel has a hot tub, because Jeff drove 670 miles today!  We are now halfway to the start of the Alaska Highway.

Day 1 – Horseheads to Morris

Off to a good start – today we drove from upstate NY to Illinois.  A long drive we’ve made many times – we used to live in Illinois and traveled to NY to see family several times a year.  One lucky thing happened – Jeff went to adjust a jerry can and found that the lock was jammed.  We drove to a hardware store and were headed in to buy a bolt cutter, when we noticed a truck repair van parked next to us.  Jeff talked to the guy and he cut the lock off for us – yay!  Shout out to OnSite Truck & Trailer Repair of Shorewood, IL!