DAY 15 OF OUR ALASKAN ADVENTURES

Here we are, April 29, 2009, parked in the Northern Lights RV Park in Chetwynd, British Columbia. We woke up to 20 degrees at 5am. It seems to start getting light around 4am and the sun has been coming up shortly after 5am. It has been staying light in the evening until 9:30pm and it was actually not even dark yet when we went to bed at 0:30pm. We have had to run the furnace every night and we even ran the little electric heater last evening to keep the pipes from freezing in the bins and to at least keep the inside temperature around 45-50 degrees. Despite the temperatures we have been blessed with sunny weather so far which has made the trip enjoyable. We managed to get ourselves on the road at 8am at a balmy 22 degrees. According to our records from yesterday, we have already gone 2,708 miles. We are now on the down word side of the trip as far as mileage goes. We are back on PH 97 north, and the frost heaves area making the driving a "tad" bumpy again - not good with a full bladder!! It is a good thing my mother taught me to go to the bathroom before we got in the car.
Every other line in the mile post (our Bible, thanks to Reg's recommendation) is in red (WARNINGS) for 6% down grades and curves. Curves my -------! They were unbelievable switch backs. I was glad that Bob was driving. We hit the bottom and immediately started up a 6% grade with sharp curves. Spring has not quite reached this area of B.C. and if you don't see snow, it looks more like fall - brown, brown grass. Once we reached flat ground, we passed through enormous livestock ranches on each side of the road. We arrived at Dawson Creek around 930am and
stopped for diesel at the Gas Bar at 85.9/ liter. We have learned to fill up when we are still at half a tank, because your never sure if you will find diesel available when you need. it. (You do not want to know what we have spent for diesel so far). Based on your purchase, the Gas Bar gives you credit to use at an Extra Foods store. Since there was one right there, we popped in and picked up some staples. We saved $7.50 on our bill. Not bad. Extra Foods may be owned by Wal Mart, because the stocked items are all President's Choice which is a Sam's Club brand. Dawson Creek is the end of the John Hart Highway and the start of the Alaska Highway. We swung by the famous Mile 0 Monument to take a picture. Dawson Creek is a 2,186 feet and has an average temperature of 0 degrees F in January and 60 degrees F in July. The average annual snow fall is 72 inches. When we passed through town, the road crews were busy cleaning up all the gravel on the roads from the winter and it was a mess. Alaska here we come!! You probably thought you would never hear this from my lips again, but by 11am it was actually warm enough to shed our jackets - yea! Ugh, Bob saw a dead moose on the left side of the road just before we reached a section of the highway with a 10% down hill grade - these Canadians don't seem to believe in switch backs!!! This brought us down to the Peace River Bridge and the town of Taylor. The original suspension bridge was 2,130ft. and started in December of 1942 and completed in 1945. Prior to that, travel was limited to 2 ferries with a capacity to hold 10 trucks per hour. This was one of two suspension bridges on the Alaskan Highway. It collapsed in 1957 after erosion undermined the anchor block. The present cantilever and truss bridge was completed in 1960. The road continued to be very bumpy in areas and as a result we had to decrease our speed to keep the truck and 5th wheel from shaking apart. It seemed like I got all the
really bumpy sections when I was driving - go figure! I did manage to drive down a 9% down grade to Sikanni Chief River Bridge without driving us off the mountain and just a little coaching from Bob. I have to admit that I was pretty nervous. There are a lot of natural gas explorations, drilling, and processing plants all along the Alcan between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson. The Spectra Energy natural gas processing plant at Fort Nelson is the largest in North America. It purifies the gas before sending it south through the 800 mile long pipeline between Fort Nelson and British Columbia's lower mainland. We finally pulled into Fort Nelson about 520PM and are at West End RV Park for the night. There's two other RVers here we ran into last night in Dawson Creek who live in Alaska and are headed home. One lives in North Pole, Alaska but we didn't ask him if he knew Santa Claus.