Day 3

Written August 15th at Toad River

We drove 630 km, which translates to 391 miles.

Hello again! I am writing this post as I get photos from Day 1 and 2 online. This is the first time we’ve actually been able to get a post online. We did have internet access on our first night, and we used that to visit and try and get a post up. However I kept getting an error. Yesterday we stopped at a visitor’s center and I tried to get the post to go online to no avail. When it didn’t work again today even though we had good internet access, I realized there was actually a problem with the post – it was full of too many photos that were copied in. I did this because I couldn’t load the photos through blogger properly. Unfortunately blogger didn’t like that. I am now able to load photos properly, hence why I went back and created a picture post for Day 1 and added photos to Day 2! Anyway, that was a long summary to describe a delay that you probably didn’t notice….

Today started early. We were camping, and as is normal when camping, we woke up when the sun rose. Since we have traveled north, the sun actually rose earlier than we expected it to. According to Laura, the sun shone at 5 like she would’ve expected at 6 or later. It made it easy for us to both be out of bed by 6:15. It didn’t hurt that I was a bit sore from being in a coffin style sleeping bag, even though I sleep with a knee at my arm pit 99% of the time. I needed to get up and stretch!!

Our campsite was right on the cliff. It made for a beautiful view. And since we never fell into the  water, it was totally never scary.

 

No one had come around to the camp site, and we still weren’t sure how to pay. It was also cold and dewy. Therefore we didn’t waste our time – we took apart camp in probably 15 minutes, getting us on the road by 6:30. We never ended up paying for our site… we would have if we knew how. There were no signs, no drop off boxes, no one came around to ask for money and no one left anything on our car…. 

The start of our day was very very foggy. We were in a river valley that was filled with a low lying cloud. The drive up the valley was a bit windy, so with the risk of animals jumping out at any point and very low visibility, we drove nice and slow. It was fun to drive slow, because we could scan the grass and trees much closer to look for any hidden wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any. Once we reached the top of the valley we had a beautiful view of the clouds below us. 

If anyone is interested, this is where I made coffee the second time. Important details, you guys.

It only took us about a half hour to reach the Alaska Hwy! This was very exciting of course, however it was also very similar to what we had  seen before because it was technically the same hwy that we had seen before (Hwy 97). There wasn't too much to see or do on this road. Very soon we found ourselves to be in the middle of no where. The most advanced thing was a new bathroom that was heated, and had soap! It looked very fancy, and definitely out of place.

For lunch we stopped at Buckinghorse River Wayside Provincial Park. It was less than a mile off the road, which was great because most things to see or do in the area were more like 10 miles off on an unpaved road.

The river was calm in front of us, and if it were somehow warm water it would have been great for swimming.

Laura enjoying the view while I still ate and planned our trip at the table.

 We really did get into the middle of no where for good stretches of times. We could go 5 minutes without seeing a car, which may not seem that long, but 1 car passing every 5 minutes really isn't much. There were long gaps between gas stations, so we had to plan out where to get gas purposefully. There are some places that even have signs up letting people know about these long gaps, fortunately due to the planning guide that Laura bought (Milepost), we knew about the long gaps ahead of time. The road switched between paved, gravel patches and chipseal. There were stretches without line markers, however the road was always really wide and so it was never an issue. So far, even at it's 'roughest', the road is in great condition.

There have been a lot of dying trees due to a particular type of beetle. This problem is wide spread - Laura had heard about it from Montana. This made for lots of dark and small trees, and lots of trees that were red and dying. Though unfortunate for the trees, it did made for a colorful view for us.

There were a couple of beautiful viewpoints, from which this photo was taken:

The car has been treating us wonderfully so far this trip (knock on wood?). The only mishap was pulling out from this viewpoint. The viewpoint was placed on a curve, so there was little visibility. The car doesn't normally accelerate quickly because it is so heavy. To make matters worse, we were climbing a hill. Laura had to accelerate the fastest she has tried, and the car sputtered and shook like it wanted to die. It didn't really shift up, or accelerate quickly. She forced it into 2nd and it was able to make it up the hill, and we had no other problems after that. No noises, no problems accelerating or changing gears. We hope we just pushed it too hard, and that it was a one time deal.

We continued on our drive back through the Canadian Rockies. We stopped at Summit, which is the highest point along the Alaskan Hwy. Even though our altitude was only 4000 feet, we were near the tree line because of our high latitude. It made for bare mountains!!

I guess I forgot to update our animal sight seeing yesterday! We ended up seeing about 12 more deer throughout the day. Most of them were near town at the end of the day. Today we saw a similar number of animals, but more variance in their species. We saw deer in the morning, but while going through the mountains we saw goats... or sheep. What is the difference? They said they're not to be confused with Bighorn Sheep... so I don't know if that makes them goats or sheep! We also saw Red Tailed Hawks and Cariboo with Santa's Sleigh (Just kidding, it isn't winter yet. The Cariboo are on vacation.)

Where's waldo...

You can kind of see a sheep goat here. After this one I tried videoing them instead, because I found that easier to actually see them. We saw 4 or so sheep goats in all.

 Anyways, once we were out of the mountains again we really didn't see much more in the way of animals. Unforuntunately. But, the drive was still beautiful. See:

 We had planned on staying in Fort Nelson, which is a 'large' town in the area (population 1,500 I believe). However we got there too early -- like 1 or 2 pm. So, we decided to continue on and see if there was a vacancy at a lodge in the middle of no where. If there wasn't, we would have to camp again, but we figured it worth it to not stop so early. Luckily, there was space at the lodge, so that is where we are now! The place is interesting, it has a gift shop, a collection of hats, a restaurant and both cabins and places for RV/tents.

See, hats!

 After dinner we went near the water and did crosswords and took in the sun. It was very calm and peaceful. There is not much here - this is a very small town. According to the menu at the restaurant (a normal place to have information, right?) the population of this town is 100. There are 25 students who attend k-12 and live within 25 miles. There is one school room. Everyone either works on maintaining the hwy, or maintaining its travelers.

We are right on the 'river'. I forgot that this place was called river, so I thought of this as a lake. It looks like a lake in terms of shape. Plus, it is very calm. However there was a slight current, and I remember Laura remarking that it looked oddly like a river. Obviously she had forgotten that it actually was one too.

This is the room I am in currently! It is nice and recently updated. Unfortunately the water stinks. I showered, so now I stink. I apologize Laura. However if you don't shower, then you'll stink. This is kind of lose lose.

It is dark out now because it has taken me a long time to get all of these posts together including their photos. However Laura and I both noticed how it did stay lighter much later than we thought it would. In fact, Laura was gchatting with Diana, who noticed the light behind Laura's shoulder. Apparently it was pitch black in Spokane even though it was twilight here. There was a bit of sun light (though it was mostly dark) after 10 pm. So, their days are obviously getting shorter from having twilight only, however they are still longer than what we're used to!

Goodnight!