Alaska or Bust - Day 12

Day 12 – Dawson Creek, BC to Ft. Nelson, BC (Canada)
As you saw in yesterday’s blog post, we have reached the beginning of the Alaska Highway (which is just part of the network of highways that are referred to as the ALCAN – the Alaska/Canada Highways). Today’s drive traverses rolling to hilly terrain with a few pretty steep sections of highway climbing to an elevation of 3500 feet and dipping into valleys at 2300 feet. We have certainly left the plains of Alberta and Saskatchewan behind us. By the end of the day we should be able to see the Canadian Northern Rocky Mountains in the horizon to the west of us.  Just in case you are Canada illiterate... here is a visual:

And here is a glimpse of all of North America:

Despite LOTS of signs warning of moose crossing, we have yet to see any. We have been warned (only so we don’t hit one with our truck) that from here to Alaska, the moose are everywhere. However, a few things that we are seeing much of are campers/RVs, trucks, and Big Rig Semi-trucks. We rarely seem to pass a car and I’m not seeing many mini-vans either. I’m really convinced that my VW Routon would not have done very well on this trip with all our crap + the terrain. I’m just glad we are in Brian’s truck doing this trip.

We have meet a few people in the last day or two who are either moving to or moving from Alaska. It’s pretty funny to be at a lonely gas station in middle of nowhere (literally) and the car next to you is driving from Elmendorf AFB, Alaska and heading south to Moody AFB, GA. Small world. Or rather “small North America.” Speaking of North America, it just occurred to me (because I’m a little slow) that when this trip is over, we will have driven from one [southern] corner of North America to the [northern] other. Damn. Sorry… that’s just impressive.

On a different note, it’s August 1st and Abbigail turns 2-years old this week. I’m a little sad for her that she won’t get to have a birthday party with friends and family, but we will certainly celebrate with her and make the day special complete with birthday cake + presents. It will just be a little more intimate than we are used to.

Today ended with us arriving at our hotel at a very early time (ideally we like to arrive in the 3 o’clock hour sometime to give the kids time to play/swim) which was great because there was a great park in town that we took the kids to before dinner. A playground and playing soccer did the trick to burn off some built energy.

OK…another day down, only 4 more travel days to go.

Day 12 = 287 miles
Total trip = 3,076 miles