Today we left the Alaska Highway and began out trip south in earnest. We planned travel for several days down through British Columbia, through wilderness and forests driving along the Cassier Highway. We got up and it was not raining, it was POURING! We got ready and headed off on the Cassier Highway. We only got about 10 or 15 miles down the road though and it got rougher and muddier and more rutted. Our top speed was only about 35 mph on the short paved stretches and about15 in the mud. It this rate, it was going to be a very long drive to complete our scheduled 300 miles. Finally, Dick turned and said, “I am having second thoughts about this route.” We drove a few more minutes, but the road was terrible. We were going to be going into an area without many cars or people. It started to just feel not only not very safe, but also stupid. So, regroup, or as the GPS voice would have said, “recaluculating.” So we turned the other way and headed much further back down the Alaska Highway to Dawson Creek, the way we came three weeks ago. We are heading for Vancouver, but there aren’t many roads through British Columbia.
“What are we seeing?” you ask. How about trees, tress, road, trees and some wildlife. You really become aware of how much of our regular day-to-day life is filled with other people. Here, it is mostly the two of us, often not even seeing people when you stop to fill up with gas.
Mostly, today it rained and rained. We DID have some nice wildlife sightings though, including 35 Wood Bison (which Dick has been dying to see this whole trip), some caribou, a moose, and five stone sheep. You just gotta love these opportunities to interact with animals. We saw a picture at one gas stop of a bison on the highway with the caption: Alaskan Highway speedbumps.
We put the sticker on our rear window highlighting our achievment of driving the Highway. We were planning on retracing our path for a couple hundred miles, but instead have now driven over 850 miles both ways. Oh well!
When we got back to mile zero of the Alaskan Highway, after a 650 mile day, we decided to stay at a hotel rather than a camp ground tonight. After a torrential rain (guess a last gasp of the wet weather, we drove into the sunlight. We even had a beautiful sunset as we entered Dawson Creek. Our plan is to relax a bit and get caught up on our blogging; Internet services is so hit or miss around here. A couple of times, even though we “had” internet service, we still couldn’t get things to upload. Frustrating! But that is the breaks in traveling. Just so you know, that is the reason we fall behind in our updates.
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