So I left the hotel @ 5am to make good time....& to avoid any damage charges. I had this plan that I would dye my hair a brilliant colour for the trip so incase I was abducted, my friends could start searching on my route for a woman with fuscia hair. The bathroom was covered in fuscia even as much care & cleaning I did afterwards. The next problem about leaving that early in the morning is that the gas stations aren't open that early. In most of Canada, they don't have pay-at-the-pump plus they prefer to fill you up themselves (and to get the dogs off of you). But I did find one blessed station that was open. I was wearing camoflague pants so they gave me a 10% off redneck discount & paid for my breakfast!
My lunch break spot was Watson Lake. I made the assumtion that if they had the famous Sign Post forest that they would have food options. I was wrong. This picture is just a small segment of the forest. They are about 16 feet tall so I took the picture from across the road.
They was a lot of stop & go when I got into British Columbia. Many wildlife: caribou, elk & bison. Canada & Alaska that the only wild herds of bison on the continent. The do love to stand in the road. There is something about the gravel that they use up here that keep a certain type of burrowing flies away & so the herds love to stand on the roads. I'm not joking. So you have to patiently wait for them to move.
It was completely fall when I left Alaska so getting past the Canadian Rockies some of the green started showing up as I drove back into Summer. Very beautifull plateaus started to show up but the lakes still had the same glacial minerals that made them the aqua blue.
I think that very rarely can you find a little piece of heaven. But the last of it was in Toad Lake. I pulled into this gas station & was ofcourse greated by their freindly dogs. I went inside and the elderly store keep was baking over an iron oven. She pulled out peanut butter cookies & gave me a hand full for the road.
If you were wondering what Itchy was doing this entire time. Hanging in there, tough relocation.
She needed her rest because we soon started to see fence posts! The first ones in the entire trip. Which meant that we were at the end of the Alaskan Highway, Mile 0, Dawson Creek. Dawson Creek is not to be mistaken for Dawson City where you get shots in a bar with frozen toes in them....but that's an entirely different story. We took a walk around and Itchy was a hit! You would of thought that the circus was in town. Entire groups of people were coming out of the stores to see what in the heck she was.
The land went flat after that & soon we were into Fort Nelson. I thought we would stay at the Ramada & live it up, but it wasn't that fancy. They had 'special' rooms for those traveling with dogs which meant that we were sleeping in a glorified kennel with tile floors and metal doors. The clerk was nice though & let me go behind the counter to use his computer to let everyone know that I was alive. No cell phone reception yet.