Windy

We are camped on top of a hill overlooking the city of Dawson Creek. It is a beautiful view, but extremely windy during our stay. The rest of our guests arrived this morning and we are finishing up the last chores including a few more loads of laundry.

This afternoon we have a welcoming session with a speaker named Keltie from the Tourism Bureau. She showed slides and gave a history of the Alaska Highway. Then we headed downtown to take pictures at the Dawson Creek sign that is the beginning of the Alaska Highway. Later we had a dinner and orientation at a local restaurant where we handed out the guide books and forms. Tomorrow morning we set off on our adventure.

9 to 5

Oh yes. I am a working girl, not in an office, but in the beautiful great outdoors. It is sunny and windy today and Jeff and I are busy greeting guests. I am also spending lots of time on a pay phone reconfirming reservations and that kind of stuff. We purchased a Canadian calling card since there is a one dollar per minute surcharge to use our cell phone in Canada.

Jeff has been dispatched to town to do some shopping and errands and I am happily doing chores around the RV. Ziggy and I took a long walk and she is such a good girl as long as there are no other dogs around. She is so well travelled and we enjoy her company. She has finally figured out that she can sit or lay down while we drive and that is making a positive impact on all of us.

More shopping at the WalMart as we needed a new DVD player so we can watch all the movies we brought with us. Later we cooked dinner and met a few more of our trekmates.

In My Life (There are Places I Remember)

Slept late again and drove about two hours to Dawson Creek. We have finally arrived at the starting point of our trek. We’ll have two days to organize, meet our fellow trekkers and do the orientation for the guests.
On the way into town we stopped and had our oil changed in the RV. After lunch we checked in and since we had stayed at this campground last year everything is familiar. We spent a quiet afternoon getting settled and meeting a few guests who have arrived early and later made a run to the grocery store. Cooked a simple dinner, watched some TV, did some paperwork and got to bed just after 10pm.

M is for the Many Things She Gave Me...

I don't know if that's the name of the song, but it spells Mother, a word that means the world to me. I am happy today for all my blessings. I woke up to a phone call from Brian. It was 1:00am in Tokyo and so good to hear his voice wishing me a happy day. So sweet of him to remember. Jeff was especially wonderful all day and took me out to a lovely dinner even though we are far from home.

So where in the world are Judy & Jeff? Grande Prairie, Alberta - Wow!

We slept until 10am and slowly got started. Drove northwest from Edmonton and remembered all the fun things we did there last year. It was a few hours drive to Grande Prairie and we passed miles of farms, grazing fields and forests. Lots of signs warning of moose crossing the road, but we didn't see any today

We're staying at the Tamarack Campground just south of the city. We stayed here last year and remembered it being a lovely place. While driving to dinner we passed a huge complex processing logs into lumber. The photos show some of the piles of logs and the school buses showing how high they are piled. Last year we had time to explore the area and we visited a nature center where we saw and photographed a ruddy duck. His photo is on this blog June 2007.

Tomorrow we go to Dawson Creek where we begin our trek.

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends.

Mothers' Day

Here is the Mothers' Day card Ziggy sent Judy. (This link probably won't work after some finite perod of time.)

Click here

Saskatoon

I love saying the name of this city. Actually - I like the city. This is the second time we stayed here. Last year was in a campground north of the city. It was a great campground, and we really liked it.

Last year we needed to get some work done on HaRVey the RV and we found a dealer in Saskatoon who could handle it. They went out of their way to be helpful. While we were waiting for the service to be done we went to the local Wal-mart and did some shopping. We also had breakfast in the McDonald's inside the store and hung out for a while.

What does this story have to do with this trip? This year we stayed in the parking lot of that same Wal-mart!

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had intended to go across Montana on a scenic route that took us 200 miles out of our way. Well the weather was not conducive to a long scenic drive (rainy and 39 deg), so we headed north from Williston toward the Canadian border.

Crossing into Canada on Route 16 we were asked the question I expected from the Canadian customs agent after she asked where we were from: "Why are you crossing here? It's not on any direct route from South Carolina." I know that smugglers, etc.sometimes use the smaller border crossings to avoid scrutiny.

I explained how we had aborted our scenic route, and she seemed to be happy. I was happy too as we had eaten lunch at the small diner where I had a hot roast beef sandwich and fries, all smothered in brown gravy! A perfect meal for a cold, rainy day.

Cherish

It's Saturday and the entire day is spent travelling. We drove through Saskatoon and west to the province of Alberta. Tonight we are camping outside of Edmonton at a campground we stayed in last year. Jeff and I did laundry, cooked dinner and watched some TV.

Canada is a beautiful country and we enjoy the drive time to relax and watch the scenery. I love the cows and calves and all the ducks that populate every pond. We passed the Elk National Park and there were herds of bison along the road. You never get tired of seeing these beautiful animals.