The Long and Winding Road . . .

Day 4 Edmonton to Fort Nelson . . .

We stayed up late and awoke early and made a good breakfast before we left Russ’ house. I had one quick trip to the hardware store to finish my plumbing project before we left and we were there when the doors opened at 8 am. We quickly made the repairs and were on the road by 8:30 am heading west out of Edmonton towards Grand Prairie.

Today is a long day of driving . . . with many horizons . . .

both behind us and in front of our path . . .

Driving the Great Plains of Canada is a monotone of shades of brown. Spring is in the air but not quite arriving so the green season coming is still a few weeks away. The rolling hills . . . the same scene repeating itself in front of your view through the windshield slowly readying oneself for the beautiful changes tomorrow driving through the mountains of the Canadian Rockies.

Our one hiccup on the trip was the interchange that was added to the approach of Grand Prairie. It had changed since my last trip and we were running low on fuel. Charlie’s map directions were telling us to head on the wrong road so we made the turn looking for a gas station and I quickly realized the town had grown and changed drastically in 5 years. We turned the trailer around and headed back into town and discovered the major changes to the road leading into town.

I found my familiar station and we took on fuel as we were empty . . . and decided it was time to get our back up fuel cans for the ‘remote’ areas to come on the trip. $ 125.00 later for a fill up we then headed to WalMart to buy two 5 gallon cans. We would soon be on stretches of road with no services for hours.

We arrive in Dawson Creek, British Columbia at 3:50 in the afternoon.

Finally to the starting point of The Alaskan Highway, a 1,523 mile long winding road that snakes it way through two territories and ending in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Dawson Creek is about the half way point on the trip.

An almost impossible task, the highway was started on April 11, 1942 and was completed just over 7 months later on November 20, 1942. This was mainly due to the threat of war that was going on around the world. Japan had bombed Dutch Harbor on June 4, 1942 and the little known “Alaskan war” in the Aleutians chain was on.

We drove through the small oil processing town of Taylor (my daughter’s name) and luckily this trip did not have the rotten egg smell like the previous trips.

Another fill up in a nowhere town of Wonowon (milepost 101) for $ 72.00 and we continue our way to hopefully a good night’s sleep.

More horizons . . .

We can see the mountains in the distance that we will be climbing into in the morning for what should be the prettiest day of the trip.

We arrive in the town of Fort Nelson at 8:30 pm after our mini journey from Edmonton. We make it in time to refuel once again for another $ 72.00 and check into a small motel that has the only restaurant in town. Our arrival is just 10 minutes before they close so we order our meal, a couple of beers and settle in for a much needed meal.

We relax while eating our dinner and watch television about forest fires as we eat and watch the bar maid clean up as we are the last customers of the day.

Miles drove today: 676 miles

Miles driven so far: 1,742.2 miles

Ice