Dawson’s Creek

Dawson’s Creek is the start of the Alaskan Highway… Milepost 0. Absolutely every tourist must take obligatory pictures at the two markers in town, and I’m no exception. Yes, here I am at the actual milepost 0 marker, which is located in the middle of the street! You actually have to jaywalk to get to it, and dodge incoming traffic to get your picture taken! The locals are real nice about it, tho, and slow down a bit to give you a fighting chance.

There is a highway house right next to the milepost that has lots of information about the day back in 1942 when the Army descended on the then-tiny little town with 10,000 men, trucks, bulldozers and road building machinery to make a road to Alaska. They built the road, all 1500 miles of it, in 8 months!

Yes, it’s the World Famous Alaska Highway! And there is the somewhat less-than-world-famous me, posing on my Yamaha, set to head up the road to Alaska!

The nearby visitor’s Center has a very nice museum in it, with some of the nicest animal mounts I’ve seen, and neat displays of road-building artifacts.. well worth a visit!

  

The folks at the visitor’s center were really nice: they arranged to have someone meet us at the sign for a group photo op. The same gal that did the presentation for us on the highway came out with a big basket and collected everyone’s cameras, and then proceeded to take several pix of our group with each camera. All we had to so was stand there and look good! I suspect they have done this before. So here is the official 2014 Loosey-Goosey group photo at the start of the journey, and one somewhat less organized one of us all milling about smartly under the sign, trying to decide where to go to eat lunch or something.

  

After lunch, I knocked about town a bit and got supplies for the expedition… mostly Beer and food stuffs. I ran across this neat mural on the side of a building and figured it was photo-worthy…

We start up the Alaska Highway tomorrow! The true beginning of the adventure!

Arrival at Dawson’s Creek

Pulled into the Northern Lights RV park around 2:30 this afternoon, just in time to meet up with the group and attend a neat meeting/lecture right at the park that Dennis and Carol arranged with the visitor’s center folks from town… history of the AlCan highway, etc. Neat presentation!

  

Dennis and Ed passed out special Loosey Goosey name badges to the group… there does definitely seem to be some sort of orange fashion statement thing going on…. guess I need to get some orange clothing items (not been a high priority for me in the past, but when in Rome…) Oh, wait… Dennis got me an orange ball cap, now I fit in!

  

Afterwards, an impromptu (best kind!) social ensued, and beer and mead was shared, consumed, and pictures were taken… here are a few:

     

I’m just glad to be off the road, and happy that I don’t have to roll out of bed and drive all day tomorrow! I’ll explore Dawson’s Creek and take some pix! Signing off from British Columbia…

TELEGRAM

BFET&T  TELEGRAM SERVICE 1500 CST 05212014

--BEGIN MESSAGE

FM  MARK NEMETH

ON SCHEDULE SMOOTH SAILING   --STOP

EXP ARRV DAWSON 1600 22 MAY   --STOP

BEER SUPPLIES DANGEROUSLY LOW   --STOP

--MESSAGE ENDS  30  BREAK BREAK

Miles and Miles… oops, I mean Kilometers

Actually missed the sunrise this morning… by a fair bit! Felt good! I was up by the crack of 8 and on the road at 9, headed for the semi-dreaded border crossing into Canada. Turns out it was easy and painless. I stopped at the kiosk and answered a buncha questions, apparently the agent was taking my declaration. In a rare display of total honesty, I told him exactly what I had on board, including all those bottles of mead. He directed me to park “over there” and said an officer would come talk to me.

Two very nice border agents came over, and proceeded to ask me if I had any guns 6 different times, with slightly different slant on the questions each time. I told them NO way did I have any guns with me, but they kept asking. I guess it’s my Texas license. Then they asked me about the mead. Well, I told them the story of mead, in four-part harmony, with elaborations on all of the various aspects of mead making, mead drinking, and mead history, until I saw their eyes glaze over… I figured I had them licked at that point. They did a very brief walk thru of the RV and sent me on my way before I could tell them any additional useful trivia about mead. They probably hope I won’t be coming back thru on my way out!

Driving in Canada is a lot like driving in the plains of the USA: Same flat horizon and endless road, just some minor changes. Road signs are in French and English, and different words are used for things, but nothing hard about it.

  

My GPS reflects the big difference: everything is measured in some kind of weird numbering system that doesn’t use rods to the hectare or fathoms to the peck like the system I’m used to… Everything is very orderly and based around ones and zeros. Sort of metric-like. I know my RV has never gone “97” before! Not even downhill!

The temperature thing is probably the most confusing. it was like 25 today, so I bundled up, put on my long johns, and damned if I didn’t sweat my buns off… I finally found a cool gif to help me figure it out.

Drove about 500 miles today… that’s about 1.5 million kilometers, if I have that conversion thing down pat… I spent most of the drive doing metric conversions in my head. I did encounter a fellow refugee from Texas on the road, made me feel a lot less unique and lonely. Y’all haul, little buddy!

  

I finally landed in a nice little city park in Saskatchewan somewhere.. it’s quiet, 12 bucks a nite, Electric, water and dump… the good life. I have either 800 miles to go, or 29845629 Kilometers, to get to Dawson’s Creek. Looks like tomorrow is another day on the asphalt, and not much else. So long from Canada somewhere.

Parts is Parts

Another morning up at crack o dawn. Dag Nabbit! Weather forecast was for morning thunderstorms, so out of bed early and under the RV before 7am, working on replacing the belts and getting the bad hose off. Luckily, I had spare belts, so didn’t have to wait for the auto parts store to open. By 0730, was ready for parts… which will get there “nine-ish”. OK, have a bite to eat. Watch the weather radar, and the big orange and yellow glob of storms approaching from the West. Parts arrived at 0930, rain started at 0945. in between, I actually got the new hose installed, topped fluids, and buttoned up… hardly got wet at all! Once things calmed down rain-wise, I thanked the kind folks at Oreilley’s and got back on the road. All seems well.

Made the obligatory Wal-Mart stop for last minute items, and also stopped at Home Depot for stuff to be used later… you’ll see. The rest of a long day was lots of four-lane in the windshield, and the hum of the road. I landed just short of the Canadian border late in the eve, parked alongside a railroad track at a gas station in quite literally the dead center of Nowhere, ND. I will face the steely-eyed border authorities tomorrow morning after a good nights sleep (no damn sunrises, please!) and a shower and brekky. Wish me luck!

Across the Water

I rolled out of bed bright and early to get in line for the ferry. Yes, that’s a sunrise… I guess they still have them, even tho I rarely attend.

The SS Badger is the only coal-fired, steam-powered car ferry still in operation. Yes, that’s real coal smoke coming from the stack! I would have loved to see the engine room, but no tourists allowed.
   
There goes my baby.. into the ferry. Backwards! They loaded several full size semis and a bunch of cars. All backwards… I went in frontwards, and found my way to the breakfast buffet.
  
Underway! Shift Colors! A cold 20 knot wind across the deck kept most of the sun worshippers inside where it was warm. The lake was, well, like a lake… calm and big. I bet it gets very ocean-like at times tho. Took about 4 hours to cross.
  
On the other side, all of the vehicles were driven out and we all hopped in and drove away. Thanks, SS Badger… it was fun! I hit the road towards St. Paul, and enjoyed the scenery. There were lots of big farms, and wide open territory. My GPS offered some important navigation info…
  
All things went smoothly until I stopped for gas and noticed a large amount of fluid pooling under the RV. Egad! A power steering pressure hose was leaking really bad. I called ahead to an Oreilleys auto parts about 350 miles up the road at my next planned stop and ordered a replacement, and stocked up on power steering fluid. I figured I could keep up with the leak, but it was a big one. I was faced with a dilemma: keep rolling and probably trash the power steering pump when it ran dry, or cut the belts and continue sans power assist. I cut the belts. Let me tell you, driving a 10K LB vehicle with no power steering or brakes is not something I would recommend. Thankfully, I was on 4 lane all the way, and had no problems. I rolled into the parking lot of the Oreilleys in Rogers, MN about 8pm and settled down for a quiet nite.

Off we go!

I’m rolling!!! On the road to Alaska! Finally! Said goodbyes this afternoon at escapade, and am now parked in Ludington, MI, waiting to board the SS Badger ferry for a ride across lake Michigan tomorrow morning. YES!!! Pix tomorrow!

http://www.ssbadger.com/