Tuesday June 1, 2010
We began our journey on Tuesday June 1st, 2010. We drove out of Anchorage around noon and headed toward Canada, crossing the border around 7:30pm. We drove thru to Whitehorse arriving around 2:00 am to stay the night there. Along the way we saw a total 8 brown bear, several swans in the surrounding lakes, and what looked to be a group of wild horses. We stopped along the side of the road to take pictures of the bears. The first set of bears appeared to be a momma bear and her cub. They were spread apart but when the cub got closer to us the momma bear came charging toward us. I was looking thru my camera and had my lens zoomed in so when she came running she looked a lot closer than she actually was but it sure startled me. Once we got to Whitehorse we quickly found our hotel. We were so tired, it was 2:00am, we hadn’t eaten any “food” (just junk), and had been on the road for 12 1/2 hours. The next morning we woke up, got ready, went down and ate some breakfast in the hotel restaurant, checked out and were ready to hit the road again. We stopped at a gas station to fuel up first, it was funny standing in line listening to the Canadians talk...eh?
Wednesday June 2, 2010
We left Whitehorse around 11:00 am on Wednesday and headed toward Muncho Lake in British Columbia which was about 462 miles away, somewhere around 8 hours. Along the way we saw a total of 6 black bears along different parts of the highway. We stopped at Watson Lake (which was about 1/2 way to Muncho Lake) to fuel up, ate at the little diner they had. As we were getting ready to pull out of town we noticed that there were some posts with a lot of different signs, we pulled over to check it out. There were rows and rows and rows of street signs, license plates, homemade signs. etc. There was a big sign that said “The Sign Post Forest”. We walked around in amazement at the vast amount of signs, but we were wondering what this place was and where did all of these signs come from. On the other side of the “Forest” we found a sign explaining this really cool place.
The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Soldier, Carl K. Lindley of Danville IL. While working on the Alaska Highway, he erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Carl K. Lindley and his wife visited the site in 1992, 50 years after his first post was erected.
After walking around even more we found the visitors center, right outside was the original sign post. We went in to ask how people get there signs up and the lady told us the bring or make their own and hang them up themselves but she had a hammer and nails if needed. We explained to her that we didn’t have anything to make a sign and she told us that we would be amazed at what people come up with. She said some people start carving away and and their way back thru hang their sign. Well since this was a one way trip for us we needed something now. We had a few household items that we overlooked, of course after the movers had already packed everything and left so we put that stuff in the back of the Suburban. One of those items happened to be a coat hanger thingy (a board with hooks on it) and we had a leatherman tool with us. We took the hooks off, Vinnie carved our names in the board, I colored it in with a Sharpie marker and we even had to screws to hang it up on a post. I think we spent about an hour doing this. It was fun and now we can say that we are part of the “Sign Post Forest”, a historical monument. I would definitely recommend to anyone that will be traveling thru to be prepared and have your sign ready to hang. It doesn’t matter the size, we saw all sizes from small to HUGE.
After that was done we were now back on the road to Muncho Lake, still 3 hours away, we were told that we needed to be there by midnight because the front desk closes at that time. There is a place called Liard Hot Springs which is on the way to Muncho Lake. We were really hoping to stop there and check it out but we were pushing the time because it was already 8:00 pm. Unfortunately we were unable to check out the hot springs, we arrived at our hotel around 11:00. We would have been cutting the time a bit too close. Oh well, more to see. I am glad that we spent the time doing the sing post forest instead.
Thursday June 3, 2010
We left Muncho Lake at 11:00 am Thursday morning and headed toward Dawson Creek, 436 miles away, so about another 8 hours. We saw another black bear, a caribou, and 2 moose. Finally, I was starting to wonder when we were going to see a moose. I was hoping to see a huge bull moose or something but no, these were 2 little babies running across the road together. The first 1/2 of our drive today was a downpour and very cloudy, made for a gloomy drive until we got out of it and the sun was shining down on us. The scenery began to change about 65 miles out of Dawson Creek, it didn’t look like we were in the middle of a forest anymore, well as much as it did before anyway...we even had cell phone service!
We arrived in Dawson Creek around 8:00 pm, got checked into our hotel. It was really nice to arrive to our hotel before midnight, we were actually able to go out to dinner. We went to a place called “Mr. Mikes”, it was fabulous! The food was delicious and the atmosphere was awesome, we had filet mignon, garlic red skin mashed potatoes. YUMMY! Our first real dinner in a week. After dinner we went to a casino called “Chances”, it was small with about 140 slot machines. We walked in with a $100 dollar bill to spend there, we left with $100.09 after a couple hours playing. Not too bad, eh?(My Canadian recognition) After that we made it back to our room and fell fast asleep.
Friday June 4, 2010
We left Dawson Creek around noon. For some crazy reason we just can’t seem to get up and get out. We wake up super early but just can’t seem to hit the road early. It is 379 miles to Edmonton, which is about a 6 hour drive, one of our shortest stretches yet. The drive was beautiful, the highway was nice and smooth and the “maximum” (speed limit) was 110 km (68 mph). That was nice to pick up a little bit of speed. Along the sides of the highway was farmland and prairies, pretty pretty! We arrived in Edmonton, Alberta around 7:00 pm. We checked into our hotel and then went and had dinner in a little italian cafe. After dinner we went and hung out in the pool and the hot tub, fun and relaxing.
Saturday June 5, 2010
We woke up and went and had some breakfast and headed out to find the West Edmonton Mall. Driving around Edmonton was crazy, of course like everywhere else the freeways are under construction and traffic is crazy. It took us a while to find the mall but we finally found it and it was so worth the hassle. What an absolutely amazing mall! This place was HUGE!! Not only was it the indoor waterpark and the indoor amusement park that seemed out of the ordinary for a mall but there were sea lions inside, a huge ship, bumper boats, remote control ships, even a tattoo shop. I don’t think I have ever seen a tattoo shop in a mall. We thought that we would run in real quick and check out the mall before we got on the road toward Montana. We parked in this massive parking garage and the mall entrance that we went in was “Entrance 58”. Are you kidding me? How many entrances does this place have? Well we were way off by thinking that we would just run in real quick. We were in there for 2 hours and didn’t even see 1/2 of the mall, so who knows what else was in there that we missed out on, but we needed to get going.
We got on the road around 3:00 pm and headed to Montana. We arrived around midnight, checked in, and went to bed.
Sunday June 6, 2010
Our plan was to wake up early and get on the road so we could drive thru, yes thru Utah and go hang out in Wendover. Of course we didn’t get on the road early, we left around the same time that we seem to leave every morning. The drive thru Montana was absolutely beautiful! We drove thru Montana into Idaho. We stopped in Ashton Idaho which is where my Great Grandparents lived while I was growing up and is now their final resting place with a beautiful view of the Grand Tetons. We drove by their old house and visited their graveside. It brought back so many wonderful memories. We continued on and arrived in Wendover around midnight. We checked into a room and thought that we were going to go down to the casino to play a little bit but we were so tired that we just went right to bed. We woke up the next morning, got ready, and went straight downstairs for some breakfast and then some slot machines. We played all day long, lost a little money but we had a great time! We stayed another night and left Tuesday afternoon.
WE MADE IT!! I'M HOME, YAY!!!
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