With each passing day, Alaska draws closer and closer as we keep heading northwest. Today we arrived at "Mile O" of the Alaska Highway, which will take us all the way to Tok, Alaska, on Friday night. The Alaska Highway, or "Alcan", was built during WWII out of military necessity since there was no land route to Alaska. Some of the people we've talked to about it have driven it when it was still unpaved, but thankfully it is paved all the way today. This picture is the monument that marks the beginning of the highway at Dawson Creek, BC.
We made it to Mile 300 today, to Fort Nelson. The drive was beautiful; it took us through the Northern Rockies and many times afforded postcard views of still-snow-capped mountains. The highlight of the day was seeing a mother Black Bear with two cubs. I pulled over and took this picture of them - at a safe distance, of course! The scary moment of the day was braking suddenly to avoid hitting a deer in the middle of the road. Thankfully for him and for us, he darted out of the way of our car.
We were surprised how warm it was. It hit the high seventies today, which around here is considered "hot" (the motel clerk warned me this morning that it was going to be hot today, 27 degrees, but that figure didn't really register with me!).
The kids are holding up, but we're trying to find ways of releasing some of the pent-up energy from sitting for hours in their car seats. Today we took them on a forced march around the hotel, along with plenty of "the last one to such-and-such is a rotten egg" races. Meredith has decided she doesn't mind being the rotten egg.
We're going to try and get an early start in the morning. I can't wait to see what the Alcan has in store for us tomorrow.
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