South to Montanna...Goodby Alaska

Well, we left Tok for Canada, retracing our steps down the Alaska Highway.  Earlier in this trip we thought about coming back a different way, but we need to get home sometime and adding another month on the trip probably is unrealistic. 

Traveling on the ARTT

We have decided that if they had a contest to develop an acronym for the Alaska Highway (way too much of a mouthful to be saying all the time), it should be ARTT, you could have slogans like

         Eschew Boredom, Travel the ARTT

Why ARTT, that stands for Asphalt Road Through Trees.   After five days or so, you'll understand.


Our first stop was at Cottonwood RV park at Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory.  We stayed there on the way up..where I took the picture after midnight.  It was such a nice place that we decided to stay there on the way home.  That is an area where there is a concentration of grizzly bears, so we went out driving to see if we could see any.  We drove up the highway and over gravel roads.  All we found was a guy named Eddie whose car had broken down at the end of a boat ramp at the lake.  His alternator was bad and he was really stuck.  So we jumped his car and followed him back home to Burwash Bay.  He got about 5-7 miles up the road before his battery went flat again.  We'd pull the cars together and give his battery another boost and off we'd go.  While we were standing around waiting for the battery to charge, I learned that he had panned gold out of the mountains there, dodged grizzly bears while working on the highway, and was on the way to Haines Junction to check on a Sasquatch sighting when his car broke down.

Leaving Cottonwod RV park, we drove down to Watson Lake, got gas, and kept going the road was good and the evening was mellow.  Along the way, we met these guys.  There were 43 of them wandering across the road and down the shoulders.  We stopped for the night at the Coal River Lodge and RV Park.  A simple place, not dolled up, run by a really nice, hard working family.  We had a good sleep and a nice breakfast.  We were on our way.

 

It was a long day's drive through four mountain ranges and a lot of road construction to get to Ft. Nelson, where we spent the night.  More buffalo along the way.  They can really bring traffic to a stop!

FLASH:  SOMETHING WIERD HAPPENED TONIGHT....IT GOT DARK!

I guess we are going to have to get used to darkness again.  It was kind of handy being avle to do things as late as you wanted to.  Summer in Alaska is not for morning people, they were still paving the roads at 11 pm.  If you do that, you won't get up early very often.  I wonder about winter time, though.

Back to Milepost 0 at Dawson Creek. 

 We're winding the trip backwards. Reversing what we did on the way to Alaska.   After a day's driving we are back to the south end of the Alaska Highway.  We hate to leave it.  Tomorrow we are going to head in a slightly different direction.  We came up through the Canadian Rockies and doglegged west to get to Dawson Creek.  Going back we are going southeast to Edmonton.

Made it to Edmonton

This set of roads is obviously the main thoroughfare from Edmonton, the Provincial Capital, to the northwest part of the province.  It is a 4 lane  divided highway all the way with a 68 mph speed limit on it.  (Actually 110 km/hr, but that's 68 on our dial.)  You leave the hills and get into the prairie lands pretty quickly.  We stayed in a park just west of the city with some people who were kind enough to let us park on the lawn because all their spaces were full.  This is a big holiday weekend in Canada and they are certainly out holidaying.  Good for them.

Lethbridge is next.

Leaving the Edmonton area we headed south on Highway 2.  More fast, divided highway; again obviously a major thoroughfare.  This time for I 15 in Montana.  Traffic was terrible and I witnessed some of the worst driving habits I have ever seen.  Less than 1 car length between cars and others weaving through the traffic.  All at 68 mph.  I'll bet that the traffic toll on that road is horrible.  I ran out of energy at Lethbridge, about 60 miles from the border so we stopped at an RV park.  Seems like there was some bid time baseball league going on in town and everything was full.  But, while we were standing at the counter, the clerk took a call from someone who had to cancel due to family problems.  So, we got a place!  Next stop, the lower 48, hurray.