Day 8 and more of the same

Another day cut short by rain. Hereafter, I'll only mention rain if it doesn't happen that day. But I did make it on to the Alaska Highway! !

The day started out great. Slightly cool but just right for riding. The mesh jacket was a little cool so I put the liner on also and headed out of Grand Prairie for the Alaska Highway. Light car traffic but a LOT of motorhomes and big trucks. Turns out Alberta is the Texas of Canada. Everything is about oil in this providence. Night before last, in my room in Red Deer, I didn't have a phone book or a bible but I did have a copy of the "Canadian Oilfield Supplies and Services Directory". It had every company a person could ever want to know that had anything at all to do with the oil industry. It was about the thickness of a St. Louis Yellow Pages book. I guess that's what's important to all the people who stay in hotels in Red Deer?? 

After seeing that directory, I realized that a lot of the truck traffic I had seen had been transporting large pieces of equipment. So the traffic is probably oil related also. That continued to be true today on my way to Dawson Creek and the beginning of the Alaska Highway. 

Saw my first Canadian animals today. Dead and alive. Saw one moose dead by the shoulder of the road. Saw a deer from a fairly good distance away. I was maybe 150 yards from him and he was below me about 50 feet. He watched me go by and then went back to foraging. I'm supposed to be getting into moose country so I've been watching really hard to make sure I see any before they become a problem. 

I stopped in Dawson Creek and took a few pictures of the "tourist" mile zero marker of the Alaska Highway and I also took some of the "original" mile zero marker. It's a couple of blocks away from the tourist one but the area it's in can't support all the people that were coming through just to have their picture taken in front of the marker. The original marker is still there. It's just that not every tourist knows there is another one in town. I couldn't take my picture with the marker so I put the bike up near it and took its picture with the marker. 

While having lunch, a couple pulled into Subway (I sure eat there a lot!) in a T-Rex. I've never heard of one but it's basically a three wheeled fancied up gocart. It has somewhat of a body on it and what could be locking motorcycle hardbags on either side of the rear wheel. The two front wheels steer and the rear wheel is driven. I have seen a vehicle similar to this in St. Louis, but it wasn't a T-Rex. It didn't have a name on it but it was built around a BMW K1200 motorcycle. I don't know what the basics of the T-Rex are. I'll have to research that. It didn't have a top or side windows so I wouldn't want one. You might as well ride a motorcycle as be in one of those. 

Just North of Dawson Creek there is a turnoff to a paved road where you can ride on some of the original Alaska Highway from the old days. When the highway was originally built, as soon as it was finished they actually started work on eliminating a lot of the curves and making the road shorter. Any of the road they eliminated, they just left it there. This particular turnoff was so you could go to the Kiskatinaw Provincial Park and also so you could drive over the only remaining totally wooden bridge still in service from the original Alaska Highway. This means it was built some time in the mid to late '40s. 

So I take the turn off and start cruising down the "old" Alaska Highway. Boy was it in sad shape. It's a good thing I was only going 5k on it. Cruising along about 50 mph, not a care in the world, went by the entrance to the park, still heading for the bridge when WHOA BABY, who put the marbles on the road and where did the pavement go? While the book said it was a paved road, it turns out that one portion of it, just before you get to the bridge, is gravel. I'm trying to bleed off speed without ending up out in the trees and having a grand time. Acting like I know how to ride on pea gravel. I managed to remain upright and soon the pavement came back. By the time I got back on pavement, my focus was narrowed quite a bit. Before I was on autopilot and then BANG, I'm zeroed in on one thing. I'm going to have to be more observant from now on, as I think this is common all the way into Alaska. 

I rode over the wooden bridge just to get a look at it and take a couple of pictures. It was dry when I went over it. I don't think I'd want to try it if it was wet. I imagine wood, especially wood polished by sixty years of traffic, could be rather slick if wet. 

Going back out, the gravel wasn't near the problem it was going in. Totally different mind set. 

I made it as far as Pink Mountain where I'm now sitting in my room at the Pink Mountain Motor Inn, hoping it won't be raining in the morning. If I'm ever going to get any distance at all, I need dry weather. 

This place doesn't have wifi so this won't go out until tomorrow some time. I think future updates might not go out on the same day if wifi isn't more common. We'll see.

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