Prelude to the ALCAN
30 June 2018
Feels like Nebraska.
Today was pretty uneventful, thankfully. I rode from Hinton, AB to Dawson Creek, AB. The first part of the ride from Hinton to Grande Prairie was full of trees and hills, and rain. There was also a section of it that must have a caribou problem, because they put up a big sign warning you that the next 40km has lots of caribou. Then, just to keep you on your toes, they put cutout shapes of caribou in the ditches along the way. I guess it worked; I didn’t hit a single caribou the entire time!
I made it all the way to Grande Prairie without issue, although I am convinced that Albertans might have the crown for craziest 2-lane road passes that I’ve seen. The British Columbians were pretty daring, but those Albertans might actually be nuts. Grande Prairie felt like any suburb I’ve ever been to. It had a Starbucks or two, one of which I stopped in and spent some time doing some programming for a guy back in Dallas.
After Grande Prairie I arrived in Nebraska. If you had kidnapped, blindfolded and brought me here, I would have been easy to convince that I was in Nebraska. It had railroad tracks on one side of the road, fields of crops, grain elevators, pickup trucks and just enough trees. The weather was surprisingly nice and it was a great day for a ride, which only served to make me think further that I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
Along the way one of the towns I went through was Beaverlodge, AB. I haven’t looked up their history, but they do have a giant beaver statue out on the highway, and that was enough to get me to stop. Oddly enough, this is also where I encountered three Mormon ladies, one from Dallas. Apparently they’re doing their missionary thing up here and I was an interesting target. They gave me one of their cards with their address, but forgot to write down the city they’re based out of. Oh well.
That hair!
The last stop of the day was Dawson Creek. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I had been expecting something a little smaller. I didn’t expect a full airport, a starbucks, a super Walmart AND a Canadian Tire. Clearly we’re going to have to keep going a little farther to get out in the boonies.
Thank you kind stranger!
I got setup in the Mile 0 RV Campground. There were surprisingly few mosquitos, and the corner of the campground they devote to tent campers is right next to a pretty field. After getting situated, I was standing around debating whether to make dinner, go out for dinner, or do laundry. Thats when a kind neighbor showed up with this bowl of food and bag of cherries (At least I think they’re cherries). He explained that they had some leftover fish and wanted to me to have it because he had been in a similar camping situation before and would have appreciated a decent meal then. I thanked him at least twice and sat down with one of the best meals I’ve had the entire trip. Everything in the bowl was cooked just right, and the cherries at the end were a nice simple but delicious dessert. I’ll definitely have to do that for someone later on down the line.