Heading for Home

As I previously said, when I left Dawson I wanted to start heading for home in the most direct way. I headed down from Dawson to Whitehorse, where I got back on the Alaska Highway. I ended up putting on over 400 miles and camping on Teslin lake in the Yukon. I was back driving through the Northern Rockies, which is a very beautiful, remote area. It is chock full of mountian goats, bears and moose.

Having gone through the Northern Rockies on my way north, I kept thinking these are the Grandpa mountains of the Rockie Mountain Range. They must be older than their southern brethren. They are a little more slope shouldered, yet still a beautiful area with gorgeous lakes between the mountains. The driving is very winding and narrow with big drops on either side of the road.

The next day I continued down the Alaska Highway to Fort Nelson and stayed in the Bluebell Motel after asking the front desk girl if they had good internet availability in the rooms. She told me that they had wifi and it would be good. Well, for about a half hour it was and then it was up and down for the next hour until I finally gave up. I can't tell you how frustrating it was getting a decent connection in the hotels in the rural northland. Fortunately, I found an internet cafe in town and was able to put out the last entry on Dawson.

I'm currently in Whitecourt, Alberta, about 80 miles west of Edmonton and it's Sunday morning. I continued from Fort Nelson through Fort St. John and that's where you reenter civilization and higher populations. I stopped in Dawson Creek to give the truck a well earned oil change and car wash before continuing on to Whitecourt. This is a very heavily forested area and after seeing lots of moose warning signs on the road, I asked the front desk girl if there were a lot of moose around here, she said that there are so many that they come into town all the time.

I'm on a kind of cannonball run to get home and that's why I plotted out this route through the flatlands toward home. From here I'll go through Edmonton and southeast through Saskatchewan before heading south into North Dakota. According to the GPS, I've got about 1,900 miles to go. It's so true of travel that you're always excited to leave, but it's always good to get home and I'm sure looking forward to pulling in the driveway on Butterfield Lane.

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Part of trip: Alaska or Bust

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