Lethbridge to Mayerthorpe
This leg of our journey took us from Lethbridge to Mayerthorpe, Alberta. If you’re a hockey fan, you may recognize the names of some of the cities we went through: Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer.
I got a blurry picture of downtown Calgary through our bug-covered windshield. Every time we stopped for gas, Greg tried to clean the bugs off. It’s probably only going to get worse from here.
We left Lethbridge Thursday morning and found a quiet little campground in Mayerthorpe, Alberta to stay the night. It is a 9 hole golf course and small campground in the middle of nowhere. Greg wanted to either play 9 holes or hit balls at the driving range but Mother Nature had other plans. It started raining shortly after we got there and continued on and off until morning..so no golf. We ate dinner in the clubhouse and spent a quiet night in the RV instead. I’m sure that made the dogs happy.
We left Mayerthorpe, headed to Dawson Creek. First things first though.. a stop at Tim Horton’s for “road fuel”.
The landscape on this stretch reminded me of driving through northern Michigan with rolling hills and pine trees. There were also remnants of a couple wildfires from the past couple of years. We drove through several areas that were marked for moose activity but we didn’t see any. We did see several deer and elk though.
Alaska Highway Mile Zero
The next leg of our journey was Mayerthorpe, Alberta to Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Dawson Creek is home to the famous “Alaska Highway Mile Zero Marker”. We stopped to stock up on food and fuel before heading to the Northern Lights RV park for the night. It sits on a hill a couple of miles outside Dawson Creek. We can see the town in the distance from our site.
It ‘s pretty windy in Dawson Creek today, as you can see by my wild hair in the picture at Mile Zero. Stopping here is a huge trip down memory lane for me. My parents stopped here and took pictures in 1969 and again in 1974 on our trips to and home from Alaska. The Mile Zero sign was relocated to a new location many years ago when the highway that bypasses Dawson Creek was built. The original Mile Zero marker is still in downtown Dawson Creek but is no longer the official start and finish of the highway. The old grain elevators are now a historical museum and art gallery.
We saw quite a few deer and elk today but I wasn’t able to get any pictures. I’ll try to have a camera ready to take pictures of wildlife on our next legs though.
Tomorrow we will start the 1440 mile journey from Dawson Creek to Tok, Alaska. We are expecting that to take about 4-5 days. Sections of the highway are in pretty rough shape because of the extreme winter temperatures there. There’s lots of frost heaves, potholes and some sections are gravel. Those sections require some pretty slow travel. Good thing we are in no hurry at all!
