June 5, 2012 – Mile 0 Campground, Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada

We woke up to rain this morning and drove in it the whole day, except for about 10 minutes of sunshine. We arrived in Dawson Creek a little after 4:00 Illinois time, but when we crossed into British Columbia, we crossed into the Pacific Time zone, so we are now 2 hours behind you. Our drive here was rather uneventful; it was rainy and foggy most of the way. Most of the trip was up hills and down hills till about the last 50 miles or so, when it leveled out and had wheat fields and an occasional cattle ranch.

Larry reminded me that the drive hadn’t been totally uneventful because we had to have a tire repaired in Grand Cache, Alberta. He had been having to air up one of the trailer tires every day but couldn’t find the problem. He finally decided there had to be a leak in the valve and it was leaking air out on the rough roads. We stopped at a tire repair shop and one of the mechanics came out, took the tire off as it sat at the side of the road, put a new valve stem on, replaced the tire and we were on our way in about 30 minutes.

Larry picked this campground from recommendations in some of the campground manuals as for being the best in the area. After we got set up (finally), I told him from now on, I vote for a parking lot rather than a mud hole. There is a little patch of grass outside the door of the camper where we can get out with the dogs, but otherwise, we had to carry them from the truck because the road is just muddy gravel. I don’t think the campground reviewer was here on a rainy day. The sites are very small and angled every which way. There is very little space to our sides and there is a camper about 4 feet outside our back window. Needless to say, our shades are all closed.

Orginal Monument to Start of ALCAN

New Monument to Start of ALCAN

In center of trafic circle to point the way

After we got set up, we went downtown to take a few pictures as this is the official START of the Alaskan Highway. They have a small museum there which was interesting as they had displays with pictures and a movie about the building of the highway back in the early 40s by American engineers and American soldiers. The mud I’m complaining about would have been nothing in comparison with what they had to deal with.