Breathtaking.....Spectacular..........Majestic Mountains!!

On the road at the crack of 9 (it takes us an hour to get up, fold the bedding up, fold the bed up, get dressed -get dressed after the bed is folded because there is only a foot of open area between the bed and the counter top when the bed is down – makes getting dressed a little tricky!- get the 26 kids out of bed, feed the kids breakfast – milk replacer, warm water and a couple scoopfuls of meat- feed us, kids back in their houses and back in the truck). Stopped 2 hours later to let the kids out and a guy from Nova Scotia stopped to talk and look at the dogs and took a picture of our novelty set-up! Drove on good roads, good weather, sunny day all the way to Ft. Nelson where we stopped for the nite and parked in an oil refinery lot next to the train tracks. Had a quiet nite’s sleep even though when we woke up in the morning there were two other trucks parked next to us that we hadn’t even heard pull in (we run the generator all nite so the furnace will kick on and off and it makes perfect “white noise”)
On the road at 9 again (it’s amazing that no matter what time zone we are in we always get up at the same time! ---built in alarm clocks) and left Ft. Nelson (home of Terry and Buddy Streeper – we thought maybe there would be some big sign to that effect – not) and started on the Alaska Highway!!!! (AlCan). Drove a couple of hours and got in to the mountains, and I do mean mountains!!! I have never been on this and Randy was 32 years ago but doesn’t remember much of it – what a thrill ride!!!! We suppose that if you do it several times (like going up and down the hill at L Isle a Coudres with the 18% grade going down to the St Lawrence River where the bus lost control and 50 people were killed) you might even get used to it -------up and up and up and up, slow, slow, second gear, first gear, at the peak, then down, down, trying to go slow, down, down, breathe, breathe………. Beautiful mountain tops all snow covered, evergreens, snow sparkling (I have never seen snow sparkle like this – it’s like there are 50 carat diamonds sprinkled all over – it must be because of the cold and dry air??) and of course I still can’t get my camera to work!!!!! At least 2/3 of the day was in pretty mountainous landscape! Late afternoon it became just very hilly going thru a valley along a river that was breaking up –big chunks of ice floating and jammed together and that beautiful turquoise blue color!!! – still no camera –
Soon we saw signs we have never seen before……sheep crossing…….horse crossing…….buffalo crossing (you read that right…..Buffalo!!!) As we drive farther we begin to see where the snow is all chewed up (for lack of a better term….) on the sides of the road…….like something (actually lots of something’s) has been digging down into the snow looking for grass and then we see them!! 6 huge buffalo with great big horns lying down on the side of the road!!!!! We go another ½ hour and see more chewed-up snow and see 24 buffalo!!!! This group had some calves (if that’s what you call a little buffalo) and we looked on the other side of the road and not 50 feet from us there is a huge wolf!!!!!!!!!!!! It must have been the male cause there was another one smaller about 30 feet behind it – they were just standing there watching the buffalo – Randy surmised that they were stalking to see if there were any weak or sick herd members. Went a little farther and there was on humungus bull all by himself – Randy thought maybe he was really mean or he had bad breath……… Farther down the road and there were 6 more!!!!! Amazing!! As we headed into Watson Lake there were some large animals standing in the road…….one large Caribou with a huge rack and 3 females (Caribesses??) Amazing!! And me still without the camera working!!!!
Stopped for fuel for the generator just in case – we are half way across the deserted stretch and don’t want to run out. Drove another 2 hours and stopped for the nite at a rest area (really just a plowed out area on the side of the road with a trash bin…..) Left at nine again this morning and another beautiful driving day (really the only bad time we had weatherwise was that wind in North Dakota). Some steep hills but still driving through the valley with beautiful snow covered mountains on both sides (I brought the re-charged batteries in the truck with me and forgot the camera in the trailer………) It was only 10 degrees in the trailer this morning so I guess the kids won’t be too warm today driving down the road (some days it’s actually almost too warm for them even with the windows open in the trailer). Time to drop the dogs again…….and I won’t get back in the truck without the camera!