Here we go again!!!

After we left Dawson creek we saw something big and brown on the side of the road ahead…………you guessed it!!!!! It was a moose, only this one was not up and walking – I thought about taking a picture but thought it might be a bit tacky ----
So we went down the big hill at Taylor and I will try to post some of the movie I took for you – I don’t know that you will get the full effect of a 10% grade but I will try!
Right now we just passed through Ft. St. John and into Charlie’s Lake and the weigh station was open so we had to go through. Randy was stopped and is in the office with our paperwork. What else could happen????!!!!!
Saturday:
To continue with the weigh station story – Randy came back out and told me to get the check book, they were going to make us get a fuel permit and a visitor license totaling almost $300!!!!!!!!!!!! We went round and round with them about the fact that it is a recreational vehicle, but he said that didn’t matter – then he called for me to the lady to tell me what to get and how to pay and she asked me how my day was going……………..I told her good up until now! And how we are trying to get to Alaska on a budget – she talked to the guy again and somehow they agreed to let us pass without the permits! Whew!!!
Off again – saw two more “not standing” moose and then a mother and her “mooseling” – that’s more than I saw last year going both ways!! Then we saw 2 elk on the roadside!!!! Close enough to spit at!
Made it to Ft. Nelson to Terry Streeper’s house to pick up a sled that they are donating to the Rondy for raffle to get day money (so if you do the best time for the day but don’t win the race you may still get extra money>>>). We got there just in time to see Debbie before she went to a funeral and for lunch – we met the 2 dog handlers they have living with them this year from the Chezk (spelling?) republic named Kat and Tom – they are very nice young couple and will stay in Canada until late spring – they actually wrote to Terry and asked about the position because they have seen how successful Streepers have been and wanted to learn about training sled dogs from them. Last year they were in Norway handling. Very interesting.
Well it was 1 o’clock and time to make a decision about whether to start into the Rocky mountains or to stay overnite and start tomorrow – we looked at the weather and it said no snow for the next several days but we had had that terrible snow storm and didn’t know what the roads would be like –thinking they probably wouldn’t get better any time soon, we took off. The worst part is going up to Sheep mountain and then down the other side – the roads were snowy but mostly covered over with sand and not too bad………..going up. Coming down was like the scariest carnival ride I have ever been on – one was especially bad – didn’t have hardly any sand or gravel on it and sharp drop off…….down to a curve with a 2 foot guard rail that if you didn’t make it, you would drop off a cliff! Things got a little better as the day started getting darker (it’s only light from about 8:30 until 4:30) and we were stressed enough and stopped on the roadside for the nite. The temperature dropped and we saw that it was -5 this morning. Rather than wonder about whether the truck would start in the morning we kept it and the generator running all nite. Up in the morning at 8 breakfast for the dogs and on the road. O yeah, as we were leaving we saw there were wolf tracks 25 feet from the trailer – this morning the dogs had howled in synch twice and I thought I heard howling from outside the trailer!!!! Beautiful sunny day after all cloudy yesterday – the mountains are breathtaking with the snow on them and all of the trees – got some great pictures of them this year (last year my camera froze and we didn’t get any!) Moving right along the road, not as good as yesterday’s surfaces, but less mountainous ups and downs (still scary occasionally!!) Passing thru the Muncho Lake area where the road runs up next to the lake on the left and shear rock face on the right and lots of bad you-cant’-see-what’s-coming curves, a semi truck comes at us from around one of the curves and Randy moves over to the right to give him more room and the front right tire catches in the soft bank and sucks us in! Now for those of you that are counting, like me……….this makes 3 so far………. We are really stuck good with snow packed into the trailer up to the man door bottom and I sitting in the cab at a 45 degree angle – the thing that makes getting off the edge of the road bad on the Alaska highway is that they have a sharp drop off on both sides that is not visible unless they have plowed it back all the way – and in this area that isn’t possible. So Randy gets out to survey the damage, a trucker stops and volunteers advice but doesn’t have any way to help. Mind you we’re still 300 km from the next town and this is a Saturday……. Finally after ½ hour the equivalent of a county truck/snowplow stops and Randy talks him into trying to pull us out. It is working for a nanosecond and then the heavy duty pull strap he just bought snaps in 2!!!!!! (At this point we are wondering if AAA would cover Miday Towing coming to save us—what do you think, Mike and Sue????) The county truck guy says he will be back after he checks to see what else somebody might have to pull us out with – he comes back in an hour and has mega-chains, hooks on to us and voila……we are back on the road and $100 less rich but a bazillion happier!
Down the road a little farther we see 2 more moose and right on the side of the road, 2 caribou!! By Liard River we see the same buffalo herd on the side of the road that we saw last year, but no wolves watching them this time. I will see how good my photo skills are when I download them! We are getting out of the mountains but the roads are even worse! When it snows the truckers still keep driving and pack it down so that we are driving in icy ruts and being jerked all over the road – I will be so grateful for some clear, flat road………………