Our First Canadian Cultural Experience

So, when we lived in Seattle for 5 years, I got accustomed to long days during the summer months.  But we’ve been back in California for 8 years now; so when my eyes popped open to perfectly bright sunshine at 6:26am this morning, I was more than a little surprised! But, it’ll make for some great runs starting tomorrow, so I’m actually looking forward to that early morning sunshine. The kids don’t have such big windows in their bunks, so they slept a little later, but we were still breakfasted, and harassing all the retired people in the RV Park by 8am. Then it was time to load up and hit the road! We’ve got places to see people…places to see…

I wanted to stop in Barkersville (which I mistakenly referred to as Baskersville last night) but it turns out that there’s kind of a long windy road to get there, so we opted to stay on Highway 97 and head for Dawson Creek, the official Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway! It was a long day of mostly driving, but the kids finally got to enjoy the carpet kit that their Papa Dennis and G-Ma lovingly washed and brought from Redding to Patterson so they could ride in the back of the truck.

We got to enjoy some amazing scenery as we drove through the Canadian Rockies today, though.  And we saw our first wildlife of the trip, 2 black bears right off the side of the road!! (No pictures however, because I wasn’t fast enough!)

We decided to stop for dinner in Chetwynd, BC. Corey and I thought 3 days is far too long for a kid to be in Canada and not experience the true Canadian delicacy of poutine, so we stopped in at Chetwynd’s local A&W (that’s the place to eat up here) for a burger, a rootbeer, and some poutine.  If you’ve never tried poutine either, it’s french fries (AND in this case, cheese curds) smothered in brown gravy….hmmm….yum?

Chetwynd is famous for it’s yearly chainsaw woodcarving competition, which draws woodcarvers from as far away as Japan and Australia.  At the end of the weeklong competition, the artists leave their woodcarvings, and the city places them around town.

Then, back in the truck and on to Dawson Creek, where the sun was just going down….at 9:45pm!

See you after the next adventure!!