Cah-nah-dah Part 2

On Thursday morning, we left Fort Nelson, British Columbia around 8:30.  Following a sub-par continental breakfast and a Dansko sighting at the Super 8, we set out for Fort St. John, which was a ridiculously long drive.  Hundreds of miles through the wilderness, and that was the closest we came to worrying about running out of gas.  At least it wasn’t snowy though.  Plus, I’ve really gotten my fill of iced coffee in the last few days.  I don’t know how much it costs…Canadian money isn’t real, right?  (That’s a very Becky-Bloomwood-way-of-thinking, isn’t it?)

(I’m kidding.  Everyone knows that Canadian dollars are real..even if they don’t use pennies and round change up up to the nearest nickel instead.)

We spent a lot of time doing math too:  converting kilometers to miles.  And don’t get me started on temperature.  I haven’t figured out an easy way to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit yet. 

All you need to know is that it’s still kind cold, still all brown, and still SUPER windy in Canada. 

We had grand plans of getting as far as we possibly could on Thursday.  The less time spent driving through Canada, the better.  We made it through Dawson Creek, the starting point of the Alaska Highway, and kept going through Grand Prairie, Grand Cache, and then stopped at Jasper National Park for the night. 

Jasper had several glaciers (including an ice field) and, apparently, you can get on this special bus that drives you UP the glacier.  No, thanks.

The town of Jasper was a wonderful little hippie paradise.  So was the town of Banff.  If you’re coming to Alberta (as so many of you are, I’m sure, planning to), Jasper National Park would be the place to go.  There’s camping and hiking for you hearty types, and then restaurants and hotels if you’re like me.  If given a choice, we’d come back.  It was agreed upon (by both of us), that this national park is more impressive than anything we’d seen in the 49^th state. 

We saw a lot of elk and a lot of deer.  I said the deer couldn’t possibly be normal deer…they were too small.  Scott said I must just be used to moose.  Then I called a squirrel a chipmunk, and he told me I must have “Alaska syndrome”.   Probably.

On Friday, we took off for the border, going as far as we could.  We made it from Jasper to Great Falls, Montana.  Victory in a sense:  We made it to the lower 48.  

Maybe 3 more days 'til we get where we need to be?  Who cares...I'm just happy to be here.