June 12: When I wrote yesterday’s entry, I forgot that we had a day’s stay here in Dawson Creek before moving on along rest of the Alaska tour. This morning we had another “business” meeting: registration, technical information, and more opportunity to visit with each other and learn a few more names. Then we departed for the downtown area, where we visited a couple of museums and took an “official” photo of our group at the start of the Alaska Highway there (“Mile 0”). At our group dinner last evening, we saw a slide show about how Dawson Creek came to be and a little about the building of the Alcan Highway. The speaker knows the town and its history well and gave an entertaining, informative presentation. The building of the Alcan Highway during WWII was quite an amazing feat, and Dave and I want to watch the PBS show about that again at first opportunity. We’ll be following this highway for a portion of our circuit around Alaska.

It’s raining right now, and Dave and I have just had a bite of supper. We’ll attend to some housekeeping and prepare for an early departure (7:30 a.m.) tomorrow morning. As I mentioned yesterday, we’ll be helping direct our group’s coaches to their assigned parking places as they arrive at the next destination (Ft. Nelson, BC). We hear that there’s some interesting scenery, and wildlife probably, between here and there. I’ll let you know if we see anything exciting along the way!

June 11: As planned, we stayed all day in Grande Prairie, AB, on Monday (9^th), resting and attending to housekeeping matters. Yesterday (10^th), we made the relatively short drive to Dawson Creek, BC, where our Foretravel Motorcade Tour of Alaska actually begins. Although the drive was through rain, the roads were in very good condition, so the drive was quite pleasant. There also were lots of beautiful scenery and vistas to enjoy along the way. At this point I’ll mention that in crossing the Alberta-British Columbia border we crossed into yet another time zone, so another “bonus” hour was added to the day. That, combined with more northerly latitudes and extra daylight, meant that when Dave took the dog out this morning at 7:00 a.m., the sun was high enough that he needed his sunglasses but not his jacket! Also, when he was up at 2:00 a.m., it was still twilight outside, and the days still continue to lengthen. Oh, my… this really takes some getting used to! 🙂

Here in Dawson Creek, we got on the Alaska Highway, which we will follow for a lot of the tour. After arriving at our designated RV park, we did more laundry (large loads) and visited with a few fellow Motorcaders. This afternoon we’ll attend an organizational meeting, followed by a group photo at the Northern Alberta Railway Park Visitors’ Center in town. Later, we’ll have a group dinner and prepare for tomorrow’s first leg of the official tour. Dave and I leave as one of the first 3 coaches, because we drew parking assistance duty at the next stop. Of the 23 coaches participating, 10 are driven by first-timers. We’re one of them, but certainly not alone in that regard. The experienced folks are quite helpful, though, so we’re excited to get under way!