Breakfast at Shepherd's Inn

Day 16 Fort St. John to Pink Mountain. Distance 92 miles. My distance 83 mi, My total distance 1106 miles.

We did a special Saturday-morning treat. We rode 21 miles north on the Alaska Hwy to the very cozy Shepherd's Inn for breakfast. Don't we all look hungry? And happy?

Once we departed (btw, most of the RVs were gone before we left at 7:40), the landscape became wooded with rolling hills and virtually NOTHING commercial at all. Just the highway cut through wilderness. Here we are as we rode toward breakfast:

It was a welcome oasis to finally reach the Shepherd's Inn that was featured in our tour book. It's a wayside stop for travelers with a restaurant for locals and visitors like us. We arrived ready for food!

The owners and regulars were in there eating too, and all welcomed us and we had a warm conversation about our adventure. As we went in, Bob discovered cookie monsters for sale, and sure enough he bought two sets (four huge cookies in all).

I was the first driver of the day, but did ride with the guys to this breakfast, and I'm so glad I did. I then scurried back the 21 miles to get the RV, which was fun for me to do a ride as fast as I could. The others stayed at the Inn another 25 minutes, then proceeded north. I caught them just before the 51-mi lunch stop.

Bob rode 10 miles beyond the lunch stop before turning back to get the RV, and here we are trekking northward. Pretty straight road ahead, huh? Actually, the day had many rolling hills and was a completely wooded landscape. It reminded me of when we did the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway ride in 2008.

After his dad turned and rode back to the RV, Derek continued on about 10 miles until he reached his milestone mileage for the month of June - 1500 miles! As soon as he reached it, he stopped and waited for Dad to pick him up! Pretty funny.

So Bert, Rick and I continued to Pink Mountain, our campground for the night, and here's a shot of them cruising down the highway. Notice again the hilly, wooded scenery we had all day. Yes, the Army in 1942 just plowed right through wilderness to build their highway.

Tomorrow is our 142-mile day. We haven't yet decided exactly how we're going to split up the driving chores and who will take breaks in the motorhome. You'll find out tomorrow night, maybe after we see Canada Day fireworks (we're hoping!). To my Canadian friends, Happy Canada Day!

Along the Alaska Highway

Day 15 Dawson Creek to Fort St. John. Distance 55 miles.

It's amazing to think how quickly you're done with a 55-mi ride. We even left Dawson Creek late because we went out to breakfast, cycling the one mile back to town in our street clothes. The time change had us awakening at 5 am so we had a leisurely morning. I had time to send e-mails and Skype with Janet!

Today was Rick's day to burn rubber! He got out in front, and pretty soon we could barely see him off in the distance. Bert and I "time trialed" to see if we could gain on him, but couldn't. He was high flying on that bike, and arrived in Fort St. John an hour before the RV and more than two hours before I did, and I was the next rider to arrive after touring a little of the town first.

The highlight of my day was taking a slight detour to ride along a portion of the original, unimproved (well, improved since 1942, but not up to current road standards) section of the Alaska Highway to this famous bridge. The Kiskatinaw Bridge is the only original bridge on the Alaska Hwy still in use. And, it was quite the engineering marvel in 1942 because it was the first curved bridge (a 9 degree curve) built in Canada. It's made entirely of wood, and even today its road surface is wood.

The original road down to the bridge and back to the current highway was cool too because it allowed me to visualize how the builders in 1942 had to just plow down a path through the thick forest, as I'd seen in the video at the museum yesterday. Here's a shot of the empty road, and by golly it was empty; during my entire 6-mi detour, only one vehicle passed me in either direction, and it was a local.

Since seeing this bridge was the highlight of my day, I'm compelled to post one more picture of it as I ascended the hill after crossing it. You can see the gorgeous river valley it spanned. I wish the other riders had taken the detour to see this too, but the sign on the highway made it sound like it would be an extra 6 miles, but at most it was only an extra half mile.

After that, the route was rolling across open farm land into a pretty significant headwind. Eventually I came to the Peace River Valley and a steep drop to the bridge. Interestingly, the original bridge here in 1942 was a suspension bridge, the longest of the more than 200 bridges along the entire Alaska Hwy. However, in 1957 it collapsed! Luckily, no one was hurt because a truck driver noticed something amiss and reported it, and sure enough, the engineers predicted it was about to fail and blocked all vehicle traffic. The next day, 3000 people witnessed the northern portion of it fall into the river with a deafening BOOM. Here's a picture of the replacement bridge dated 1960:

Once I arrived in Fort St. John, it was early so I decided to ride into the town and see if there was anything to see. The visitor center offered a walking tour, which I did, but it wasn't too exciting. I saw Bob and Derek there, and they were headed to a pub for lunch. The California Bear cycling kit I wore today started several conversations with people, so that was fun.

I finally left town (population 18,000, so it was just a big busy city) and rode the additional four miles to the "campground". I put that word in quotes because all it is is a gravel parking lot. Here's proof! You can see our motorhome way at the back, 4th from the left. As I write this three hours later, it has really filled up and they're still coming in, because this is their big Canada Day weekend. I want to take a picture from the same spot tomorrow morning to illustrate before and after the weekend crowd arrived.

I took that picture as Rick, Bert and I were walking to the pub adjacent to the campground. The food and drink were quite yummy!

My final picture is the monument to another Alaska Hwy story, this one a tragedy. Right next to this campground is a lake, and in 1942 the engineers wanted to move material and equipment ahead by using a hastily built barge on the lake. They launched it as a squall was approaching, and before the barge could reach its destination, the squall hit and two big waves capsized it, drowning 12 soldiers (the other five were rescued by a local fisherman). In my photo, that's Derek on the right. The names of the dead are on the top of the 12 posts surrounding the monument. (You can see my RV in the background through the opening in the monument.)

Tomorrow's distance is 89 miles, but Sunday (Canada Day) we will ride the longest of the entire trip - 142 miles! That day, all four of the drivers will take a turn at the wheel. Even so, our cycling distances will be about 105 miles each, and we'll drive about 35 miles each. We're just hoping that when we're finally done, we will be treated to fireworks in Fort Nelson.

Mile 0 for the Alaska Highway

Day 14 Grande Prairie, Alberta to Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Distance 90 miles. Total miles so far for me - 968 mi.

It's exciting to be in this historic town, and tomorrow we will begin to ride the Alaska Highway. I was able to visit the museum here about the building of the highway in 1942, a huge achievement. It spanned 1500 miles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed it in just 8 months. They had no idea exactly where the route would go, making those decision just days in advance of the guys clearing the trees and laying down the road. They faced incredible challenges with the cold temps, the mosquitoes, the swampy/muddy sections from melted snow, the permafrost melting when they pushed aside the top soil, and on and on. It was a true case of "on the job training" for the soldiers building it.

Today's ride was pretty basic, but we did have one special happening. It involved this big beaver in the town of Beaverlodge, about 30 miles into the ride. We stopped to get our photos with the beaver, and a fellow drove up, got out his car with his camera in hand, and said he was the local newspaper man (in a town this small, he was likely the entire news staff). He noticed us with our bikes, and wondered who we were. He proceeded to take our photos in front the big beaver, and then interview us for an article in his newspaper! Here he is interviewing us and getting our names:

His newspaper does not have a website, but when he publishes our photo and article, he will e-mail them to Rick who in turn will make it available to us. It was all pretty neat, especially when all we were doing before he arrived was making juvenile jokes about beavers.

The first 50 miles today were our least favorite section of the ride so far (well, mine anyway). We were on the shoulder of a separated four-lane highway with tons of traffic, and it was just flat agriculture land.

That's what it looked like to Derek, Bert, Rick and me as we headed westward. Bob was the day's first driver, and fortunately he rode back to meet us before we arrived at the big beaver and our interview and news photo.

After lunch, the riders were Bob, Bert and me since Rick was not feeling his best and decided to drive even though it wasn't his turn, and Derek drove with him since he also was not feeling so great. Here's a nice shot of Bert and Bob as we continued on to Dawson Creek.

You can see that by then, finally, the road was two lanes and rolling hills and forested. So much prettier!

Eventually we passed into British Columbia, and picked up an hour since for the first time, we are on Pacific Time. Eventually we will pass into Alaska time, which is one hour behind Pacific.

Here we are arriving in Dawson Creek. The three of us had sped pretty fast on the bikes today. We then rode up to where Rick and Derek were waiting for us in the RV, at the city center monument to "Mile 0".

I then visited the museum regarding the building of the Alaska Hwy while the others shopped for some needed things at Walmart. I really enjoyed the museum, and now we'll get to ride along its entire 1500-mile route (not consecutively, though, once we get to Yukon) and witness a few of the environmental challenges the builders faced. The middle of the intersection where the museum is has this marker that has been in Dawson City since 1942:

Tomorrow morning we're going to have breakfast at a restaurant and see more of the city before departing on a relatively short ride tomorrow (only 50 miles) to Fort St. Johns.

Here is a map showing our stops over the next several days. We're two weeks done, and in two more weeks we'll enter Alaska (much farther north than this section of the map)!

On the map, you can see Dawson Creek as the third circle up from the bottom. In three days we'll be in Fort Nelson for Canada Day. Maybe we'll get to see some fireworks. heck, maybe they'll have a fireworks show in honor of the Five for Ala

Day 14 Grande Prairie, Alberta to Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Distance 90 miles. Total miles so far for me - 968 mi.

It's exciting to be in this historic town, and tomorrow we will begin to ride the Alaska Highway. I was able to visit the museum here about the building of the highway in 1942, a huge achievement. It spanned 1500 miles and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed it in just 8 months. They had no idea exactly where the route would go, making those decision just days in advance of the guys clearing the trees and laying down the road. They faced incredible challenges with the cold temps, the mosquitoes, the swampy/muddy sections from melted snow, the permafrost melting when they pushed aside the top soil, and on and on. It was a true case of "on the job training" for the soldiers building it. The reason the highway began here in 1942 was because it was the terminus of the railway. The town had 600, but mushroomed to 10,000 in a matter of a few weeks.

Today's ride was pretty basic, but we did have one special happening. It involved this big beaver in the town of Beaverlodge, about 30 miles into the ride. We stopped to get our photos with the beaver, and a fellow drove up, got out his car with his camera in hand, and said he was the local newspaper man (in a town this small, he was likely the entire news staff). He noticed us with our bikes, and wondered who we were. He proceeded to take our photo in front the big beaver, and then interviewed us for an article in his newspaper! Here he is interviewing us and getting our names:

His newspaper does not have a website, but when he publishes our photo and article, he will e-mail them to Rick who in turn will make it available to us. It was all pretty neat, especially when all we were doing before he arrived was making juvenile jokes about beavers.

The first 50 miles today were our least favorite section of the ride so far (well, mine anyway). We were on the shoulder of a separated four-lane highway with tons of traffic, and it was just flat agriculture land.

That's what it looked like to Derek, Bert, Rick and me as we headed westward. Bob was the day's first driver, and fortunately he rode back to meet us before we arrived at the big beaver and our interview and news photo.

After lunch, the riders were Bob, Bert and I since Rick was not feeling his best and decided to drive even though it wasn't his turn. Derek drove with him since he also was not feeling so great. Here's a nice shot of Bert and Bob as we continued on to Dawson Creek.

You can see that by then, finally, the road was down to two lanes with rolling, forested hills. So much prettier!

Eventually we passed into British Columbia, and picked up an hour since for the first time, we are on Pacific Time. Eventually we will pass into Alaska time, which is one hour behind Pacific.

Here we are arriving in Dawson Creek. The three of us had sped pretty fast on the bikes today. We then rode up to where Rick and Derek were waiting for us in the RV, at the city center monument to "Mile 0".

I then visited the museum regarding the building of the Alaska Hwy while the others shopped for some needed things at Walmart. I really enjoyed the museum, and now we'll get to ride along its entire 1500-mile route (not consecutively, though, once we get to Yukon) and witness a few of the environmental challenges the builders faced. The middle of the intersection next to the museum has this marker that has been in Dawson City since 1942:

Tomorrow morning we're going to have breakfast at a restaurant and see more of the city before departing on a relatively short ride tomorrow (only 50 miles) to Fort St. Johns.

Here is a map showing our stops over the next several days. We're two weeks done, and in two more weeks we'll enter Alaska (much farther north than this section of the map)!

On the map, you can see Dawson Creek as the third circle up from the bottom. In three days we'll be in Fort Nelson for Canada Day. Maybe we'll get to see some fireworks. Heck, maybe they'll have a fireworks show in honor of the Five for Alaska bike riders!

Tailwinds to Grand Praire, Alberta

Day 13 Grande Cache to Grande Prairie. Distance 112 miles. My distance 76 miles.

The wind howled all night long, and the forecast had been that today those winds would be in our faces. Thus, we all anticipated a horrible 109-mi trek north today. I decided to read aloud our Irish prayer we have taped next to the door:

Thank you Papa! It turned out that we did indeed have the wind at our backs for most of the ride, and it was a fierce wind! It made it a pretty easy day, although I was the one driving the RV for the final third when the strong wind did have spells of being in their faces. The only time it was in MY face was just as we left town this morning, and we were coasting steeply downhill. Perfect.

The scenery today was pretty consistent: evergreens in all directions, rolling hills, and no cities or establishments of any kind until we arrived here. My photos today are primarily of us cycling. Here's the first:

If you have a sharp eye, you'll notice Bob is riding his light bike (for only the 2nd time). Rick was the first driver, and Derek decided not to ride the beginning because of the headwinds prediction. So, for the first 28 miles, it was just Bob, Bert, and I. On his light bike, Bob scorched ahead of us and we couldn't stay with him. Derek joined after 28 mi.

After the first third was done, Rick joined us (Bert drove) and here's a photo of Rick with "the road ahead."

Here's a nice shot of Derek and Bob, and as with the other photos, you can see the kind of landscape we had today:

Somewhere in the morning, I crested a hill ahead of the others and came across another beautiful moose! As I was slowing down to take her picture, she turned and vanished into the woods. The guys are jealous that I've seen two moose, and they haven't seen one yet.

Here's another picture with Derek, Bob, and Rick. Can you tell we have a tailwind?

My favorite photo of the day:

Derek is only 22, so he needs his rest!

Most of today's scenery was "the road ahead", so here's a cool one of Bert and our road in the distance.

After 74 miles, I drove 40 miles, past our campground, straight to a supermarket in Grande Prairie (population 55,000!). I got desserts and treats, as well as fruits and veggies and necessities. When I arrived at the campground, Bert had already arrived.

Another day in the books! Tomorrow we ride back into British Columbia and Dawson Creek, which is Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. Two weeks will be done, with six to go. Distance so far is about 950, and my total is 863. We're doing great on our epic journey.

Moose sighting on windy hilly ride

Day 12 Hinton to Grande Cache, Alberta. Distance 89 miles. My distance 81 mi.


Within a mile of our departure this morning, we came to this appropriate sign showing us the way to our eventual destination!

I was the first driver today, and cruised straight away to the halfway point at 43 miles. It was very rolling with long climbs for the boys out there on the road, and for me when I rode back to meet them. The thing that was better for me was I had a tailwind vs their headwinds. Therefore, I was able to scoot 17 miles by the time I reached the rider at the back. On the way while I was alone, I saw this fine animal just off the road:

This was our first moose of the trip! The others saw many elk today, and we all saw many deer. I was glad she stayed long enough for me to get her photo, because the guys might not have believed I actually saw a moose; on the ride into Banff last Thursday, I told them I saw a moose and showed them my photo, but it was an elk. hahaha

I rode hard most of the way back to the RV at the halfway point, and that hard effort up to that point must have been my downfall. Why? Because my afternoon 43 mile ride was a huge chore. I seemed to have no energy at all. I decided not to push it to save as much energy as possible because tomorrow is 109 miles and will have some doozy hills.

Today had several LONG tough climbs too, and into a strong headwind. If you look closely at this photo, you can see way off in the distance the road we would eventually get to.

Here's a descent as we approached our destination for the day, Grande Cache. It was our last respite before a long stiff climb to the city, which Derek and I barely survived.

Here's Derek nearing the end of that long final uphill. You can see that we had pretty scenery the entire day.

The only WIFI this campground has is in the laundry room! lol But hey, I'm not complaining if I get ANY Internet connection.

We're glad Rick will do some shopping tomorrow instead of Bob. Bob buys the necessities, while Rick gets us cool stuff -- desserts, breakfast pastries, peaches...Bob gets the peanut butter. hahaha Just kidding Bob, we need those things too! For example, Bob bought our current beer supply!

Icefields Parkway Grandeur

The majestic scenery along this 143-mile mountain route is truly one of the best in the world. Words and photos cannot come close to showing how incredible the sights are, with waterfalls galore, rushing rivers everywhere, glaciers, rocky peaks, lush valleys, and cloudy mists on the mountain tops. If you combine all the glorious views in Yosemite, the Colorado Rockies, and the Swiss Alps, you need to multiply it by ten and then assume they go on continuously for 143 miles.

The photo above is at our lunch stop on Saturday at Bow Lake, some 30 miles north of Lake Louise. It had just stopped raining, so the guys were glad to see me finally arrive in the motorhome. I had ridden the first 8 miles with them, and just as I turned around to head back for the RV, it started pouring. I had to completely change clothes before driving ahead to meet up with them.

Right now we are in the town of Hinton, which is just east of Jasper, outside the national parks we've been in since last Thursday. Let me go back to after my last posting on Saturday afternoon, when I rode up to Lake Louise. It was a REALLY steep hill, and I could not believe Bob did it on his heavy bike. The others were back to the RV when I returned from my computer time, so I rode up alone and had to hurry to make our lasagna dinner already in the oven. Okay, so here's my photo of the most photographed spot in all of Canada:

That glacier in the back is 4.5 miles away, and when a chunk of ice falls, it takes 20 seconds to hear the BOOM from where I'm standing. The tour book said that each day in the summer, tour buses drop thousands of people off to take a photo, then they immediately get back on the bus and depart. I was lucky I was up there at 6:30 pm, because there was hardly anyone. Sure enough, it's pretty incredible to see.

Day 8 Saturday, June 23. Lake Louise to 7 mi n of Saskatchewan Crossing. Distance 55 miles. My distance 21 miles.

Early that morning, Rick and I rode back to the village to access the Internet. I got to say good morning to Janet.

During my 8 miles I rode with the others, I got this shot of Bob with a sampling of our background scenery:

When I finally reached them at Bow Lake for lunch (see photo at top), they had to change out of their wet clothes. Check out this shot of the shower where most of the stuff got hung, although anywhere and everywhere was fair game throughout the RV.

Derek decided not to put on wet clothes and continue, but the other three did. Derek and I pulled off the road ahead and hiked UP UP UP through snow to reach a viewpoint for Peyto Lake. Isn't it amazing?, and this was only one of thousands of glorious views we had on the Icefields Parkway:

I also liked this photo of Derek with a snowball during our walk to the viewpoint. Playing in the snow on June 23!

Bert thinks it's pretty cold at this stop farther ahead, with Rick right behind.

Mosquitoes!! I was glad I could quickly locate my mosquito head net when Derek and I pulled into our rustic campsite in the middle of nowhere, amid the scenic splendor north of where the wide Saskatchewan River crosses under the highway. Yes, the little pesky problem has begun, at least in our campgrounds the past two nights. Here I am preparing for today's ride:

Getting back to Saturday, after we changed clothes and locked our bikes, we drove the RV back to the Crossing to see if we could get WIFI and dry our clothes at a laundry. No luck on both those counts, but we DID decide to eat dinner (Rick, Bert and I) at the cafeteria, and man did my BBQ pulled pork sandwich taste great! We then returned to the campsite and hit the hay by 8 pm!!

Day 9 Sunday June 24 Rampart Campground to Jasper. Distance 82 miles.

More scenic splendor, including the vast Columbia Icefield glacier (74 sq miles of ice) and Weeping Wall, a waterfall masterpiece. First off, take a look at Bob on our "road ahead". Wouldn't you like to ride a bike here?

We've seen quite a few black bears, although Rick sees the most - he's an eagle eye for wildlife. Here's one next to the road last Sat. morning. Not that great a picture, but I didn't want to linger on getting it just right.

Saturday was the day for impressive waterfalls all along the way, but this place called the Weeping Wall took the prize. The tour book said that in winter, they all merge together to form one huge waterfall of ice with many layers, which is popular with ice climbers (something along with bungee jumping I have no desire to try).

At Yosemite, you need to hike a few or many miles to see most of their magnificent waterfalls; here you just need to stop on the highway bridge and look down:

From this bridge, we had an epic 8-mile climb that rose 1425 feet, a 1/4-mi portion of which was a 14% grade! Part way up we got this view of where we had been below, and of course you can glimpse the beauty where we were fortunate enough to ride for the past three days.

Once we crested that monster climb, we descended to the Columbia Icefield. There it is in the background as Rick poses next to the "glaciermobile".

To give you an idea of how big it is, I took this photo using my maximum 20X zoom of people in front of and on the glacier:

We continued past endless incredible sights to the lunch stop at 36 miles. Our lunch view in this direction was of a range called Endless Chain:

After this lunch break, just as we were ready to go again, it started to sprinkle. I was already pulling out, so I went on even though the others hoped if they waited a little while, the rain would stop. It didn't stop. It poured. 30 miles later the RV passed me and stopped and I learned that they decided not to go back out into the rain for the remaining 43 miles. I have no photos of that section due to the constant rain. After we settled into our campsite and I showered and we locked up the bikes, we drove into Jasper. THEN the sun came out and it was a beautiful afternoon and evening! We all did tons of laundry and some Internet, although I could not connect. We ate at this brew pub, with its big horn sheep statue out front:


Day 11 (today) Jasper to Hinton. Distance 57 mi. (My distance so far - 721 mi.)

The picture below sums up today: sun, warm, scenic, and downhill from the Rockies. What also made it a nice ride was the tailwind and it was only 57 miles.

Not too far out of Jasper we saw several elk near the road. At first I passed them without wanting to photo them since we've seen quite a few lately, but then since all of us stopped to read an historical marker, I turned back and got this photo:

At the lunch stop, I noted a noise from my rear wheel when I spun it. Rick, our mechanical genius, said the bearings needed greasing, probably due to all the riding in the rain. So, the spare wheels I brought from Ohio were not a waste of time and space. I changed over to the spare, and we will fix the original hub at a later time (when we don't have Internet!).

Rick can always spot wildlife. I don't how he saw this elk hidden under a tree, but I wanted to show you because it was a full-antlered buck, unlike the other does we'd seen up to now. Look carefully...

Tomorrow we have an 84-mi day, then about 100 miles as we now head toward Dawson Creek and the start of the Alaska Highway in just a few more days. Here is a map showing where we are tonight, at the bottom, and where we're headed over the next four days to Dawson Creek, at the top.

Everyone continues to do well, although Rick has been having technology problems with his Garmin. This afternoon it seems to have failed completely, so he rode into Hinton for a new one but was unsuccessful finding one. To top it off, he had a flat, which is now the group's 4th. Not too bad. Northward!