Day 4, June 26th, Fort St. John, British Columbia to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

Fort St. John: Last night we stayed in the Best Western in Fort St. John in British Columbia. It was clean, quiet, and the guy at the desk gave me a nice discount. The staff was friendly; they even tried to give Tess a biscuit when we checked in. She politely declined as she hid behind my legs and shook a bit. We stayed in a hotel because I couldn’t get my ATM card to work and I needed Canadian cash to get into the national campgrounds down the road. It was only after we checked into the hotel that I remembered that Bank ATM’s are the only ATM’s that seem to recognize US ATM cards in Canada. Nevertheless, it was nice to sleep in a cozy bed and catch up on some local news. Apparently Michael Jackson died while I was off the technological grid. Crazy. In other Ft. St. John news, everyone that I met was genuinely sweet. The guy at the Subway let me go ahead of him in line because he had to order 20 sandwiches, and a different staff member at the hotel tried to give Tess *another* biscuit when we came back from our ATM/Subway outing last night. A maid at the hotel also passed on some encouragement as we headed out for Operation FFF this morning. Neither Tess nor I were very motivated to run this morning, but we did stumble through it and took in some of the local sites while we were at it. Based on a sign that we ran past at the local high school, it looks like the senior class at Ft. St. John High School graduated on Friday. Congrats Grads!

White noise: I dated a woman for many years that needed to sleep with a white noise machine because she suffered from insomnia. I can sleep through almost anything so I didn’t particularly mind it, but I did think it was a perfectly good waste of quiet. When we parted ways I thought I was finally done with the white noise machine. Well. I thought wrong. When we went to bed last night Tess started whining and pacing again, which she tends to do when she is nervous and in a new place. After about 15 minutes, I decided, what the hell, we’ll try the “AC calms Tess down” trick inside. So, although it was raining outside and perfectly cool, I turned the AC on and within 2 minutes Tess was sound asleep. I had never thought of it before, but she’s sound sensitive, so the noise of the AC must block out most of the background noise. Therefore, if any of you guys have a Brookstone white noise machine that you aren’t using, send it my way. Apparently I’m not done with white noise yet!

Notes from the Drive:
I love British Columbia. It is truly breath-taking. When you are driving through those Northern Rocky Mountains, when every corner you turn holds another spectacular view of smooth, mirror-like, crazy blue-green water and rocky, snow speckled hills, and deep, deep forests that are crawling with wildlife, that’s when you know that you are in British Columbia. Muncho Lake is particularly gorgeous. When I drove by this time I saw a guy in a row boat furiously reeling a fish in. It was like a postcard. Stone Mountain Provincial Park is covered with Dall sheep and bison and bears. Really. If you can’t make it to Alaska in your lifetime, try British Columbia. It will give you that “holy crap, mother nature is awesome” feeling that everyone should feel at least once.

The XM radio is still holding up nicely in BC. Another great thing about the XM radio, is that it clearly displays the artist name and song title for every song that you are listening to. Since I am notoriously bad at “name that band” car games, I’m hoping that 60 hrs of driving and “studying” band names via the XM radio will help me have a better showing during “name that band” games on future group road trips.

You know that you are heading into the middle of nowhere when the billboards are advertising hotels by saying “it’s just 2 hours up the road.” And, you really ARE in the middle of nowhere when, after you reach the hotel 2 hrs later, you discover that the hotel is closed . . . along with the gas station and mercantile.

It’s raining today during the drive in BC. But that’s ok. I have a fresh cup of coffee, and that makes rain seem serene and soothing . . . as opposed to a nuisance. Coffee + rain = love. The rain is also allowing me to test out the new tires that I got from Barnsley Tire before I left Boulder. They are working like a charm. I highly recommend Barnsley to any local Boulderites looking for new tires! Speaking of rain, there’s a great song called “Bring on the Rain” (but I can’t remember who sings it). Anyway, it seems appropriate for this drive in the rain, as well as this trip. I won’t post the lyrics here, but give it a listen sometime.

Today I saw the first hitchhiker that I actually felt bad about not picking up. I would never pick up a hitchhiker when travelling alone in the lower 48, but in AK and BC, hitchhiking is a little more acceptable. I hitchhiked with Gavin the last time that I was in AK after we were done hiking the Resurrection Pass trail. This great guy named Bobby Joe pulled over in what looked like a renovated Doritos van and drove us two hours back to our car. He was so nice. And Bobby Joe’s rig was incredible. He had modified the entire van to essentially be a homemade RV. There was an actual life size toilet in the back of the truck, as well as a full chest of drawers that kept sliding around on the drive. He said he had worked all winter long to get the rig ready for the drive to AK, and when May hit he drove up all the way from Florida. When I asked him why he was in Alaska he said, dead seriously, “to pan for gold.” He also said that he wanted to pan for gold in Australia someday, but he had to save up enough money to ship the Doritos truck over there first. Hey, whatever floats your boat. Anyway, when Bobby Joe dropped us off at our car we asked if there was anything that we could do for him and he said “just repay the favor someday to someone else.” So, now whenever I see hitchhikers I think of Bobby Joe and wonder if this is the time that I should repay the favor. Of course every time I start to consider it, Tess starts barking and growling at the stranger she sees on the side of the road. I guess I’ll just have to keep donating to charities instead!

I have my first new ding in my windshield. The roads are notoriously bad on this six day drive, so I expected it. As a matter of fact, the windshield was the only thing I didn’t get “tuned up” before I left Boulder. We’ll see how many new dings and cracks I have by the time I get home.

Tess encountered her first “real” dog today. By encountering a real dog, I mean Tess got to see how most dogs live in British Columbia. We were driving through the Muncho Lake area and a truck zipped by us. It had a canoe strapped to the top of it, and two motorcycles in the back. In addition to all of that gear, there was a dog just riding along in the back of the truck. It was drizzling and yet the dog seemed happy as a clam. Tess seemed genuinely confused by this dog, as she sat on her down comforter, in her air conditioned truck, high on her Chinese herbs. Tess is not a British Columbia dog.

White Horse Update: Tess and I have given up the white horse game and we are combining our efforts instead to try and spot other wildlife/unique things. This game plan has been a wild success. Now, admittedly, we are in British Columbia and that is where the wildlife really comes out but at the end of the day these are our totals:

White horses: 2
Moose: 1
Mosquitoes: 495 (Yeah we gave up on the Shoo tag once we hit the Yukon and started using cutter)
Cute firemen: 1 (What can I say? We like firemen).
Grizzly Bear: 1? (We aren’t sure if it was a grizzly).
Bison: 28+
Dogs: 3
Smoldering forest fires: 2
Scary Bridges: 2 (Tess apparently doesn’t like suspension bridges)
Black Bears: 9
Black Bear Cubs: 3

There’s nothing like seeing 13 bears just hanging out on the side of the road to make you want to camp near other people!