Entries about grande prairie

July 17 - 18.

We parked TaJ on the driveway of the aunt and uncle of our good travel buddy, Karmen Reid after a short drive from Fairview.

Leo and Martha Dawson live on an acreage just outside of Grand Prairie. We needed a day or two in a city with shopping to get a few things before we continue on the road. Leo and Martha were great hosts and had us in for supper on the night of our arrival.

If you recall from previous posts we have had trouble with our electric hitch jack, and the last failure seemed permanent. The local R/V dealer that carries that brand told us their warranty essentially covered replacement...they would have to ship the defective jack back to the manufacturer in the US, wait two weeks for them to send a replacement, etc. Not going to work for us. So we bought a manual jack for $48 and replaced it ourselves. The defective jack is now cargo in the storage area of our R-pod until we get back to Nova Scotia in December and can get it fixed/replaced at Jerry's R/V, our local dealer.

After getting the new jack, we stopped at the local Superstore to pick up a few supplies. The only reason we are telling you this is that there is a massive road dip on the road right outside the parking lot. It is almost invisible until the front wheels of our tow vehicle go into it, and right away you know this is not good, and no time to slow down either. We almost bucked TaJ off the hitch. Wham! We actually pulled over and checked things out in the trailer...stuff got bounced all over the place, but no damage. So, if towing in Grande Prairie, watch out for the dip in front of the Superstore.

We had the need to shop for a bit of stuff and Grande Prairie is at city of about 70,000 and has a full line-up of stores. We bought shoes for both of us, and a new Coleman camp stove to replace our 13 year old one, which had seen better days. Ground coffee from Starbucks, and a trip to the liquor store, etc. took up much of our day.

We also took a look at our anode from the water heater. You can see the comparison to a new one. We put the old one back, but that is the wear after 45 days on the road. We'll be checking again in a few weeks to see if we need to replace.

July 18 - 21

We headed over to Dawson Creek, where we lived back in 2005-06. On the way over we stopped in Beaverlodge for a photo op with the big beaver:

While we had TaJ still hitched up we did the obligatory picture with the Mile 0 Marker in downtown Dawson Creek.

Downtown also has some lovely murals of the old days:

We booked into the Mile-0 Campground for three nights ($36 a night, water and 30amp electric) Decent sites, close to town. Very busy campground this time of year, filling and emptying daily.

It is the 75th anniversary of the highway, which was built in just 7 months by 10,000 US soldiers and a vast number of civilians. This vehicle is one of the few authentic vehicles from that era.

We had supper with old friends Al & Mary Mottishaw, on both Wednesday at their place, and Thursday evening at the Alcan Smokehouse. It was great to touch base with people we knew back when we lived and worked here.

We also checked in with the Peace Energy Co-op, where Jenny worked for a year. At the time they were working on getting a 34 turbine wind farm on Bear Mountain, just to the west of town. We took a bit of time to wander up there on Friday.

The rest of our time here was spent taking care of stuff. One of our tires seemed to be consistently 2-3 pound pressure under the others. Turned out there was a very slim finishing nail in it. Got that fixed for $35 and another worry off our minds for the road ahead.

It is a lovely Friday afternoon and we are in the library, doing our blog entry and getting some other stuff up to date. We had a quick visit to the local art gallery, which is in a retired grain elevator, next to the Alaska Highway start point in the roundabout at the center of town.

The last two icons are the second Mile 0 sign in the roundabout at the center of town and the statue of the surveyor, pointing the route for the Alaska Highway:

While there we came upon this beauty of a motorhome, driven by Hans and Liesbeth, from Noordwijk in the Netherlands. Lovely people, lovely motor home! Perhaps we will see them when we visit Holland next year. Happy Trails.

Tomorrow we begin our journey up the Alaska Highway. We have 28 days so our journey will not be fast, but will still be long. We expect about 7,500 kilometers until we come out from the Cassiar Highway at Prince Rupert.