June 6th to 8th - 100 Mile to Dawson Creek

June 6th – Wed – 100 Mile
Marg made a new recipe for breakfast – cinnamon waffles baked with eggs/milk/sugar custard – which was good enough to eat but not good enough to make again. Terry took Rick & Pat to town to do some shopping while Marg & I puttered around doing this & that. Pat made soup last night using the juice from the pulled pork roast. It made a very tasty lunch.
Rick transferred Marg’s phone numbers from her old phones to the new system. The old phones did not automatically share contacts from one handset to the others but her new system does. Marg & I took a ride on the ATV looking for a bear that a neighbor reported in Marg’s property. Yesterday Marg & Pat opened a couple of gates to let the bear out and they tied some thread across the gates so we could tell if the bear went out the gate. Neither thread was broken and we saw trails in the wet grass and bear droppings so guess it is around somewhere.
Our cousin Bill Mitchell and his wife Carol arrived around 3:00 to stay overnight. Shortly after, our brother Bob showed up so we all sat around and had a great gabfest & a drink.
The reason for the company is a birthday dinner for Dad who turned 88 today. Also at dinner were Bill & Janet, Ralph & Gina, Jane, Quille & Micheal. We had a good turkey dinner and a very nice evening.
It rained on & off all day so Rick is apprehensive about getting his 5th wheel out of the yard.

June 7th – Thurs – to McLeod lake
Marg & I made breakfast for everyone this morning. There was no rain last night and the sun was out today to dry up the yard a bit. We were hooked up and ready to go so just before breakfast, Terry & Rick put the trucks in 4 wheel drive and easily pulled the rigs out to the gravel driveway.
We left before 10. We went to town to dump the tanks while Rick & Pat headed north. Pat had made turkey bunwiches for our lunches and we put ours in the fridge. When we caught up to Rick & Pat, we hadn’t had lunch yet and our CBs weren’t working so we passed them and then pulled into a store that advertised a big parking lot thinking that they would follow. Rick didn’t know what we were doing so he kept on going. We grabbed our lunch and moved on.
Sixteen miles before Prince George we had a flat on the 5th wheel. I had suggested – strongly – that Terry air up the tires but he didn’t want to take the time & make the effort. So he got to change a tire on the side of the road instead!! We stopped for diesel in PG and drove back a couple of miles to get a new tire. Terry had looked forward to stopping at the casino so even though we still had 70 miles to the campground we chose, we did stop. The casino let us play for quite a while and I had to pry Terry out.
When we drove into picturesque Whiskers Point Provincial Campground, Pat was just taking a walk and led us to the nice big spot across from them that they had picked out for us. They weren’t upset that we took so long to show up and even made dinner for us – true friends! We played Ponytail canasta after dinner and we let the guys win so they would play cards with us again!

June 8th – Fri – to Dawson Creek
It wasn’t raining when we left at our agreed time of 8:30 after a nice quiet night. It did rain hard for a while but somehow all the dirt on the truck did not get washed off. We stopped at one turnout to take pictures and were slowed but not delayed by many work crews & flaggers on the road. We stopped for fuel in Chetwynd and then found the visitor center as we wanted to see some of the chainsaw carvings in the self proclaimed “Chainsaw Carving Capital”. There was also a chainsaw competition going on this weekend. It was raining so we dug out rain jackets & hats to walk to the visitor center. We decided to check out the competition instead of walking around town to take pictures in the rain. We stopped at Tim Hortons for Rick’s coffee fix and we all had a sweet roll. We had to walk a bit to the community center to see carvers doing their thing and we saw competitors from Wisconsin & Japan as well as B.C. The few vendors in the area were huddled under cover with few customers. When we were walking back to our rigs, we ran into Garry & Stephanie who also winter in Mesa and live here in the summer.
As we continued driving, the rain stopped and the sun came out sporadically. We are staying in Dawson Creek at Northern Lights RV which is owned by Mike & Annette who are the daughter & son-in-law of Ernie & Dianne. Our friends Dave & Margo from Walla Walla were already here. They were at their son’s place in Minnesota and are joining us for the Alaska trip. We set up & I did quite a bit of cleaning. Even though we only sleep & shower in here while we are at Marg’s, everything gets really dusty.
It was quite sunny & warm just before 3 so the six of us went to town to take pictures at the Alaska highway tourist spots. When we got back, we made appetizers and all got together at our rig for drinks & appy dinner. Ernie & Dianne are also staying here and dropped in for a while with a promise to come back later.
They did come back with Annette and their 9 month old grandson Zayden who they were babysitting. Two granddaughters (6 and 7 year old cousins Kiernan & Kayah) popped in & out. Garry & Steph came by for a quick visit and then Mike joined us for a while. Zayden’s mom & dad – Cheryl & Mark – came back from bowling to pick up their son & daughter. Phew!
Since we are further north, the daylight fools you into thinking it is not very late. Everyone left at 9:45 and we quickly put the dishes in the sink and went to bed.