D2D Day 20 Dawson Creek, BC to Hinton, AB 278 Miles

Greetings Friends,

We're getting down to the last few days of our adventure ride to Canada and Alaska. We rewarded ourselves with a late wake up this morning, that is to say we slept in, as we had less than 300 miles to Hinton, Alberta, Canada, about 45 miles east of Jasper. Hotels in Jasper start at about $250 per night with two-night minimum. Hinton we'll just say is considerably less expensive.

Departing Dawson City and heading south, the terrain is very similar to Minnesota, green rolling hills with farms, lakes and trees. It brought back fond childhood memories of spending many summers at my grandparent's farm and lake home in Minnesota.

After leaving Dawson Creek we crossed the British Columbia border and entered the province of Alberta, we also lost an hour on the clock.

Eighty two miles to the southeast of Dawson Creek we pulled into Grande Prairie for gas and a morning comfort break, good bye coffee, and then headed south on Alberta 40 for Grande Cache, some 119 miles to the south. The scenery slowly changed from rolling prairie and farms to thick forest.  

Western Alberta seems to be rich in natural resources. The route was strewn with natural gas wells and piping. Furthermore, the area is a logging haven with evidence of acres of clear-cut harvesting. We also passed a coal mine where huge powered shovels are devouring the entire side of a mountain.

The Later in the afternoon, we arrived in Grande Cache where we gassed up and had lunch at Milos, a Greek and Italian restaurant.

The next eighty eight miles between Grande Cache and Hinton is a game preserve with a warning sign, "Caution, wild animals on the highway." Before getting too far we saw two dead deer on the highway. A short time later we saw a flat-bed tow truck picking up a car with front end damage and a dead deer lying on the side of the highway. The chances of surviving a large animal hit on a motorcycle are dismal. Constant vigilance and reasonable speed are the rules for survival.

Not all of the animals we saw today were dead. We saw a Red Fox, no relation to the late comedian, one lonely Black Bear, a few individual deer and a young buck deer with the fuzz still on his antlers and his young doe bride, very cute.

The weather was pretty good today, temperature between 68 and 72 degrees under partly cloudy skies, some wind but not too bad. All in all it was a nice day for riding.

We pulled into Hinton about 4:30 pm and checked into a new Holiday Inn Express hotel. Thirty minutes later we were using the Jacuzzi and pool, the first ones we have encountered since leaving Olympia, Washington.

Tomorrow, we're off the Jasper, AB and Kamloops, BC.

As usual, here are a few photos from today's ride: