Day 6
Well, we’re getting farther north, meaning we don’t know when the sun sets because when we go to bed (to bed, not necessarily to sleep) around 10:30 it is still daylight and we don’t know when it rises because it is up when Henry and Shelley get up at 4:15 a.m. We did pretty good getting up and on the road again by 7, which helps to keep Harold in a happy mood. Shortly outside our first stop of Fort Nelson - out in the middle of nowhere - as we came up over a rise, we encountered an old, old man, with deeply tanned and leathered skin, hobbling up the hill. Only he was in the oncoming lane, walking into the traffic, and pushing a loaded cart. Watching him hobble, those of us with arthritis knew it had to be hurting. Amy’s ?: where did he come from? Henry was reminded of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, with Mr. Peabody’s old cleaning man who came shuffling out at the end of the show. Later, we wondered if we should have stopped and offered him something cold to drink, food, a kind word…
(Note to future travelers: the Tetsa River RV Campground looked nice. By now, we are qualified to know.) Each time we stop, Tim will say, “That was the most beautiful ride, that was a fun ride!” And when Henry gets off the bike and takes off his helmet - well, we’ve dubbed him “Perma-grin.”
We left the dense tree-covered high plains and got back into more mountainous terrain. Felt like Banff, only closer quarters with the scenery on the road. Not quite as rugged as Banff, more vegetation and an older mountain range. Lots of roadwork going on, long lines of rv’s ahead of us when the road crews stop us. (These crews, we’ve noticed, are quite young. One crew was entirely comprised of high school girls, expertly filling pot holes while an older woman supervised.) Those long lines of rv’s ahead of us? They were also lined up at the Toad River gas stop, so we decided to push on to Muncho Lake for our next fill up. Which turned out to be a colorful, memorable break in our day. If you ever make this trip, be sure to stop at Double G Services at Muncho Lake. If you don’t need gas, you need to stop for the food. Yu-um! Fresh-baked homemade bread sliced thick, thick, thick and slathered with butter; or order a sandwich, made homestyle and it shows up a good 4 inches thick. It was lunchtime when we arrived and several locals were waiting while the harried cook behind the counter, rushed here and there filling orders and baking cookies at the same time. Shelley says the German Chocolate bars were yummmmy. She does her chili and stews from scratch, too. We also met our new Cousin Herb, who volunteered to answer our questions about Muncho Lake. He was a true mountain man, beard down to there, was a guide and played banjo and harmonica in a local bluegrass band.
On the road again, we came across caribou and then not a mile away, a Stone Mountain Ram, curled horns and all, with his family of several females and little babies. I think the red truck is pretty formidable looking, but that ram was staring Amy down. We would come across mountain sheep at least 3 more times before we stopped for the night. They were nibbling on something right at the highway edge; couldn’t see what it was but we will have to find out what tomorrow.
And then – BUFFALO! It was two big old patriarchs sunning at forest’s edge. Later we came across a rather large herd eating on the edge of the forest. At the next stop, we learned they were actually Wood Bison and are an endangered species, with only 250 in BC. Thinking we had had all the wildlife seeing for the day, Amy was finally rewarded with her first black bear sighting.
After paying almost $7 a gallon for gas at Muncho Lake, Cousin Herb told us that the cheapest gas was to be found at Contact Creek and he was right - $1.03 for a litre, about half the price. We stopped for the night at Watson Lake. The boys rode hard today and made up lost time. Before dinner, we made a visit to the Sign Post
Forest. Everybody had been reading about this ever since the trip planning got started and finally we were there. About 6 acres of post, covered with license plates, city signs, homemade signs, and other inventive means (lawn chairs, cooler lids, bin lids, pie tins, tin cans, ) for people to mark that they had been there, ridden the road and done that. Almost 30,000 signs! Several signs from Iowa were found, a few from Utah and several from Washington – woo hoo! 
Harold had a nice chat with one of the hostesses in the info centre; she was a local farmer. Said they certainly had enough daylight but not enough heat units to grow much besides barley and hay. We have learned that, even though the sun doesn’t go down, every town on this road closes up tight at 8 p.m. which made for a scramble to find food for the night. The grocer was shooing us out the door. Back at the camper, Becky was finally able to see the tender pictures of Baby Dylann’s birth; we all had a tear in our eye. The wi-fi was available as advertised at this campground but it was sketchy at best, so it was all the more touching that we were able to upload Dylann’s birth chronicle. Hard day’s ride, beds looked good.
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