Lake Kinaskan, Day 1

It was such a pretty place that we felt in no hurry to get going this morning, so we did not leave the campground until about 11. By then all the rest of the campers were long gone.

The road did not improve much and we continued to drive about 30 to 40 MPH, slowing suddenly when we saw dips and frost heaves, or when we saw a sign warning of one. Unfortunately, those two do not always go together. We have found that all through our trip not all the signs should be where they are, and there are many places where more signs or flags should be located. It is really up to every driver to be vigilant. Many people on this highway are driving up to and beyond the 50 MPH speed limit. If I was driving a car or pickup I would be going much faster also, but I have no desire to tear up my trailer and our truck is not the smoothest riding rig on rough roads either.

We encountered a stretch of gravel road again and it was very rutted and potholed. It made us slow even more for that 20 miles or so. We then stopped in the town of Dease Lake to use the free wi-fi available at the college. We just had to sign a sign in sheet and then they gave us the public user ID and password. We checked our email but nothing else. I did not want to use their generosity to post blogs and upload pictures.

Another few miles down the road we came upon more construction. They are working on completing the paving of the entire Cassiar Highway and this was one of the short sections they were still missing. We had to wait for a pilot car to take us through, then we stopped for lunch at a pullout before continuing on again. A little later on we saw definite signs of buffalo on the road, but we never did see the herd. It was very wooded in the area so they could have been anywhere.

We finally stopped for the night at a British Columbia Provincial Park. It is a very pretty place right on Kinaskan Lake and we got a campsite backed up to the lake again. Unfortunately, the weather is not so nice tonight. In fact, it rained during the night last night and we encountered several showers today. It began raining here shortly after we got set up and looks like it will continue for quite a while. It is only about 50 degrees out, the clouds are low on the mountain sides, and there is fog forming on the lake. It’s a good night to hunker down and stay snug in our home on wheels.

We only traveled about 120 miles today, although we were on the road until about 4 PM. It is still about 175 miles to Hyder, AK where we plan to spend a couple days, so who knows if we will get there tomorrow or not.