June 21 (con't)

Starting up the Alaskan Highway

June 21 (con’t)

Yesterday we did stop in with David & Starla in Grand Prairie and their two children.  Starla picked us up at the airport and we met Dave at a restaurant close by where he works and had lunch.  Then we went to their house to see where they live and then back to the airport and we were on our way again.   We started following the Alaskan Highway after we hit Port St. John’s.  We finally hit the mountains and at some points they were higher than we were on both sides of us.  We’re keeping the road in sight as a place to land if the need would arise.  We arrived in Fort Nelson about 6:30 pm.   The town was about 7 miles away, so we got a ride from the fueler guy who was going off work and went into town to eat and walk around a bit.  We then took a taxi back to the airport, and had our first night of camping.  There was a trailer there they kept open for us that had a bathroom (a shower, but not hot water unfortunately), and couches, a TV, and even a coffee pot for the morning.  We set the tent up and about 10:30 I went to bed, but Roger never did get to the tent.  He spent a long time doing computer stuff (they had WIFI) and I guess slept a bit on the couch.  I was amazed how well our air mattresses did – I slept very well.  It never did get totally dark all night.  The mosquitoes were quite awful, and gnats, and we couldn’t find our mosquito repellent, so I got a few bites .  People are having a fit here about how bad the mosquitoes are this year – apparently they’ve had a lot of rain, but since we’ve been here it’s nothing but blue skies and is much warmer than we thought it would be.  It does cool down pretty good at night, but days have been in the 80’s.  JOLENE