AB to BC August 2-7

Hello All (this is another picture-heavy one, but you should be used to that by now!)

Only one week in Alberta and now we’re back in BC for week 6. The past week was a bit relaxing, having the benefit of a long weekend.

Tuesday was Yasmine’s birthday. The night before Will and I had sneakily made her a cake so we could surprise her with it after work. I’d also made her a stuffed Earl. The Actua characters (on all camp T-shirts and promo material) are Gertie the gear, Darcy the DNA, and Earl the Erlenmeyer flask (there are stick figure kids too, but they just get the names of whatever kids are asking). Earl has achieved a certain status with the outreach team. Apparently last year there was a cardboard cut-out of him that had his picture taken in every new community. So I decided that as a long time outreach team member Yasmine could use a mascot.

Yesterday we loaded up and hit the road, driving 6 hours north on the Alaska Highway to Fort Nelson, BC. Fort Nelson is on the historic 300 mile mark and modern 283 mile or 454km mark (the Alaska highway has gotten shorter and the curves around mountains less dangerous in 70 years of maintenance and construction) and is the proud home of BC’s northernmost traffic light. Seriously. My adventures today started out at the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum and included the propeller of a WWII era transport plane that crashed at the Fort Nelson airport. I didn’t want to drive too far up the highway (there are warning signs about how far to the next gas station) but I think I went far enough to finally see real mountains. Last but not least was a hike along what may or may not have been an actual trail. There were a couple of horseback riders getting ready when I got back to the car so I’m assuming it was.:)