Today, I woke up at 6:45, had a nectarine and milk for
breakfast, packed up, loaded the car, checked out, and drove to the “Signpost
Forest.” It started with lonely soldiers
traveling through – I guess they just started tacking signs up, and it
continued to grow. People still put
signs up…there were some from 2012.
Basically, it consists of city/town limit signs, state signs, street
signs, license plates, creative signs (there was a toilet seat someone from
British Columbia had tacked up!), and homemade signs. There were a few license plates from
Missouri! Right in the middle of the
signpost forest is some historical equipment and a picnic table, and outside
the forest is a tiny shop covered with license plates from all 50 states, plus
provinces and some foreign-country plates.
We were visiting the place at about 8 AM in the morning, so everything
was quiet and shut down. After spending
about 15 minutes there taking pictures and gazing at the signs, we got gas and
then got on the Alaska-Stewart Highway.
Around 11:45, we pulled into Stikina, British Columbia. There was a sign saying the road we were on
would be closed at a bridge (just one bridge!) on August 8 and 9 from 10 AM
until 10 PM, which totally screwed us up.
There was no other shorter way to go, so we just had to make do. First, we drove around town a little bit
until we found a hotel where a lady let us call our hotel for tonight to tell
them we would be arriving very late.
Then we decided to take a scenic drive on the Telegraph Creek Road – a
packed-mud/gravel road that, 70 miles from where it starts, is the town of
Telegraph Creek. We drove about 40 miles
of the road to a pull-out spot where we ate lunch (I had a sandwich – half
chicken, half summer sausage; Pringles; and pineapple juice). Just a short walk up a hill from where we ate
lunch was a small prairie looking out at the Grand Canyon with trees. It was absolutely breathtakingly
beautiful! I can’t describe how gorgeous
it was! You could see snow-covered
mountains all around, trees as far as the eye can see, a gushing mountain creek
way down in the valley…it was just so
spectacular! We spent a little bit of
time up there, taking pictures and video and enjoying the pretty views.
From Stikina to where we turned around, then back to
Stikina, was 80 miles and we really didn’t have anything else to do because no
one could go through the bridge repair.
The drive was actually very cool with lots of trees, plenty of flowers,
flowing mountains streams, and even some horses! They were just by the side of the road,
happily grazing and looking as beautiful as ever. I got really excited because I hadn’t seen
horses for so long (they don’t have any in Nome…or at least I didn’t see
any)! Once we were back to Stikina, we
got back on the Alaska-Stewart Highway and drove until 5:15, where we arrived
at Tatooga Resort. We got gas there,
went to the bathroom, stretched our car-weary legs, and looked inside for a few
minutes at all the stuffed animals people had shot – there was a HUGE moose, a
black bear, wolves, and others too. At
5:30, we were back on the road, driving along all by ourselves. If you see a vehicle, you almost want to pull
over and talk because it’s so lonely, so desolate, so far from any
civilization!
Finally, we arrived at the Bell-2 Lodge, about 25 miles from the closed bridge. We had some supper (chili and apple juice), walked around the place (it's also home to the world's largest heliskiing area), got some ice cream sandwiches for treats, and then drove on down to where the line for the bridge started. As we were on our way down there, we saw two black bears. Then, when we got in line, there was one right by the side of the road, happily eating grass. A lot of people had gotten out of their cars and were taking pictures...and getting way too close, like 10 feet away. Thankfully, the bear just climbed on up the hill eventually, but I felt like telling those people that they were putting themselves in a very unnecessary spot. Then, later on when we were sitting in line, we saw another black bear up in the woods, and a little bit later, there were two just disappearing behind bushes. It was like Bear Central! At 9:25 (35 minutes earlier than expected), we drove on across the bridge. Then Matthew did a great job passing two motorcycles from Switzerland and England and two big RVs. After that, we drove fast through the darkness, occasionally coming upon a slow car, which we quickly passed. I was on "Wildlife Watch" for the rest of the Alaska-Stewart Highway, then I tried to sleep a bit on the Trans-Canada Highway, which finally took us to our sleeping place, the Stork Nest Inn (our room and bathroom are HUGE!), at 12:30.
This was totally unexpected; we couldn't do anything about it. I thank God for His protection -- keeping us safe from animals at night, keeping Matthew (and me for Wildlife Watch!) alert, and just getting us to Smithers safely...regardless of the time. I call it a miracle because although things didn't happen the way we planned, everything still turned out perfectly, and that's definitely the hand of God. I was praying the whole way to Smithers!
We got to bed at 1:10, and now we are up, have had breakfast, and are ready to head out. Have a great weekend, and God bless you all!
~Anna~
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