Day Seventy-one - Aug 18, 2000

The day began in the warm confines of our Kozy Kamping Cabin in the Blue Spruce Campground just west of Prince George. We should have two more nights before Anchorage and neither is likely to have much in the way of accomodations unless we want to get a motel room. We've decided a slightly uncomfortable bed with a new car smell in a beautiful provincial park is far more desirable than a very expensive room. That said, we enjoyed a couple of good long showers, repacked the Beetle, uploaded some web pages, and jetted northward. This day's drive, in particular, takes one through a lot of communities that are a curious combination of tourist support and resource development. Dawson Creek is a few hours from Prince George and is actually kind of a nice little town, focusing on gassing you up and agriculture. The next two stops are Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. Both of these communities are more resource development oriented, with smelly natural gas seeming to be the primary product. On the other hand, they both have central boulevards lined with gas stations, fast food, and lodging. My sense is that they just don't want you to get too far off that main drag. Coralling the tourists, more or less. After Fort Nelson, things become more rustic and the towns and gas stops are entirely AlCan related. We put in a long day, which is far easier to do in the Beetle, with Theresa driving the vast majority of it. She seems to like this car. We settled in for our first night of "car camping" in the Beetle. Seats fully reclined, it was actually pretty comfy. For people of our stature.