Day 9--Dawson Creek and Mile 0

Today we woke up in the town of Jasper in Jasper National Park of the Canadian Rockies National Park. It was too dark to see anything when we arrived late last night, but the town is truly picturesque. Jasper turns out to be a stopping point for tourists hiking, canoeing, camping, and just driving through the national park as well as a skiing hamlet in the winter. "Hamlet" would be a perfect way to describe the town which lies within the mountain ranges and has wonderful, quaint shops dotting what seem to be the two main roads in the town. They aren't trashy, flashy tourist places, but rather the type that look so inviting you could spend all day poking your head in and out of each store. Wish we had more time to spend there, but it was up, breakfast, download the blogs, buy some water for the cooler, gas the car, and hit the road (which still took us until noon to complete). I would love to go there again to ski and relax. We started our drive by finishing the last few miles of the Icefalls Parkway and then exited the park. The rest of today's 380 mile drive was fairly uneventful. We made great time through the beautiful, evergreen covered, rolling countryside. We had very few straigh-aways and spent the day going up and over and around large hills (can't call them mountains after seeing the Rockies). The route we took to Dawson Creek started with a roadside marker pointing to the "Scenic Route to Alaska". It was a very nice drive and well deserving of the highway marker. One thing to note about this "scenic route" is that the warning my husband gave us was absolutely true...nothing...no gas...no rest stops...no bathrooms...for a 100 miles at a time. In the first 250 miles we only crossed two towns. WOW. Imagine that in the USA...NOT. We arrived at Dawson Creek at 6 p.m. today and got out to take pictures including the one in this blog. Dawson Creek is the Historic Mile Marker 0 for the Alaskan Highway...the start...the beginning of this massive highway...a big deal. We were 9 days and 3208 miles into our drive. For the next three days (until Sunday morning) we will be on this highway. I don't have our book with me in the hotel room, but it will be for over 1300 miles. Tonight we are in the town of Ft. St. John, in British Columbia. The hotel is nice and we are looking forward to a relaxing evening and a good night sleep. Tomorrow we don't know if we will have internet so don't worry if we don't blog. We are stopping at a Hot Springs Lodge in the middle of nowhere. We are looking forward to warming and soothing our bodies in the natural hot springs that are there. The next night we stop at a place Martha Stewart filmed one of her shows from...we hope it is wonderful. So that is the scoop on us for today. We have traveled 3254 miles as of this evening.