Diesel Shock

Fort Nelson, British Columbia, CA – Wednesday, July 13, 2011

EJ up at 8 and Frank is already up and ready to go to the Honda dealer. It is really foggy this morning, something we haven’t seen since we left FL. Frank got back around 9am. Yeah, success, they were able to call in the VIN to Honda and get the security code to unlock the radio system.

Went to McDonald’s to use the internet and get breakfast. Then back to the RV to hit the road. We fueled up BG on the way out of town and once again, the price keeps going up ($4.77/gal).

Ready to continue up the Alaska Highway. We are using the Milepost and an Alaskan Highway guide that has points of interest, parking areas and camping info. There really isn’t much in the way of towns along the road. The first stop we made was a place called Shepherd’s Inn. We weren’t hungry and the restaurant was the only thing there. We did treat ourselves to a home baked pastry to go. The next place was Sasquatch Crossing, how could we pass that up? Once again a small place. We also saw several places called lodges that aren’t much more than a small building. Most have rooms for the workers and food, that’s it. It’s the way of life up here, I guess.

The road and traffic had been pretty good until we hit a 40-50 mile stretch of pot holes, gravel and tar in one spot. Frank could only do about 40 mph and worked at dodging bad areas. There were also several steep grades to go up and down. Things got better as we got closer to Fort Nelson.

Once into town (pop 5,000), Frank decided to fuel up before we found a place to stay the night. Only 3 stations all in a row and of course the prices were all the same. $1.429/liter which computes to . . . .$5.42/gal (and that’s Canadian)!! We knew it would be more expensive as we went north, but WOW. One thing we are doing to help is using our Visa card for purchases. They have no conversion charge and the exchange rate is much better than at the banks. We usually use Discover, but they have a 2% conversion fee per transaction.

Went to the Visitors Center for info and found out that the local IGA allows you to park overnight, so off we went. Frank wanted to get the tar off of the Element, so we went in search of a car wash. Found one, but it was closed for the day. Went back to the gas station we filled up at and saw they had an outside wash. Frank asked how much and the young lady said $1.50/minute. We looked at each other in disbelief. She says “expensive, eh?”. Frank decided to clean it himself and we went back to the RV to relax and have dinner.

Not to make it sound like a bad day, the scenery along the way was beautiful. We are at lower elevations and the temperature got into the 80’s. Frank saw a bear along the road (EJ missed it since she was in the back).

We are having a great time and made it to Mile 300 on the Alaskan Highway.

BG Miles Today	241	BG Total Miles	4475
Eat Out total $	328.43	BG Total Fuel $	2410.58
Entertainment total $	112.10	Total Camping $	541.88
E Miles Today	11.8	E Total Miles	1567.95
E Total Fuel $	303.59	Day # of Trip	43