May 14, 2009 Thursday Day 4
I thought you might like to meet my new best friend. I’ve gotten to know this friend pretty well, and although it took awhile for me to really understand her, now that I know how she ticks, we’ve become quite close. In fact, she often travels right on my lap.

Inside her cover is an explosion of information.

Once you figure out the route you are taking (and find that section in the book), it takes you mile by mile down the road telling you about everything from where there’s a turnout with a trash can to all kinds of details about communities you will be driving through. It lists campgrounds and tourist attractions (and trash cans) and while it can’t list everything in an area, it always gives information about where to find the local Visitor Centers. It has truly been an invaluable tool – and a real friend!

Our fourth day on the road could be called a “slow news day”. While we drove through some beautiful countryside, we didn’t make any exciting stops (well, unless you count the one where we all filled up with diesel. That was pretty exciting in an economic sort of way!)

So in pictures – and in just a couple of long run-on sentence, here is what we did on Thursday.

Starting out from our perch at Lake McLeese Resort

we made our first stop at a local “wood shop” – aka gift shop – where we did succumb to a small portion of homemade fudge and

then we drove by lots and lots of cows (I especially liked these hugging the hill)

and horses

and beautiful farms

until we came to Quesnel (which surprisingly rhymes with Dwinell) where we again located the Visitors Center, checked out the Billy Barker statue (he’s one of the gold miners that founded the town) saw some blue sky

but turned and looked the other way to see what was ahead of us.

After we found a local quilt shop (which made up for the long stop at the farm machinery “museum” yesterday),

we hit the road again

till we came to a “turnout with a trash bin on the east side” where we enjoyed our lunch (with our motors turned off, since we were in an “idle-free” zone!) in our own rigs since we were once again being rained on

and when we got back moving down the road

we came to the little town of Stoner (as in John and Rosie) so I had to take a picture of this little building,

even though we never actually saw the town but eventually we came to our destination for the day, Prince George, crossing the Fraser River one more time,

and after we drove through town we headed to Ness Lake Bible Camp (a Sower project located near Prince George) where we were going to spend the next two nights

and there we were blessed with dinner and a time of Bible Study with the staff and then a beautiful (even through the trees) sunset!

And thus ended Day Four of our Alaskan Adventure.

OK, Day 5. We left the RV’s all nestled in at Ness Lake and took off to explore Prince George, BC. It was a nice relaxing day just driving around in a car instead of trying to find parking spaces for three big ol’ RV’s. We did the visitor center, another quilt shop, a train museum, enjoyed a Tim Horton coffee and donuts, and ate lunch at the White Spot.
Here we are at the train museum –

We finished the day with a drive up to UNBC – University of Northern British Columbia. It was a beautiful campus, but we were most impressed with the view!

Not too many pictures today, but I just snagged most of the pictures taken by camera maniac John, so once I get a chance to sort through them, I’m sure I’ll be sharing some more. Fair warning!

We were delighted to be able to spend two nights here at Ness Lake Bible Camp. It certainly is a beautiful location and it’s always exciting to see how God is working all across North America. You never know, we might just stop here on our way home and work for a week or so. We leave tomorrow morning with Dawson Creek, BC in our sights – Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. I’m not sure we’ll make it all the way. (It’s about 230 miles and is certainly do-able, but you never know what things we need to stop and see along the way:-)). Slow and steady, right? We might meet a few extra folks along the way since this weekend is the “May Long Weekend” here in Canada. Monday is Victoria Day, which seems to be like our Memorial Day weekend, and a lot of the summer activities are having a big kick-off since it’s the opening of the “season”. Should be fun.

It’s getting light here around 4:30 (and not getting dark until 9:30), so I’d better get this place picked up if we’re going to get out of here at a decent hour.
Sweet Dreams!

PS- here’s another reason Gary has had such a good time here at Ness Lake –

(special effects compliments of John’s fun new camera!)