Heading North...

The morning of Wednesday, May 14, we left the Price George, BC for the thriving metropolis of Fort St. John, BC. Fort St. John sits about five hours north.

We fueled up in Prince George, and decided to drive for about an hour and then stop for some breakfast. What we failed to realize at the time, though, is that, up here, there aren't exactly a lot of places to stop and eat once you're outside the towns.

Our luck held solid, though. About an hour into the drive, we happened upon "The Grizzly Inn":



Now, I'd told Wayne that I wanted to find some local "greasy spoon" as opposed to a Denny's or something like that. Well, mission accomplished. They come no greasier than The Grizzly Inn.

But it was good.

When we sat down, our waiter told us that it was too late for breakfast. When I asked if there was no way to get breakfast, he replied "Not really. My Mom can't cook breakfast to save her life". So, I asked "Do you cook?". He replied that he did and, if we could wait until his Mom finished cooking lunch for another table, he'd be happy to cook breakfast.

Score.

The drive was plagued by some rather extended bouts of rain; sometimes hard. Unlike the drive from Hinton to Prince George, there wasn't a lot of wildlife to see. We did, however, see a black bear along the side of the road. He was a little bigger than the one I'd seen the day before. Time wasn't on our side, so we opted not to stop.

Our next stop was several hours later, after the coffee had run its' course. After negotiating a rather extended grade down the mountains, we stopped at a most welcome rest stop. We were driving down the "Pine Grade", so this was the "West Pine" rest stop:



Wayne was shy at first:



It was cold down here, but we didn't mind walking around in shirt sleeves. The snow was not far away, though:



Wayne and I each wanted shots of ourselves with the snow in the background. I know, I know. Who cares. I always take a lot of photos of the people I travel with, but rarely am I on the other side of the camera. Ergo, you get photos of us with snow in the background:





We'll be leaving for Grand Prairie, Alberta later this morning. This drive will be a welcome one; only about two hours or so. That'll be a nice change from the 5-1/2 hours I've dealt with each of the last two days...