Day Ten - Taylor

The road from Fort Nelson to Taylor was most definitely the most boring section of highway that we've travelled. It was also the most deadly for wildlife! As you can see from the picture on the left there are really big signs warning people to be careful as they drive down the highway. Well this wasn't the case as we came across our first instances of road kill! In the first 250 km from Fort Nelson we saw one of each of the following dead on the side of the highway: Black bear, moose, elk, coyote, deer. It was a really sad day to see so many large, amazing animals dead along the side of the highway. While there is no way of knowing for sure how these animals died I would suspect that the number of transport trucks that literally fly (passed me like I was standing still...I was driving 110 km/h!!) down the road!

We did see one large animal - a moose!! It was lovely to see it but the experience was really over shadowed by seeing all the other dead ones. The moose was hangin' out in a swamp chomping down on the weeds growing. There were a lot of small ducks and other birds hangin' out with her. Unfortunately there were also millions of mosquitoes hanging around as well so I didn't take too many photos! As the bumper stickers say "There is not a single mosquitoe along the Alaska Highway. They've all married and had large families!"

As we made our way south we stopped off at a number of little towns and gas stations - after staying up so late to up-date the blog I was tired so required more sugar and caffeine!!

We passed Pink Mountain - or at least the signs said we did!! I didn't see a mountain so couldn't tell you if it is actually pink or not! When I asked someone at Wonowon (I thought it was "101"!) I was told that "in the right light it has a slight pink tinge". Personally I think this is a test to see how gullible tourists are and/or a test to see if people will admit to "not" seeing the pink!

We arrived in Fort St. John much sooner than I had expected as there were a lot fewer stops! In Fort St. John we stopped long enough to visit the visitor information centre, the Safeway for lunch, and Walmart to pick up a new wrist brace...it would appear that driving and sleeping on an air mattress is aggravating my tendinitis. Who woulda thought!

After lunch we headed further down the highway to the community of Taylor - we didn't' really stop as our destination was on the south side of the Peace River and the town. As you drive into the town you drive past the lovely pastoral scenes of farms and ranches...then you arrive in town! Then you see the contrast from the pastoral fields to the urban reality of industry!

Taylor has both a fuel processing plant and a pulp mill in the centre of the town. I noticed four things as we drove through the town: a) the Rec Centre (made me think of Keir), b) the mill, c) the fuel plant, and d) the smell! I'm sure there are a lot of really great things to see and do - the Peace Island Park looked really great - but as we were heading to visit family we didn't take the time to explore.

Our first stop was Dee and Gary's farm which is located outside of the Taylor and just down the road from Ab and Gran's farm. I'd never been here before and had not seen either Dee or Gary in about 7 - 10 years! Dee's daughter Elicia also stopped by which was great as she was a cousin that I had not seen since Grandfather Weighill's memorial service...around 20 years ago! While at their farm my adventure and new experiences continued as I was able to watch a fierier at work.

I had no idea what it was like to work with the feet of horses and had not really considered what it would be like to work with the feet of such large animals! The farrier was amazingly patient and work so incredibly fast. While he was working with one the mares I was able to play with the foal and the check out the rest of the horses that were in the paddock.

After we finished our visit we moved up the street to the farm owned by my dad's mom and brother. I had only visited here once for my Grandfather's memorial service when I was about 13 years old.

Arriving at the farm was a major trip into the past. My

Uncle Ab looks and sounds so much like I remember my Grandfather - this was particularly the case when he was calling the dogs (border collies).

Overall this was a boring travel day but a great family day. I really don't know my father's family well so it was really great to spend the day visiting with five different members of the family. Tomorrow we will move onto Prince George and a visit with dad's sister Alice and her husband Jim.