Day 29 - Muncho Lake, British Columbia to Dawson Creek in 459 miles. From Indianapolis, Indiana they have ridden 8,027 miles.

The temperatures are so pleasant that you sleep with the window open at night.  At various times, they all could hear the rain coming down.

Ron said, "When I finally got up and opened the curtain, a steady light rain was falling."

Each one of the guys had to go outside into the rain in order to retrieve their rain gear from the bikes. Reservations had been made for the night in Dawson Creek, which was some 450 miles away.  When the group assembled at the bikes for the 7:30 a.m., departure everyone was already in full rain gear with helmets on.

The first two hours of travel was in a light to moderate rain.  They rode around Muncho Lake and over Stone Mountain.  Full attention had to be paid to their riding/driving because the weather conditions were not conducive to sightseeing.  The guys were sure that their surroundings were probably beautiful and they missed it.  Because of the rain none of the guys were able to take any photographs.
Why didn't they wait until the rain stopped?  In the mountains, it could have rained all day!  As it was, after two hours they were out of the rain for a while.

Shortly after hitting dry roads they ran up on the Tetsa River Outfitters Outpost and Coffee Shop.  They stopped.  The proprietor of the shop makes the biggest and best cinnamon rolls around.  The guys just had to taste those cinnamon rolls for themselves.  A huge cup of steaming hot coffee to wash the sweets down was a must.  There was drying of eyeglasses, face shields and breaking out the dry pairs of gloves.

Wow!  That is a huge cinnamon roll, David.

Cliff Andrews, proprietor of Tetsa River Outfitters has been catering to the needs of the traveling public, here at mile marker 375 on the Alaska Highway for over a quarter century, pumping gas, fixing tires, making beds, baking bread and cinnamon buns until we have become the undisputed, "Cinnamon Bun Center of the Galactic Cluster."  During the winter Cliff acts as a hunting guide.  He has cut more trail, outfitted more hunters and packed more Elk and Moose in 50 years on the Alaska Highway than they care to remember.  It says so, right on their website.

We're not talking Schwinn or Huffy either.

Mike kept his rain gear on to ward of the evil weather spirits.  The guys got lucky and  missed a couple of really ugly low hanging cloud systems that threatened to dump rain on them.  The weather held out and the group eventually took off the rain gear.

 This is probably a female Caribou.  Santa would call her a Reindeer.
Both male and female of the specie grow antlers, although the bull's antlers are much larger.
This one appears to be shedding, badly.

By now, it is early afternoon.  We know the morning was rainy and that the weather had cleared lulling the guys into a false sense of security.  This caused them to remove their rain gear.  They were discussing a plan of attack about lunch when their weather luck ran out.  

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the sky opened up. Quarter inch size hail balls were being pelted onto the group!  It was too unexpected to try to put on rain gear.  At least they were wearing full leathers.  There was no place to take cover so the five continued to ride right through the hail storm.  Ron had almost 3/4 of an inch of hail piled up in the seat right in front of him.  That five to eight minute hail storm seemed like an eternity, the guys were now soaking wet.  It was a good thing that lunch wasn't very far away.

  

 Joe and Fred enjoyed being out of those wet leathers.

The tall and the short of it, Mike finally saw a Sasquatch. 

 Dramatic changes in the scenery are becoming evident.  From the mountains to rolling wooded hills and then  flat or rolling crop land.  The guys were seeing hay and canola fields again.

The weather made for a long hard day of travel.  They sure were glad to see the Dawson Creek sign.

Dawson Creek is located in northeastern British Columbia.  It was once a farming community, but is now a well appointed regional center since the Alaska Highway had been built.  The current population of Dawson Creek is slightly over 11,000.  The town is named after George Mercer Dawson, a surveyor, who led a surveying expedition team back in August 1879.

Mr. Mercer, as a statue,  points towards the Alaska Highway.

This is the point where the highway begins.

Ron, Mike, Fred, Joe and David at the 0 mile marker on the Alaska Highway.
This is where the highway begins.

At some point these guys had to give up on having spanking clean motorcycles.
  This must be difficult for them!
The bikes now look like they have been painted with a flat finish paint.