We got showers and laundry done at the campground, a pretty good deal for our $13.00 overnight fee.  We went downtown and saw the official start of the Alaskan Highway, Mile "0".  Oddly, it looked like much of downtown was closed.

We went into the Dawson Creek Visitor's Center and couldn't help but overhear some loud, rude Americans at the counter.  We looked at the guest book, I think they were the ones from Palm Beach, FL.  They sounded like New Yorkers (much of New York retires to Florida, you know).  We talked to the girl at the Visitor's Center about a restaurant for lunch.  She mentioned that many stores were closed on Sunday and suggested Tim Horton's.  It's a chain based in Canada and we've seen it before.  She said it was a real Canadian experience.  

So we went to Tim Horton's.  It was a soup and sandwich kind of place.  Most of the staff seemed to be in a coma, especially the sandwich maker.  Another customer asked if anyone was making sandwiches when she saw him slowly cleaning off the mayonnaise container while four people we waiting for their meals.  Not exactly "Fast" food.  We finally for our food, but we had to fashion our own iced tea.  The tea they had was bottled and sweetened.  We got a hot tea, they referred to it as "steeped tea" and a cup of ice.  They had to go to the back for ice.   

We drove quite a bit today from Dawson Creek to Jasper National Park.  Driving along the Alaskan Highway we saw more farms and privately owned lands rather than the hundreds of miles of undeveloped lands we saw north of here.  This area of Alberta is more developed than Yukon Territory or British Columbia.  We started looking for a campsite when we got near Jasper.  We checked out one provincial campground and found it was $20.00 per night and had several guys being loud and drinking.  We'll just look for a spot to boondock.  

We found a gravel road outside Hinton and little further and went up it.  As we rounded a corner we saw several men in reflective safety vests combing the woods.  The guy obviously in charge came up the the truck.  Andrew said, "I'm sorry, we were just looking for a campsite.  We'll turn around."  The guy in charge sternly says, "Can I have your names.  Write them on a piece of paper, please."  Andrew says, "Uh, yes sir.  What's this all about?"  He says, "This is in case the police want to talk to you."  (gulp!)  Andrew asked, "Did we do something wrong?  Are you looking for someone?"  Of course, Andrew and I imagined escaped murderers lurking in the woods we're about to camp in.  He says, "I'm not at liberty to say."  (GULP!!)  I asked, choosing my words very carefully, "Is this something we need to be careful of while camping in this area?  We can drive a little further down the road."  The stern guy gave me kind of a grin, nod and wink as if to say that would probably be a good idea.  He got our names and cell phone number, but I told him that the cell phone doesn't seem to work in Canada.  He kind of chuckled at that.  He finally revealed that they had a ranger that had "gone missing" and that's what the search was about.  We wish them luck in finding their missing ranger in good health!  

We drove further down the road toward Jasper and found another provincial campground that just had a couple of others there and we camped there for the night.