So we're officially done with the Alaska Highway. "Mile 0" which marks the southern end of the historic highway is forty some miles behind us and yet another summit of the Rockies looms just ahead of us. I'm sitting in the middle back seat, legs stretched out between the front seats, Coke and chips to my left, camera to my right. Ready for anything.

As we start up into the mountains again, it looks like we're leaving behind the short oasis of civilization that we've been passing through since Fort St. Johns. Now we're in one of the largest Birch forests Mike has ever seen.

Okay, so here's an experiment for you. Sitting here with the lap top squished in between the front seats I feel a bit like a stenographer in a court room. So let me see if I can keep up with Mike and Mark's conversation and let you get an idea of every day life on the road:

Who cut all the trees down... See... See
That probably wasn't here when they settled here (speaking of a pile of logs by the river)
They must float pretty good
Maybe.
Bet you're right.

Roll'n' rollin' rollin' rawhide. (Mark singing)

Turkish delight for the girls (Mike showing off the candy bar he bought at the last stop)
Big Turk?
Like a gummy bear with chocolate
Oh, sounds nasty
Yeah but they like it... It's not exactly gummy bears,
Sounds gooey

At least this guy has siding (Mike nodding to a house)
Yeah, working on the ladder

Wonder what elevation we're at right here
It's a geological construct... see... it's just pushed up

(Mark drinks Coke)

Shit I'll bet there's about a billion trout in there
we should have bought a little cheap ass fishing pole

(passing tow truck)
Better to have a tow truck behind us
He says "I'll get you later ha ha"

Serious power lines up there

That thing seems like a random number (Mike pointing to temp on mirror)
Freeze my ass off an look and it says 27,
36 was colder than 22 according to that thing

(Mark grumbles and shifts weight) Ready for a stretcher

(Mike) sneeze... sneeze... sneeze

(stopping)
We're gunna stop here Matt
Wanna get out?

(back on road after taking a pee in the little Charlie river)

(beginning to rain)

How high do we go
Hard to tell
Are we going to get snow
Doesn't look like we go that high
(Me) There's a big curve left then we drop a bit into the Rocky Mountain Trench

Oh crap... the bag
What?
We need to put that plastic bag back on the bag
yeah can we do that?
did you save the bag
yeah, it's mumble mumble

(stop)

Now it's going to stop raining probably
Should have done that when we stopped

(backing out of the driveway)
Turn around when possible (tomtom)

It's going to lighten up maybe

A lot of Christmas trees here
Quite the selection of them eh
That's coming up quick... Christmas

Looks like Everson Nooksack area

High Mountain Road (Mike reading sign)

Huge power lines

Kinda rocky down here

Pipeline over here

There's a lot of utilities running through here
A lot of energy going through here

At least there an occasional car coming the other way... At least that's a good indication.

You got that thing figured out? (talking about the heater)
No.
Seems like it worked better with the window thing turned off, but it didn't. Plus the window steamed up

There's an old bridge there... been nicked a few times too looks like

I love these alpine areas
That's gorgeous there

I bet they get some rain in this area
Yeah were' getting the coastal weather
looks like snow up there
(me) speak up Mark, I can't hardly hear you
I was talking to Mike
Yeah, Mark's a mumbler
(me) I'd like to be part of your conversation but I can hardly hear you
I'd talk to you but you're busy writing
He's worried you're writing something bad about him
Write Marks' actually a sweetheart
Turns out he cries every night he's away from his family

You can tell we're getting farther south cause more trees still have their leaves on them
Yeah, this is like a rain forest
Definitely don't trim them back as far back as they did back there

Hope we're not going very high though so it's freezing on the road

That's a gorgeous river down there

Checkers (Mike referring to the warning sign)

Going under the power lines

One of these trees fell here it'd go across the road
Bet they do too... there's probably crews that come through and cut them up

Almost to the snow line... see across the hill there we're almost even
Be real surprised if we didn't get into it

Don't know how many people have seen a heard of Buffalo

Looks like this is about as high as we're going to get.
Veer way from the river then down into a valley on the other side
Does your pamphlet say what the industry is in Prince George?
No, I don't have anything about Prince George
It's probably the biggest city we've seen so far

Well I will say my definition of "remote" is quite a lot different now than it was when we started this trip
grunt

It's almost snow right there boys

(still going up)

I think this is the top right here, what do you think
Could be

Toll charge (Tomtom)
What?

Snowplow

There's a lake
Is that the lake that's dammed up for this power

We're into the snow now huh
According to Matt we should be going down pretty soon now
That's what it looked like... going into the trench
There's another range on the other side so, you know, it may be snowy
Maybe another situation where there's a bad winter storm
Maybe... that's life

(snow now on road and hitting windshield)

Powder Xing Ski area (Mike reading sign)

(passing tow truck parked diagonally on shoulder)

Holy crap there's a car down there (deep ditch)
that's the guy who passed us
really!
Looks like it

(a pickup in ditch)
Yikes
Looks bad here
Yeah taking it easy.... my standard give me shit 45
Those guys in the ditch aren't giving you shit
truck was pretty munched

(heading down)

(snow turns to rain)

Okay, there you go. We made it over the pass and down the other side. It's still raining but the road is in good shape and we're making good time. I didn't catch all the conversation but it was pretty much typical. Just remember... and I kinda hate getting sappy here, but it true. We all three think about the ones we love at home all the time and you all come up in our conversation all the time. One thing for sure. These three guys have a whole herd of folks around the country that are loved very much. :)