This has been an interesting day. We worked most of the day on getting out the Polio Echo Inc. newsletter that goes to members all over the country. Some 300 copies had to be folded and secured and then they had to have the address labels put on and kept on zip code rotation. This is one of the USPS requirements for bulk rate mailing. What a pain, but necessary. We finally finished up a little before 4pm.
The attached photos are of sr37, the Cassiar Highway in British Columbia. This highway is several hundred miles long and most of it looks about like this. The highway is only 2 lane, narrow at that. We saw very few vehicles the length of the highway. You had to slow down and move to the edge to pass an oncoming vehicle. The road was, what we call "chip and seal" and the southern half had been resurfaced the previous year and they said it was to be completed the following year. It suffered considerably from frost heaves, as most roads in this part of the country do. You just have to slow down and take your time to keep from bottoming out.
This highway runs between two mountain ranges and if you enjoy mountains, this is the road for you. We saw several glaciers on either side of the road, lots of wildlife and very little indication of any living souls. We did see two highway signs indicating we were on road 37, however you did not need any signs as there was not any other roads, only a few drives that did not appear to go anywhere and a few entrance roads to Provincial areas. There is really no where to go except into the mountains on either side. If you did come across a small settlement there might be a road that went into town on one end and out the other, back on the highway.
We did find an interesting place called Jade City. This is reportedly as the only jade mine in the world. They had all kinds of jade trinkets as well as bulk jade you could buy and cut yourself. It can only be cut with a diamond wheel and lots of water. They had a large piece of jade being cut with a gasoline powered saw. It was just running and cutting unattended. The half hour or so we were there it only cut about 1/2", so it would take several hours to finish the cut. They had a lot of old mining equipment and tools used in the mining of jade.
There was also a place there that had all kinds of animals made out of logs using a chain saw. Some very interesting items as well, all made out of wood. Across the highway was a small filling station and a place to get something to eat. You would not call it a restaurant as it was not that nice, just a place to get something to eat. As usual, we always filled our fuel tank at every opportunity. There are not that many places to fuel and when you only get about 8 mpg and a 26 gallon fuel tank, you get gas when you can. However, we never did run really low on fuel. We found fuel at every 75 to 100 miles, but you never knew how far it would be to the next.
As there was not any power anywhere down this highway, everyone had generators or various sizes to keep things running. Most places had their generators away from the place of business, but if you listened close you could hear them in the background. Just a way of life in this part of the world.
This is beautiful country and always a pleasure to travel and watch Mother Nature do her magic, even in a part of the country that is frozen for several months of the year.