DAY 8 - Edmonton, Alberta, CA - Ft. Nelson, British Columbia, CA  644 miles

We left Edmonton at 5:48 a.m. to avoid Edmonton's rush hour traffic.  We had a pretty uneventful first part of our drive except it rained off and on all morning and early afternoon.  We had Tim Horton's for breakfast which was good. 

We stopped in Dawson Creek to eat lunch, fuel up the cars and visit the point where the Alaska Highway starts.  There is a sign that says Mile 0. 

The second part of the day was more rain until around 5 or so.  Don and I got a low tire pressure warning in Nicki's car and had to stop for air.  Nicki and Brian went quite a ways before they pulled over to wait on us.  With no cell phones we were screwed as far as being able to tell them we were on our way.  Don put air in all four tires before the tire pressure warning went off. 

The road has been pretty good for the most part.  There are places where the pavement is rutted and broken up.  Some have signs to warn you and some don't.  Late afternoon Brian's trailer blew a rear tire.  It has dual tires so he was able to control it fine but had to pull to the shoulder as good as he could.  Fortunately the tire was on the pavement side so he had room to change it.  He had all the tools and an extra tire and it only took him about 20 minutes.  We could see way down the road to notice if traffic was coming.  We had 3 people stop to see if we were ok or if we needed help.  One guy offered Brian his spare tire.  Brian is going to buy a new tire in the morning. 

We've had dinner and I've got two loads of laundry in the hotel machines washed.  They're in the dryer now so hopefully they'll be done when I go down there again and I can go to bed. 

Oh we saw our first animal today besides birds:  a black bear was on the side of the road.  We saw it after we'd gotten down the road a fair piece after the blow out.