Canada

1964 Alaska Earthquake Facts: I've become really interested in Alaska earthquakes this year, as we've had four good size earthquakes I can recall. (The USGS website says we've actually had thousands, but most are too small to feel.) When I did some calculations last week and learned that the 1964 Alaska earthquake was more than one million times more powerful than the 4.9 magnitude earthquake we had recently, well, let's just say I became very interested in it.

While cleaning out my car the last two days, I found two empty cereal boxes, neatly folded, and squeezed between the passenger seat and center console, with some scraps of paper tucked in with them. Anyone else cleaning my car would find those items, look at them curiously, and throw them in the garbage without giving them any further thought.

Another two inches of snow here in Dease Lake, British Columbia this morning, even though none was predicted. It may still be snowing now, but it's hard to tell because the wind is blowing, and what I'm seeing may just be blown snow.

I ate dinner at Mama Z's Jade Boulder Cafe here in Dease Lake, British Columbia last night, and while there were only two entrees available -- lasagna and clam chowder -- the lasagna was indeed excellent.

There are two motels in Dease Lake, British Columbia. One motel is the one I'm staying at, the Northway Motor Inn. I need to venture out again to find out the name of the second motel.

How cool, a thing called the "court circuit" is coming through Dease Lake, British Columbia during the next few days. I'm told that the court circuit is basically a traveling court. They come into town, hear the trials of all the legal cases that have happened in this area, and then they leave town.

While I remain more or less stranded here in Dease Lake, British Columbia, I thought I'd share some of the crazy prices from the gasoline station and grocery store here in Dease Lake:

Well, I've finally gone and done it: I've stranded myself in a small "town" named Dease Lake, British Columbia.

I don't know what the population is here, but the town consists of two small hotels, a gas station that doubles as a general store, and, well, that's about it. There is a restaurant here too, but it's only open some of the time, and I haven't figured out their hours yet. (There are a couple of other places in town, but they aren't open this time of year.)

So far the gas prices in British Columbia have been at least $1.05/liter (Canadian dollar), which equates to $3.97/gallon. Here in Dease Lake it was about $1.10/liter, which is $4.16/gallon.

When I left Kentucky gas was about $2.60/gallon, so yes, gas costs significantly more here in Canada.

Wow, just a brutal, brutal travel day. Only 240 miles in nearly nine hours on the road. I left Stewart this morning, and I'm now in a town named Dease Lake, still in British Columbia.

The drive was just an absolute beat-down. I saw on the DriveBC website that there were going to be a couple of areas that were "packed snow", but what I didn't know was that these areas would stretch for 50 or 100 miles (or more)!