Monday, August 1, 2011 starting mileage 13560. 60 degrees out. The Queen’s Birthday Holiday—Long live the Queen!. Left Terrace, BC, Wal-mart parking lot at 10:30. Valerie needed to refill her prescription and since it was a holiday the Wal-mart pharmacy didn’t open until 10. Drove out of Terrace on the Yellow-head Highway heading toward Prince George. (The Yellow-head Highway was named after a blond trapper that worked this area for many years, and the natives called him “yellow-head.”) Jim, Diane and Rocky took the lead. We are now going through land that is much more populated and the traffic has increased greatly. Near a pull-out, we spotted a black bear. We were able to pull into the pull-out to look at him more closely. He was grazing on what looked to be grass---yes, bears eat grass. ... read more

July 30, 2011 Saturday Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park, BC or in the native tongue, Anhluut’ukwsim Laxmihl Angwinga’asanskwhl Nisga’a. 53 degrees rained all night, but see some sun peeking through. Starting mileage at 13456. Approximately 250 years ago, a volcano erupted and killed about 2000 of the Nisga’a people in this valley when the lava covered several villages. You can take a guided tour of the small cone. The new community is located on a hillside instead of along the river valley as the older villages were. After taking several pictures of the lava flow, we left the park and drove toward the town of Terrace about 60 miles away. We stopped and took a walk to Vetter Falls. The cedar trees and the foliage undergrowth of this area look very similar to the forests ... read more

July 27, 2011 Wednesday. 55 degrees and raining. Starting mileage 13226. Left out of camp with Jim and Diane’s rig leading the way. Left camp at 9:30 to drive down route 37A to Stewart and Hyder. These two communities sit six miles apart, on the 90 mile long Portland Canal that leads directly to the Pacific Ocean. Stewart in BC and Hyder in Alaska. You have to drive through Stewart and then around a rocky point to get to Hyder. The US has no customs/border agent here, but Canada does. So residents go through customs to get into town to do any business or shop as most everything is in Stewart. Almost immediately, from the junction off the Cassiar Highway we started down a deep canyon with very steep mountain walls. Glaciers hang on the mountain ... read more

July 25, 2011 Boya Lake, BC 12916 was the starting mileage. 59 degrees and overcast—rained last night. Left out of our adjacent campsites at 9:30 am with Jim, Diane and Rocky in the lead. This part of the Cassiar Highway is extremely lovely with soaring mountains, deep gorges with water rushing through, rivers/creeks/ponds/lakes too numerous to count, forests with many different kinds of tall trees making a green “quilt”-like patterns on the mountains below the tree line, great numbers and varieties of wildflowers—yellow, orange, fuchsia, and white--in bloom on the roadside and in the forest undergrowth. Snow still on the mountainsides in patches that contrast with the greens of the trees, scrubs, and grasses. Just so gorgeous everywhere you look; you can’t help but be in awe of the beauty of this land! We drove up ... read more

July 21 and 22nd, 2011 Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Wal-Mart Parking lot. 60 degrees and sunny. Mileage 12519 These two days we set aside to stock up and get ready for the next ten days or more before we get to the next big town of Prince George in British Columbia. First thing on our list this morning is laundry. I did two large double loads while Valerie worked on her computer at the next door McDonald’s. After folding all the clothes and linens, we drove around and looked at the horse park area that was to have a show this coming weekend. Had lunch watching the ground squirrels go in and out their holes and then pop up to look around ---they are really cute even if they do cause a lot of problems with their ... read more