Day One - Washington to Lac La Hache, BC

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We met up with our friends, Teri and Dave, at the rest area just north of us ON TIME!! It's nice to know it can actually happen now and then. Mike and I led the way to the border crossing at Sumas, WA. Crossing was quick and easy. We handed the agent our identifications and he asked us if our dog, Charlie, is current on his Rabies vaccination. He didn't even ask to see the certificate, he just took our word for it. He then asked us a series of questions about what we may or may not have in our possession: alcohol, cannabis products, firearms, knives, more than $10,000 CAD or $7,500 USD, all of which we answered "No," UNTIL he asked if we had any fruits and vegetables. "Yes, we have fruits and vegetables, but they're all from the store and commercially grown."
"Plums?"
"No."
"Apricots?"
"No."
"Nectarines?"
"No."

"Apples?"
"Yes, we have apples."
"Sorry, but you can't bring them into the country. Pull ahead and park over there on the right and dump your apples in the red bins over there to the left."

Really??? Argh! I walked back to the trailer, unlocked the door, pulled the steps down, put the slide out enough to get by the table and pulled all 6 of my juicy, sweet, crisp apples from the refrigerator. Before I left the trailer I took a giant, vengeful bite out of one of them and chewed it all the way to the red bins. He was so lax about everything else we could have probably said "No" to the apple question and been able to keep them, or I could have tossed only 2 of them. Oh well, things you think about after the fact.

Our route, for the most part, followed the contour of the Fraser River as it wound its way through the Fraser Canyon. Rolling hills ended in steep cliffs where the railroads and eventually the federal transportation department blasted away at the bedrock to make way for faster and easier routes to get goods and people from Point A to Point B.

We were about an hour and a half into our drive time in Canada when what to our wondering eyes should appear from the shrubbery on the left side of the highway, but a bear! I know nothing about bears or judging their age. I'm guessing this one was maybe a year or two old. Not big enough to be full-grown - I only know what full-grown looks like from movies, tv shows and Pemco Insurance commmercials - but this one was big enough that I knew it wasn't a cub. It ran across the road far enough ahead of us for us to see what it was and make it safely across without us having to brake hard. Pretty cool! I don't think any of us expected to see bears until we got to Denali or Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks. Unfortunately, our companions weren't able to see the bear. It had crossed and made it into the thick foliage on the shoulder before they reached the place where it crossed. It also happened too quickly for me to realize what I was witnessing and get a picture of it.

We stopped at a rest area near Yale to stretch our legs. Canadian rest areas are very different than those we're used to at home. They're not much more than a wide spot on the shoulder of the highway. The one we stopped at was big enough for maybe 10 passenger vehicles or a couple RVs and 2 or 3 cars. There were no marked parking spaces so the maximum occupancy was subject to how drivers chose to park. The rest area sported several large signs explaining the history of the area. Small as the rest area was, it did have a couple of small buildings each with a toilet, sink and air hand dryer. No vault toilets here (no soap either for washing up after). Good thing I had hanitizer in the trailer!

Yes, hanitizer. The kids in my class at work called it that, so that's what I'm going to call it from now on!

While we were stretching our legs and letting the dogs have their break from the trucks as well, we met and chatted with a couple from Mississippi. They were headed east to the wine country of the Okanogan then heading back to the Vancouver area where they'll begin their cruise up the Inside Passage. Bon voyage, fellow travelers!

An hour after getting back on the road we encountered our first road construction delay. The warning sign said to expect lengthy delays. Fortunately it wasn't absolutely horrible; maybe 20 - 30 minutes. Gotta love summertime. This is why we completely bypassed our planned stops in Texas in 2015. The entire state looked like it was under construction. After driving forever and a day through the construction zone, following the long line of vehicles being led by a pilot truck we finally got to the actual construction site. There was a sign posted at the roadside warning drivers that only one heavy truck is allowed on the bridge in either direction at a time. What?!? Are we a heavy truck?? Uh, Dave ... Are you seeing this? I sure hope he waits for us to get across before he follows. I really hope that bridge is why they're doing road construction in this particular spot.

Another hour later and I see another sign alerting us to the possiblity of wild animals in the area. So far we've seen a few for deer, one for elk and one for moose. None for the bear, though. This time, the animal on the sign is Bighorn Sheep for the next 4 kilometers. Less than 1 km later we see a small herd of Bighorn Sheep grazing on the shoulder! I grabbed my phone to snap a picture or two before we passed them. I was able to get a pretty good shot of them and Teri got a nice one as well. First a bear, now Bighorn Sheep. I wonder what we'll see next.

Next was not an animal, but a couple of rain squalls. Thankfully we were only in them long enough to give the truck and rig a good shower.

Had to stop to fill the tanks before we arrived at our overnight accommodations. Diesel was $1.79 per litre. Sounds great until you remember 1 U.S. gallon is equal to roughly 3 1/2 litres! I'll let you do the math. Let's just say it's not a bargain. The farther away from the bigger cities we drove the cheaper the fuel was, so of course after we topped off the tanks we began seeing lower and lower prices. Better to pay a little more than to run dangerously low looking for a lower price.

Our home for the night is a former KOA Kampground. There are still two telltale Kabins to the left of the A-Frame office. It's a small campground and in need of some landscape maintenance, but overall not the worst place we've overnighted. The owners/managers have operated this place for 40 years. It's right off the highway and there's not much to muffle the noise of cars and trucks passing by, but after a long day on the road, we're tired and shouldn't have any trouble falling asleep. Dinner for us was frozen dinners. I think it was a good call to grab a few of those specifically for situations like this. With tomorrow being an earlier departure and longer day on the road, I anticipate a repeat of tonight's dinner plan. As we were eating our microwaved meals Mike piped up and said the park has wi-fi service (yay!), but he read the fine print under the wi-fi code where it states it's good for one device per campsite AFTER he'd already connected his phone (boo!). Therefore, this will be the first of many posts made in an untimely manner. I hope we're able to find wi-fi somewhere tomorrow.

I pulled out the laptop after dinner to compose my blog post and tried to open a Word document. I'm cheap and have thus far refused to buy Office 360 so I use the free version ... online. Without internet access I can't use Word to write my blog. A quick search to see what our relatively new laptop has to offer in the way of document composition programs brings up Notepad. Okay. I've never used Notepad before, but beggars can't be choosers, can they? I suppose this will copy and paste onto the blog as well as Word would. We shall see.

Okay, I'm rambling. Off to bed. Go read our 2015 trip while you wait for the next post.

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Comments

[TW]

Gratitude!
Thank you for ALL your blog posts! I love ‘em! Your last trip too!