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Published: July 11th 2010
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camping
Our campsite in McBride Divert
to draw off to a different course, purpose.
It's been a while since I wrote a blog. Sometimes we are not near a wireless connection, but more often than not, we are so enjoying our travels and the sights we are seeing it's hard to sit and write. I don't want to get behind though, so I better commit to wirting more often. Anyway we had planned to go straight from home to Alaska and be in Ketchikan Alaska for the 4th of July. Well that didn't happen. Instead we chose to divert to see the sights and sounds of the Queen Charolettte Islands. I guess this is certainly one of the perks of having no real timetable or travel itinerary. We can change our hearts and minds at will and go wherever we desire. And we desired the Queen Charolette Islands.
So let me tell you a little about the trip to the Islands. July 01, 2010 we pounded the pavement hard and fast, getting us to McBride, British Columbia. July 02 saw us continuing to travel on Highway 16 from McBride B.C to Vanderhoof B.C. The day started out cold and continued to stay cold.
Cheers
A bottle of wine to celebrate The scenery is TREES. So many trees. Trees on the left and trees on the right. Trees up front and trees behind. British Columbia forests cover 60 million hectares (149 million acres). That is about the size of France. That is allot of trees and I do beleive we were in the thick of this massive forest. Once in a while we would catch a glimpse of the majestic mountains. Som picture this: In Vanderhoof, I went off to find a sandwich and a coffee, while Rene was relaxing on a picnic table. I came back to find Rene having some bizarre converstion with "Bea". Bea was a 28 year old woman who appeared to be living on the streets. Anyway, while I was gone she appeared and wanted Rene to give her a ride to Fort St. James to the fishing derby. Rene, always the kind and considerate man that he is, kept her in conversation for quite some time, allowing her to talk his ear off. She was quite amusing as I offered her a piece of my muffin. She told me she had to take it and could not refuse it because of her religion. She just
fishing
A First Nations man fishing in the creek. He is tied to a rock and has a great big net. held that piece of muffin yelling and swearing at different people who were passing by and then she would calmly and quietly talk again with us. We finally told Bea we had to get going and off we went with a smile on our faces and a big smile on Bea's face too.
At the campground the manager came to collect the camp fees with a quiz book. We had to pick a quiz out of the book and answer the questions. If we correctly answered all the questions we got our camp site for free and if we got 7 or less correct we had to pay the full price. Well we got 7 correct. (ok...with allot of hints from him). Anyway we paid the full price but had fun doing it. This is when we decided to divert our path and check out the Islands. We called BC ferries and it was no problem at all to get on the ferry.
It appears that travelling by motorcycle has its perks as well. Ferry travel being one of them. We were told there is really no need to make a reservation because the ferry attendants can find all kinds
storm
Starting to rain in Hazelton of space to squeeze motorcycles on. We also found out that while other motorists in cars, trucks, R.V's etc need to arrive at the ferry at least 2 hours before boarding, on our motorcycle we needed only about one hour. Once there, the attendants directed us to the front of the que and we got on the ferry first and at the other end, off the ferry first. Kinda feels like we were important.
We woke up July 03 to beautiful sunshine skies. As the day and the miles disappeared, the weather became more and more adverse. Houston, Smithers and New Hazelton. It started to spinkle in New Hazelton, but we decided to carry on to Terrace. In Terrace it was raining just a little bit harder and our hopeful destination was Prince Rupert. Both Rene and I were feeling good (no saddle sores) so onward we went. The rain became harder and harder about 45 minutes into the 2 hour journey to Prince Rupert. Either we turned around and stayed in the rain or kept moving forward and stayed in the rain. We arrived in Prince Rupert, cold, wet and slightly miserable. Good thing for rain suits. Soggy wet
Storm
Really starting to rain now and cold on the outside, but dry, (still cold) on the inside. Got a motel room to dry out and watch it pour rain until we went to bed.
Woke up excited to cross some of the Pacific to the Queen Charolette Islands. The ferry crossing was about 7 hours, so leaving at 11:00 am our EtA was 6:00pm.
We are still loving our plan and each other so all is good in our travels. Hope all is well at home.
love you all
and so we remain.... In the Grip of Grace
Rene and Crystal
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rod lil
non-member comment
living the dream
Hello Cyrstal and Rene So glad to hear all is going well despite the rain doing what you have never planned other then where the bike takes you, safe travels love you guys we will keep you in our parayers