Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. ~Mark Twain
Trip Synopsis: June 17-18
Left Seattle around 12:30.
Traffic through Redmond all the way to the north end of Marysville was horrendous.
Other than the traffic, all went pretty well until we arrived at the US/Canadian Border. We purposely took the Sumas border crossing because it was farther along Canada 1 (coming ourt near Abottsford) and not very busy. Wrong choice!! Not only were they not busy, but they decided to strip search our vehicle (They were bored I guess). One guard was pretty hostile regarding our bear spray. The myriad of keys we have for the motorhome also kept them busy. In the end we asked why the one guard was soo institent that we obey all laws regarding weapons and our bear spray as we have taken it (and declared it) on several of our other trips. They stated that the gal was out of line and because our spray was clearly marked and small, that we were in compliance. It took us some time to put the coach back in order before we could proceed.
Other than that we've had a very pleasant and beautiful journey. I wish to return to drive Hwy 24 from 100 Mile House to Little Fort again. It is very beautiful, queit and full of scenic lakes. The only problem was the constant drizzle. This will make for a fantastic motorcycle trip someday.
All-in-all a very pleasant drive so far. A bit on the wet side. The gas is a bit expensive as we paid $1.39 a litre at one point. The use currency is 2% lower than the Canadian dollar. So given all that, we are paying a hefty price for this adventure.
Enjoy the pics and commentary below.....
The start of another Northern Journey begins.
All loaded and read to leave the house.
In Hope, Ca, Yukon Johann and GrizzLee had to pose yet again as a hostile war vet.
Look out canada.. Here come the Krueger boys.
A nice rest before dinner.
All nestled in at Skihist for the night.
Today we proceeded up past Cache Creek and through Clinton and then headed east over hwy 24 (Just before the town of 100 Mile House) towards Little Fort to make our way up towards Prince George. The drive was wet, but beautiful. We hope to go that way again. It hugs the south end of Wells Gray Park. There are a milliion lakes in this area. All fantastically beautiful.
In Clearwater we stopped at the Wells Gray Provincial Park vsitor's center and came across this friendly little felllow. Johann decided to give this guy a quick ride up trail.
GrizzLee calming the beast down afterwards and thanking him for putting up with us.
Yukon Johann tried to calm the beast down as well... ".. ahem... wrong end there son!"
We drove along the Robson Valley. It was beautiful when it wasn't raining.
Parts of the road were lined with Indian Paintbrush and Alpine Lupine all in full bloom.
We arrived at Valemount to get more gas and had some onion rings at the A&W restuarant. We brought our maps in and the Milepost guide to see where we could camp for the night. We ended up in McBride at the Bearview campground. Hot showers, WiFi and a nice quiet camp along the Fraser river.. complete with views of the snow capped peaks.
Before arriving at McBride, we stopped at the junction near Tete Juan Cache. This road heads over to Jasper and Mt Robson (a 13,000 ft behemoth). We could see Mt Robson encased in a cloud of rain. We continued north to our current camp in McBride for the night.
Time to turn in. We head up through Prince George and hopefully to Smithers tomorrow.
Stay tuned until next time....
Geez! Canadian border guards seem to like to make you take your camper apart all the time!
ReplyDeleteThey had their panties in a wad over bear spray? LOL
Great Pictures...