Whitehorse
I decided we had better reserve for Whitehorse. I called our first choice. Full. The second choice. Full. The third choice 14km outside Whitehorse had space. Fortunately. Got here, pulled in, hooked up and it too filled up for the night. I called Ellen, Dad’s friend from the 1940’s when he worked up here. She was happy to hear from us and we will visit with her Thursday. Thursday Visited the Steamship in downtown Whitehorse. That bit of history was interesting to see. People were obviously a lot shorter then because the railing on the upper deck was at my knees. We were warned not to lean on them because they were the original ones and not really safe anymore. The Beringia Center was very interesting. Lots of preserved bones of prehistoric animals and an amusing exhibition of an ancient spear throwing method. From there we went to the Transportation Museum. Was kind of like visiting Dad’s wrecking yard. The staff there kindly allowed us to bring Lucy inside because it was very hot outside and otherwise we would have had to take turns going in. We visited with Ellen and her brother, Axel and their friend of many years, Dale. What fun visiting their memories of Dad and listening to the old stories. And very good food too! Tomorrow we will go to the Wildlife Reserve and see how many different kinds of wildlife we can spot. I think we will do the 5km walking tour. « ‹ 1 of 6 › » ...
Read MoreFort Nelson to Watson Lake
I shot a reindeer, a bear, mountain sheep and bison. With my camera, of course! Fort Nelson to Watson Lake Beautiful drive up to Watson Lake. We spent the night in a gravel RV lot behind the Bluebell Motel in Fort Nelson. Was kind of not the nicest spot but was convenient for fueling up and we didn’t have to look any further. Our online search told us it was free parking but it wasn’t anymore. I guess too many RVs took advantage of the “free” and so the motel put in water, electric and sewer hookups. It was $29 plus tax for the night and was a real hot spot! There were lots of workers camped in their RVs and trailers and campers. Fort Nelson is a real working town. IGA was just up the road so we stopped and stocked up on groceries. The prices weren’t bad, very similar to what we pay at the Coast. The further north we go, the hotter the temperature gets. What a drive to Watson Lake, though. There were some pretty good ups and downs and wonderful scenery. Lots of wildlife too. We took photos of bear, mountain sheep, and around a corner, a momma and baby reindeer (caribou) and lots of buffalo roaming wild. Watson Lake We are stopped at the Downtown RV Park. Yuk. What a hole and the owner thought he was a real comedian and was really just VERY irritating. There was a German lady ahead of me and she didn’t have a good grasp of the English language. He was really rude to her and condescending. Then it was my turn. I asked for a pull through because we still are not experts at backing into spots. He said he had one left that was reserved but the people hadn’t shown up yet so we could have it. He said it was a 50 amp. I said we were 30 amp. He said do you want it or not. I said ok, I guess if that’s all you have. So we took it. That part of the conversation actually went on and on…He thought he was funny. I was tired, hot and cranky. I wasn’t amused. We pull into the spot, a tiny rig compared to the $120,000 plus giant RVs parked around us. Turns out there is BOTH 50amp and 30 amp plugins. Why didn’t...
Read MoreThe Mighty Peace River
We left Barkerville/Wells this morning and are now sitting along the Peace River, near Hudson Hope. We pulled into Lynx Creek RV Park which is a lovely spot right on the Peace River. Even Puttins enjoyed the scenery. There were boats speeding along and in the evening there was even a fisherman trying his luck. In the morning I went for a walk with Lucy along the bank and noticed a fast moving “stick”. It appeared to be a bit odd so I stopped and watched it for a few minutes. Lo and behold, it was an otter! The poor Peace River. The lady who owns the RV Park came to collect the $30 fee for the night (electric and water provided with dump station, showers and washroom). We chatted for a bit. All of her property will be under 80 feet of water if the government has its way with Site C. What a shame and waste of prime agricultural land. It was really sad to see what would be lost should the Site C go ahead. We are now sitting in Fort Nelson. It was a gorgeous drive with rain showers and far off lightening. There really isn’t much in between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson but muskeg and mosquitoes. Beautiful, though. And, thankfully, there were only a few really steep hills to go down. Our brakes are holding up. Pics will be uploaded to an album....
Read MoreBarkerville
Wed. June 16, 2015 After spending 2 very relaxing days at 100 Mile House (and seeing a yellow headed blackbird), we headed to Quesnel and Chemo RV to get our electric brakes checked and our solar inverter replaced. Great service at Chemo RV and we learned so much more on how to operate both the brakes and the solar system. Then on to Wells and Cariboo Joy’s RV Park. We had stayed there 10 years ago and were pleased to see the improvements she has made. We booked two nights and went to visit Eva and Leif Grandell in New Barkerville. The next day we visited another New Barkervillian and learned a lot about the area. Afterwards, we went to Barkerville and, as always, had a great time revisiting history, walking all the way to Richfield, past 12 Foot Davis’ gold claim. The photo is of Don leaning up against the Courthouse. Court wasn’t in session. The Chinese food in Barkerville is truly tasty and what a treat to have it in a historical restaurant. Half a day wasn’t enough so we decided that we would book two more nights so we could explore Wells and the Barkerville area more. The drive out to Bowron Lakes was an experience. Don was upset his truck got covered in muck. We saw a black bear, one of the biggest I have ever seen, trucking down the middle of the road. Bowron Lakes is huge and totally off the grid. I checked my emails at the Frog on the Bog, next to the Bear Paw Café and browsed the selection of gifts and books they had on display. Don sampled the Big H’s fish and chips at the Hub Motel. Leif took us out for a hike up the back hills and we made it back just as a hail storm hit. What a great area if you like the outdoors. I will post the pics to the...
Read MoreRecuperating
To continue on from the last post describing our hair raising experience on the Duffey Road, yesterday morning we were still quite stressed. You will see that we were partially recovered…We thought we would give our solar panels a try, since we had paid a lot for them and we were “dry camping”, and make our morning coffee in our electric coffee pot. The panel kept switching off and it was very frustrating. We could see that there was actually a draw on the batteries and there shouldn’t have been. Fortunately, we had wifi through my Rogers Netgear so I looked up the specs on the manufacturer’s site, GoPower by Carmanah Technology, but couldn’t find anything that made sense to us in this situation BUT I found a 1-800 number to their tech department! I called and the tech on the line told us to do a number of things to the inverter and then he concluded that it was defective. He fedexed a replacement to Quesnel to Chemo RV for arrival on Wednesday. Needless to say, we made our coffee old school by boiling water on our propane stove. 🙂 We mentally prepared ourselves for the further trek down the mountainside to Lillooet. It was only about 3km to go. Fingers crossed, crawling at a snail’s pace, we began. YES! we made it down without smoking brakes! Little did we know about what was to come ahead. Lillooet is in a valley. What goes down, as I always say to myself when hiking the Kludahk Trail, must go up. Yes, we had to go up and that meant that at some point we would have to go down again! Everything was crossed, fingers, toes, legs, arms and eyes, as we crept up a narrow steep incline with a long dropoff on the outside edge. Ahead of us with a sharp 90 degree blind corner, was a concrete “bridge” structure to go under and then the sharp turn. And we were starting downhill, too. As we were inching our way under, a motorhome comes up around the blind corner. There was just barely enough room for us to make our turn! I am sure they were just as surprised and frightened as we were. We continued on down. We could see where there must have been a landslide or collapse of the road below us, a rough gravel stretch...
Read MoreJune 13th
Smoked the brakes coming down to Langdale Ferry. Ferry workers kindly held 50 feet of space JUST big enough to hold the truck and trailer and not an inch to spare. We called Merlin while in the ferry lineup for advice on brakes and we/he did some research and thought we had the brakes readjusted properly. Off the ferry at Horseshoe Bay and headed merrily up the Sea to Sky Highway. We wound our way along to Pemberton where we bought diesel. Then we started our journey towards the Seton Recreation Area, a free BC Hydro campsite. We headed up, up and up and around switchbacks and then down. Boy, was it down. All was good till we hit the steepest 10km downhill to Lillooet. About 3km down, the brakes started smoking. We pulled over on the edge of a cliff to let the tires cool down. Bravely we set off again. It wasn’t long before the burnt brake smell started again and smoke poured out from the front tires. Fortunately there was a large pullout. We stopped, chucked the tires and sat, letting our fear subside. Before we had left on our trip, we had purchased two different roadside assistance plans so I wrote the details down and Don flagged down a nice young man to take him to the nearest cell reception. Of course the roadside plan is run through the US and they didn’t have a clue what to do or where we were. The young man, Paul, brought Don back up the hill. Our destination for the night was supposed to be Seton Recreational Area and it happened to be a 2 minute trek back down the hill. Should we risk it? It could be the last decision we made. We decided to risk it and had Paul follow us down so he could call 911 and report the accident. Luck was on our side after all. We were able to pull into a campsite and shut down for the night. Santa had to change his suit! Tomorrow the saga...
Read More