Prince Rupert

Sunday, June 13 -- Today was a better day, even though we still have rain.  As Joe said this morning, "we're back to our favorite pastime, driving in the rain."  We stayed in a municipal park campground right across the highway from the Skeena River last night in Terrace, after our frustrating day of car issues and rain.  This campground was very wooded and pretty, but when the wind gusted, it blew some small branches on top of the RV and scared us to death.

We left Terrace about 8:20 and headed to Prince Rupert, a very pretty drive.  Picturesque mountains, waterfalls.  Didn't see any wildlife until we got into Prince Rupert, though.

In case you can't tell, the white strips are actually waterfalls cascading down the mountainside.  Very pretty.  We saw several of these.  We had a river on the other side of us, that eventually dumped into the bay at Prince Rupert, which connects to the Pacific Ocean.  It was probably good that we waited until today to make this drive because most of the mountains would probably have been obscured yesterday, plus they had some pretty high winds here.  We followed a railroad track for miles, and we met one passenger train going the other way.  Then we caught up with a really long freight train heading into Prince Rupert.  Prince Rupert is actually one of the seaports that the Alaskan cruise ships stop at, and Collins and Marilyn had visited this port on the cruise they took a few years ago.

It had some train cars we don't usually see -- Canadian ones.  Most were tagged with graffitti just like in the U.S.  I thought this one was especially colorful.

We stopped at one campground at Port Edward, but it was very steep, camp sites were too short, and they didn't have full hookups, so we wound our way through that mess back to the highway and came into Prince Rupert.  They were celebrating "Seafeast" here but the weather did not cooperate, so we didn't see much going on with that, although we did have fish (halibut) and chips again for lunch.  They had a boat parade this morning, but we missed that.  We drove around, toured the Museum of Northern British Columbia, tracked down the 7 totem poles in town for Mazie, and drove out to the Seaplane base, but no planes were coming or going, probably due to the weather. I forgot to take the camera with me, so I didn't get any pictures in town.  I'll try to get a few as we leave in the morning.   We saw one deer eating grass in the front yard of a house, which was a bit surprising.  Joe just stopped in the middle of the street (Mazie got a picture), and a car passed us on the right, then stopped, and backed up once they had spotted the deer.  It's always an adventure riding with Joe!

This is a pretty nice campground, and I even did laundry again -- this time it only cost me $10.00.  The thing about doing laundry in Canada is that you need Canadian money, and you never know what denomination the machines will take.  The expensive ones the other day took quarters, so you had to change your Canadian paper money into Loonies ($1 coins) or Tooneys ($2 coins), then change those coins into quarters.  This one here just took two Loonies per machine.  As I was waiting for my laundry to dry, I stood in the doorway of the laundry room and watch an eagle soaring high overhead.  This was the fifth eagle I saw today.

We were able to use the Skype program to make a few phone calls this evening, which is a nice plus to this laptop.  That Skype program is a lifesaver while we are in Canada without cell phone service (too costly).  We just have to have access to the internet, and we don't always have that.

It's raining again, so I hope it gets finished with that tonight and that we have a sunny day tomorrow.  We will backtrack over part of the same road we took today back to the Cassiar Highway (Hwy 37), and then head north.  That's supposed to be a beautiful, scenic drive, and we are all looking forward to it.

Terrace, B.C.

Saturday, June 12 -- Today was not a very good day.  It was raining when we got up.  The battery on my car was dead.  Joe hooked up the charger and we got it started, but he decided I should drive the Explorer to the next town (Terrace), so it would charge.  He was afraid the towing parts might not work right if the battery was dead.  We checked the GPS and found a Ford dealer in Terrace, so I followed him the 87 miles to that town, in the rain, couldn't take pictures while I was driving.  We drove beside the Skeena River for miles and miles, and it was pretty -- really running hard.  It is a muddy river, different from the glacial rivers we had seen in the parks.  We all pulled into the Walmart parking lot in Terrace and I picked up Joe and we went to the Ford dealer, which was only about 1/2 mile on up the road.  They checked the battery and said it was ok, but the alternator was not putting out the right amperage, so he thought that was the problem.  That dealership didn't have the part, but he called around and found one, so we got a ride back to Walmart and told them we would come back in 2 hours.  In the meantime, Marilyn had found out there was a fish (halibut) and chips drive-in place in town, so she and Mazie went and picked up lunch for all of us.  Then we went to a Canadian Tire store and Joe bought a pair of rubber boots (just in case we ever get to go fishing or panning for gold).  Marilyn dropped us off at the Ford dealer, but the car wasn't ready.  The part didn't fit, but when he put our old alternator back on, it worked, and he said it apparently had a bad connection.  So they put it back together, changed the oil for us, and we got out of there (for $114, not as bad as it could have been).  Marilyn and Mazie had suggested staying overnight here at lunch, but Joe thought we should forge ahead to Prince Rupert, even though it was raining and windy.  But by the time we got the car back (1:30), we thought it probably made more sense to just stay here, so we are in a municipal campground just on the edge of town.  I decided to drive back into town (short distance) to see if I could get a haircut, so the girls went with me, but by the time I found the hair salon, they were just closing (5:00 p.m.)  I took no pictures today, saw no animals.  Terrace is the home of the Spirit Bear, a white bear unique to this area.  It would be great to see one, but I think sightings are pretty rare.  We played cards (31) with our group tonight, and now it is off to bed. I did get in a nap this afternoon, a rare treat.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

Hazelton, B.C.

Friday, June 11 -- OMG, we woke up to sunshine this morning.  What a welcome sight.  And it was 50 degrees.

Dave pecked on our front windshield first thing this morning and said a mama moose with her calf had just wandered through the campground.  Luckily, I was up and dressed (as opposed to Joe who was neither), so I grabbed the camera and dashed outside.  Well, maybe "dash" is a bit misleading, maybe "tripped" would be more apt.  Anyway, I caught just a glimpse of the mama, but the baby was unable to get across the fence and kept running into it.  Finally, the mama came back and led the baby through the break in the fence, and then they both disappeared from sight.  I got to watch the baby for a few minutes and caught a picture of it.

You may have to enlarge the picture, but it is right on the edge of the road, on the left.

Needless to say, this morning got off to a good start.  There was a RV (actually a fifth-wheel) that parked near us last night that we all decided we would buy when we win the lottery.  Would have loved to see inside it.  We saw it twice more on the road today, so we are on the same schedule, just not making the same stops, I guess.  Maybe we'll run into it, well, maybe we'll just pass it, again in our travels.  I would not want to run into it, believe me!

Yesterday we rolled over 2200 miles since we left home.  We've added maybe 300 more since then, so we are moving on.  Mazie is our "weather lady," since they are driving the Dodge and it has a temperature reading in it, so she keeps us up to date on weather.  Sometimes she even gives a forecast.  We passed a caution sign today for road construction that said "loose gravel."  It was one of those that blinks through the message, and Joe thought it said "loose moose."  He was really on the lookout for mooses then, although I'm not really sure what he was expecting!

We saw 4 deer (one at a time) in our travels today, but no other wildlife.  However, we are still in lilac country.  Joe never would pull over and let me restock, though.

This part of B.C. is just full of lakes and rivers.  At one time, our GPS screen was just splattered with blue lakes, even though we couldn't see most of them.  We did pass Burns Lake, which was very pretty.

We started out driving in tall pine country, but eventually we got back into snow-topped mountains.  Very pretty scenery, although different than what we've seen.  We went through some farm country too.

We crossed this bridge, which is the Hagwilget Bridge at Hazelton, one of the highest suspension bridges in North America.  Eric, you would have loved it.  It was a long, long way to the bottom!  We stopped at Hazelton because it is supposedly the Totem Pole capital of the world, and Mazie is into totem poles.  But they don't seem to have all that many here, and the carvers are not here at this time.

Mazie and Marilyn have gone down to the Visitors Center to get the scoop, so we may get to see more before we leave.  We are camped at 'Ksan Campground at Hazelton, right by the river.  Very scenic.  Dixie, we also went through "Decker Lake" today, but my picture didn't turn out of that sign. 

Lori, I made your key lime cheesecake recipe for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tomorrow we hope to make it to Prince Rupert, but the weather forecast is not very promising, so we'll have to make decisions in the morning about the day's travel.

Jasper to Vanderhoof

Thursday, June 10.  As we sat at our breakfast table in the RV this morning eating our breakfast, an elk was eating her breakfast right outside our window.

We watched her for quite a while as she browsed through our area.  We were on the road shortly after 8:00, and -- would you believe, we drove 291 miles today!!!  Pretty awesome for us old folks.  We started out in rain again, about 42 degrees.   The clouds obscured most of the mountain views, including Robson Mountain, which is the tallest peak in British Columbia.  I had issues when we had the view of that one, so I didn't get a picture, but here's some of the clouds.  We have left the spectacular Canadian Rockies, but they were really something to behold.

After a couple hours, and maybe 100 miles, we hit sunshine.  When we stopped for lunch, it was a hot 72 degrees.  We routed out a couple of deer when we pulled off for lunch.  They came back as we were leaving, I guess they hadn't finished their lunch either.

As we moved north, the scenery changed to lower pines in the mountains, and then farmland.  Joe spotted a black bear, but all I saw was a black blur.  However, later on, I spotted a tree with 4 small bears (Dave saw 6), two in the tree and two underneath.  Since we were not in the dinghy, Joe couldn't make one of his patented u-turns, so he didn't get to see them at all.

We did, however, spot our first Canadian moose, just by the treeline by the road.  No picture, we were moving too fast.  But it was exciting to see.  We had been looking for moose for a long time, and we hadn't seen any since those two outside of Coeur d'Alene.

We made it to Prince George right after lunch, so we continued on another 60 miles to Vanderhoof.
Here's a picture coming into Prince George.

We got to our campground shortly after 2:00, and it is a very nice campground.  You never know what you are going to get when you pull in, but this one is very pretty, clean, and nicely set up.  There's always chores to do for all of us, so Marilyn did a little maintenance on Dave this evening.

And here is me, sending an e-mail to Kaylee.  We got to talk to the kids (Tiffany, Cody, Kaylee, John, Bridgette), and Jeff and Brenda, tonight on Skype, so it was good to catch up with everyone after several days of being out of touch.  Hopefully, we can keep in better contact now that we have left the national parks behind.  We are heading toward Prince Rupert tomorrow, don't know if we will make it the whole way or not.  Just imagine that I have a hat on, because bad hair days are regular occurrences.

Jasper, Hot Springs, Wildlife

Wednesday, June 9 -- Today was a great day.  We saw tons of wildlife, beautiful mountains and waterfalls, and even enjoyed the Miette Hot Springs!  The first pix is of the campground woodpile.  You can have fires at some of the camp sites, but it costs $8.00.  However, the wood is free -- you just go pick it up.  Sometimes there are piles of wood at the actual campsites.

We drove around the campground and spotted 4 elk before we headed out for the day.  One of the elk had her baby with her.  The baby is trailing behind, but it is in the picture.  Marilyn saw one who looked like she was ready to birth any day.  We have a better elk pix later, but this is the only elk baby we have seen so far.

We headed for Athabasca Falls first, since we bypassed both falls yesterday.  It was an awesome sight.  The water pouring over it is the same emerald color we keep seeing, although it is mostly white froth.

Cathy, we could have used TCJ instead of TCB for part of my logon--taking care of Joe is pretty much full time.  Onward to the next falls, Sunwapta Falls, still heading south, back toward the ice field.  Another beautiful sight.  This was not as big a falls as the first one, but it had two drops.

Back on the highway, we saw another black bear!!  He was very cooperative, just kept walking right at the treeline along side the road, so Joe just kept backing up to keep up with him.  We got to watch him for several minutes, and you wouldn't want to know how many pictures we took.  But we got a really good picture of him.

We went back into Jasper and stopped at the Visitors Information Center, then headed northeast up Highway 16 to the Hot Springs.  We saw a whole herd of bighorn sheep -- 14 mammas and babies (ewes and lambs, I guess).  We watched them come down this sheer cliff, and we couldn't even see any footholds for them to step to, but down they came.  One stayed on top, maybe as the lookout. 

The weather is constantly changing here, and it rained lightly on us off and on all day.  The clouds move below the mountaintops all the time.  But there are some beautiful mountains, and we are looking at them on every trip.  The views never get old, though.

We saw a deer on the way into the Hot Springs, and another one on the way back out.  They seem the most skittish of the wildlife, so we didn't get a very good picture.

It was 43 degrees when we got to the Hot Springs.  The water in the springs was 103.  It was very relaxing, although it sprinkled on us the entire time.  You can see the steam coming up from the pools.

We had a hamburger on the way back down.  Lunches here, with Joe's 2 beers, run about $35.  We need to eat in the camper more!  Once we got back on the highway, we spotted 4 bighorn rams right beside the road.  They were very cooperative as well, so we got some good pictures of them munching the grass.

Then we came upon a real mess -- 6 of these bighorns in the middle of the road!  They looked like yearlings (for all we know), and I think they were trying to eat the grass in the seam in the middle of the highway.  I was afraid I was going to see bloodshed right there!

Finally, we moved along, trying to get home.  But we made one more stop, when we spotted 3 elk beside the road.  Joe had to make another u-turn to see them well, but they are beautiful animals.

Finally, back at the campground, we took a few pictures since we are pulling out of here tomorrow, heading down Highway 16 to Prince George.  You can see Dave and Mazie's rig next to us, and Collins and Marilyn just beyond them.  This is a very nice park, very wooded.  It has more than 700 campsites, so there is a lot of traffic in and out, but it seems pretty quiet. We hope to make it all the way to Prince George tomorrow, but it's about 230 miles, and that's a bit of a stretch for us old folk.

Jasper & Ice Fields

Tuesday, June 8.  We took a late drive yesterday evening (5:00 p.m.), to see if we could find any wildlife.  Finally we saw a deer, then another one.  These were white tail deer.


There are lots of ground squirrels, prairie dogs, etc. around.  There are some that pop up every time we go into the campground.  Here's one little fellow, we believe he is a Columbia Ground Squirrel.

Then Tuesday morning we took off toward Jasper.  We were on the road shortly after 8:00 a.m., and we saw two deer right beside the wildlife overpass as we headed out of town.  Good to see they are using them, although Canada has fenced off a lot of these roads to force them to cross at these crossovers.  There were lots of clouds, spotty rain off and on this morning.  Some of the clouds looked like they were smoking.

Everything we have seen in Canada is absolutely stunning.  We are so grateful to have the laptop (thank you, Tiffany and Eric and John and Bridgette).  We have probably taken 1000 pictures already, and it is great to be able to check e-mail, pay bills, and last night we even connected with John on Skype, who was in San Antonio.  We called Tiffany too on Skype, but she didn't answer, so we'll try her again.

It's hard to choose between looking at the mountain tops (which are beautiful) and watching the ground for wildlife.  Just as I said this to Joe, a deer popped up on his side, so I guess we continue to try to do both.  The views just from the RV are spectacular.

There was a weeping wall (where water seeps through the rock into waterfalls) and a bridal view falls we saw from the roadside.  Then we stopped at the Columbia Ice Field, and took a tour bus up to actually walk on the glacier.  But we hit a little snow storm up there, so we didn't stay on the ice very long.


It was freezing cold.  Dave didn't even get out of the bus.  He said that is why he lives in Arizona!



Here is another picture of the glacier.  I didn't even know Canada had glaciers until we started planning this trip.

This drive through Utah, Idaho, and now Banff and Jasper National Parks has been more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.  If any of you want to just take a road trip, I would recommend any or all of this so far.  And we still have thousands of miles to go.

We are staying at Jasper Whistler Park tonight.  The weather cleared and we had dinner outside at the picnic table.  I think that is a first for this trip.  Before dinner, the girls all drove into Jasper to check out the laundramats and the visitor center.  While we were gone, the guys saw 4 elk right in the park. This park is a calving ground for elk because they are trying to avoid predators like wolves, bears and cougars that typically stay out of busy people places like campgrounds.  The elk are "habituated," which means they have lost their fear of people.  However, this campground is also a bear habitat, but we haven't seen any of them.  We got the "bear proof" speech when we entered the park though (no food outside, etc.).

Joe and I went back into town after dinner and did our laundry, which was pretty expensive.  The washers (which they consider "triple") were $5.00 per load, and the dryers were 25 cents for 4 minutes, so I think we spent about $26 (Canadian money) on getting our clothes clean.  The rest of the group are going in the morning.  On our way back from town, we saw 2 deer crossing the highway.