August 20th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: It was 42 degrees this morning! For goodness sakes! It’s August! The high was in the 60’s’.

THE DISTANCE: 1 hour ferry ride across Puget Sound


We were up early this morning to catch a ferry out of Port Angeles so we could return to… Canada! Surprise!…. “We’re back”! As we pulled into Victoria Port on Vancouver Island there was a stark difference from the American port we had left an hour before and the Candian one we were facing. The scenery suddenly looked very British, even though the red Canadian maple leaf was flying over ships and buildings. We were ushered off the ferry and onto, of all things, a double decker bus! It was so much fun to take in the city from 8 feet high. We were driven about 20 miles north out of the city, to a place called “Burchest Gardens.” What an amazingly gorgeous place. It was established by Jennie Butchart in the early 1900’s when she wanted to beautify the worked-out limestone quarry which had supplied her husband’s cement plant. It has become 55 acres of manicured gardens bursting to life with brilliant colors, beautiful flowers and towering trees. They actually had a sequoia tree in the midst of Italian, Japanese, rose and sunken gardens. There were ponds and gentle water falls amongst the bushes and walkways. Oh Christen! You would have so appreciated these well cared for gardens! I created a list for Gary when we get home of exactly how I would like our yard to look by next summer!! LOL! He’s got a LOT of work to do.

After 2 hours of touring the gardens we were taken back to Victoria on our very British looking bus and we began our own self-guided tour of the shops, streets and restaurants. We ate lunch on the wharf, eating fish and chips and later had coffee and a scone at a sidewalk café. I would describe this place as a cross between Baltimore Harbor, Piccadilly Square and New York City. Very interesting diversity of fashion-conscious girls, expensive cars, intricate 1800 buildings standing right next to modern curved architecture. There are hundreds of hanging flowers, horse drawn carriages, real house boats in the harbor and multiple languages being spoken as we browsed around the city. It was a wonderful way to spend a day. We returned back to the KOA campground around 8 and we’ll be packing up tomorrow to move on.

August 19th

THE DETAILS:

THE WEATHER: mild temps in the 70's, mostly cloudy but no rain!

THE DISTANCE: 130 miles from Issaqua to Port Angeles, WA


After leaving our campground today we had to do some shopping at area stores now that we are back in the "big city". The Seattle area is amazing when it comes to abundance. It is a place full of delicious fruit and colorful flowers. Due to Boeing and Microsoft being located here it is a place of abundance of business opportunity also. Andy, who works for Microsoft, told us that there are about 30-35,000 employees here in Seattle that populate the area! That would be a city all unto itself! So that kind of work brings in dry cleaners, hardware stores, department stores, restaurants, etc. It is a VERY busy place. With it is also an abundance of cars, traffic delays, people and congestion. Though the tempertures are mild most all year round with clouds rolling in and then the sun is out for a little while so it remains at a steady 70 degrees, I don't think I could live here due to the noise and congestion. But the internet connection was fantastic!!! As it should be!

So after getting the shopping out of the way we moved down south, around Puget Sound and then back up north on the west side of the Sound, across from Seattle. We are staying in Port Angeles/Sequoim KOA campground which is only 15 minutes from the port on Puget Sound. We'll have to check that out tomorrow.

August 18th

THE WEATHER: Hot dry day. Temps in the 80’s.

DISTANCE: 280 miles from Cache Creek, BC to Issaquah, WA


Almost as soon as we left our campground and took a left onto Rte. 1, we entered into a canyon that brought beautiful views every turn we took. There were multiple trains that paralleled the highway but snaked along the cliffs below us, and we saw falcons flying alongside the RV. At the floor of the canyon rushed the mighty Thompson River. It is probably the best rafting river I’ve seen yet! Gary, of course, was having difficulty staying on the road because he knows “there’s fish in them there waters!!” The brown, dry mountains gave way to thick forested Douglas Fir pine trees. We had the enjoyment of traveling through the mountains with multiple tunnels along this route. Come to find out, we were traveling through the Yoho National Park of Canada. Yoho is a Cree exclamation meaning wonder or astonishment. Good description. We also saw a helicopter carrying water and a firefighting plane fly overhead. The air is still a bit foggy with smoke but no where near what we were dealing with yesterday. I actually woke up with a sore throat.

We crossed the Canadian/US Border finally and are very happy to be back in America!! We decided to drive a little further than planned today because we found out that friend’s of ours that we wanted to see are flying out tomorrow for the east coast. So we drove to the outskirts of Seattle and visited with Andy & Amy Glover. Andy was a youth in our youth group years ago, back in the Goffstown Christian Church days. It was good to catch up on all they are doing, see where they live and play with their kids! Benjamin and Lara were so cute and outgoing. After a great dinner and conversation we went to our RV park that unfortunately is right next to Rte. 90! The traffic is heavy even at 10:00 pm at night. It’ll be rough sleeping tonight. We are staying at Issaquah Village RV Park.

PS: Bruno has confided in me that he would like to become a forest ranger bear just like the guy in the billboard. Hey, I didn’t want to discourage him by telling him the truth….. You’re just a picture on a foam board for crying-out-loud!

August 17th continued

THE WEATHER: Cooler and dryer today, temps in the 70’s, but the air quality continued to diminish due to smoke

THE DISTANCE: 330 Miles from Vanderhoof to Cache Creek. We are staying at the Brookside RV Park in British Columbia.


So today I officially retired the Milepost magazine. If you ever plan to drive to Alaska, that should be your first purchase. What an incredible tool to navigate your trip through some very remote territory. I actually missed not having the magazine laying across my lap today. We are now into pavement everywhere, lots of stores (to chose from when we enter a town), traffic, and lots of road construction stops. I miss Alaska.

The smoke from the fires was incredibly thick. Visibility went from 11/2 miles down to ½ mile for most of the 330 miles. In talking to a few locals as we got gas, etc., they said this was very unusual. The radio used the term “aggressive” wild fires. If it looks this bad this far away from the active burning, I can’t imagine what those firefighters are having to deal with on the fire line. Gary got a headache from it and my eyes and throat are burning due to dryness. We turned on the a/c and it helped us but not the gas mileage. When we crossed into the Marble mountain range, it was like everything vanished. Visibility increased, we could open the windows and breathe clean air. Well, I wish there was something wonderful to write about but we literally could not see more than a mile in front of us so there you have it. Tomorrow we look forward to driving across the US border and into rain forests! Yippee!

August 17th

Hopefully I can post this picture of the wildfires and where we are and want to go. We are getting ready to leave the campground now and are hoping to drive down Rte. 97. If it's not closed. The sun today is just an orange ball in the sky. Visibility is a murky orangy/yellow color. Everythig looks hazy and smells smoky. Very weird. If we have internet tonight I'll post how it went, but we are planning on dry camping along the way. We're hoping to get as far as Williams Lake or 100 Mile House. We'll see.

August 16th

THE WEATHER: The first really hot day we’ve had this summer. It was 90 degrees today with very hazy skies.

THE DISTANCE: 380 miles (or so)


As we left Hyder this morning we met a couple at the Canadian border. Gary knows a little French, Spanish and German…. But this couple were speaking Italian! It was fun to watch Gary try to communicate… and did a pretty good job I might add. We got Gary’s fish all wrapped up and to the post office by the time the plane had landed. Dianna, from “The Bus” restaurant told us she wanted a picture of that mount some day. We’ve got her address… we’ll have to remember to do that. We saw one big black bear on the last few miles of the Cassiar. He was too quick to run into the woods though, to get a picture.

So the scenery today changed quite a bit. We have left the bush and driven back into “civilization”. There are real townships, paved roads, farms, cattle and …. a McDonalds. We even found the World’s largest fly rod in Houston, British Columbia!! Use that the next time you are playing a trivia game. It was 60 feet long with a 21 inch fly. This area is getting pounded with forest fires. The skies are once again so thick with smoke that the mountains around you are obscured. We watched helicopters carrying bags of water fly over head today.

Rick has been telling us about a guy who broke out of jail July 30th in Arizona and met up with his accomplice, also his cousin, and they are causing a pretty big man hunt through the west. A regular Bonnie & Clyde kind of story. Well, I tell you all this because they were last seen in Montana and are thought to be heading towards British Columbia. They like to stay at RV parks and campgrounds! Suddenly I prefer grizzly bear over the dangers of civilization.

Our destination when we left Hyder was Burns Lake, BC… however, we didn’t realize there were no campgrounds in the area with full hookups… which we need this time around. We (ahhem… ok… Debbie) didn’t do her research work very well and we discovered there are a lot of provincial parks in this area but not so many privately run parks that provide full hookups. We ended up driving a “bit” (80 miles to be exact) further and we are staying at “Dave’s RV Park” in Vanderhoof, BC. Gary did say he wanted to get through Canada as quickly as possible.

August 15th

“And on the seventh day God rested“…. and so did we! There was a little Baptist church across the street from us who were having services this morning at 11 am, so we thought we’d go. Tim, it was the quintessential LL Bean kinda’ church that we’ve talked about! It was a little log cabin about ¾ the size of our house with little wooden pews lining both sides of a middle aisle. The windows framed a perfect forest setting and there were only about 20 people including us! Unfortunately the sermon was a little monotone and the music a bit stale…. but it was fun to have coffee, home made chili and apple pie after the service in the basement and meet some of the local people. Why is that we are always the last ones to leave church even when we don’t attend there!! After the service we walked around “downtown”. Oh my, if you can call it that. There were as many shops closed for business as there were open, one general store and a bar. A Tee-shirt that we saw said it best, “Hyder, the friendliest little ghost town in America”. Everywhere we went though, people were very nice and willing to share their stories with you. It was fun to hear how these people ended up in Hyder. Most of them came through on vacation and never left. They returned home only to sell what they had and move here. Though it is beautiful, the town and houses are not well kept and it’s almost a bit depressing. So I am ready to move on tomorrow.

We did go to the bear boardwalk once again tonight. We had to park way down the street, a short walk to get onto the safety of the boardwalk. Gary had already locked his door and gotten out of the car with camera, coat, binoculars, etc. when I noticed a medium sized black bear walk out of the woods behind him.
I quickly, but quietly, said, “Gary, black bear behind you!!” Thankfully the bear continued across the street and headed for the stream rather than up the road towards us. As Gary went to film that bear, I got out of the car and wanted to get to the boardwalk but as I turned to walk up the road, a female grizzly and her cub (probably the ones we filmed last night) came out of the woods right in front of me. I was relieved when she also headed straight for the stream. I was never so glad to be on the boardwalk. As we approached the end of the walkway there was a big male grizzly feeding up stream. He put on quite a show as he gradually made his way down towards us. He waded into the pools and fished, though he was much quicker than the female last night at catching his dinner. One time he caught the fish right in front of where we were standing and began eating it in the bushes below us. For some reason my camera is not focusing so I’m having trouble getting really good shots… unfortunately!! To add to the delight of the evening a Bald eagle showed up at dusk to forage his dinner on river carcasses and then a Golden eagle showed up right afterward. We felt like we were in a zoo at feeding time.

August 14th

THE WEATHER: Beautiful, 80 degrees and clear skies

THE DISTANCE: 0

There goes more wall space! I don’t know where all these fish are going to be hung, but this chum salmon is being sent to Paul, Gary’s taxidermist. It was 33 inches long, 15 pounds and caught on a pink everglo tied by Gary’s own hands! We were told that the chum were in the river that runs behind our campground but the best fishing is up a mile and then you have to hike up river a little bit. Well, we didn’t like the idea of hiking too far from the RV so we opted to fish in back of the campground. Gary fished and I stood guard with my bear spray ready and waiting for any trouble. We were also told that a mother wolf and 3 pups have been seen along the river. I don’t know which would be worse to run into! After 2 hours and only a few hits Gary decided he was going to try the hike-in option. I gave him the bear spray and offered Bruno but he declined. When we arrived at the spot and parked, there were 2 guys just coming off of the river. They told Gary where to fish and then added, “Be careful, there‘s a big black bear out there fishing in the same pool”. Gary took a hand radio so I could talk to him while he walked, and off he went. I stayed in the RV …. and prayed! After about an hour he told me he had a 10 pounder and if he didn’t get anything bigger he’d be happy with that. About another hour later I got the call, “I got my trophy and I’m headed back in“. He was a very happy man on the return. He hasn’t stopped smiling since he got back.

There’s a local woman, Diane, who’s husband is a commercial fisherman so they have a huge walk in freezer. She also runs a restaurant out of a bus… yeah, you heard that right. She cooks inside the bus and we sat outside waiting to be served some of the freshest fish we have ever eaten. She was willing to let us freeze the fish until Monday. Mail here in Hyder only goes out twice a week…. Monday & Thursday. It is flown over to Ketchikan and then taken down to Washington. And that all depends on the weather! I’m not sure if this fish is going to make it, but here’s hopin’!!

Once we had the fish all taken care of and we had some halibut fingers at Diane’s restaurant, we headed up to see the bear show! And OHHH what a show it was. We arrived around 8:30 and waited about 30 minutes. Talking to those on the boardwalk they said there had been a huge grizzly down river, which we caught a glimpse of. Also spotted were a mother with a cub. So we waited….. And sure enough the grizzly sow with her black cub showed up walking along a trail beside the boardwalk. They sauntered underneath the walkway and then into the river full of salmon. The cub mostly stayed on the opposite shore from us while mom went fishing. What a difference between watching a black bear fish last night (remember, he stood motionless over the water for about 20 minutes before jumping in.) and “mom” fish tonight. It took her no time at all to bolt straight into a pool of fish and then ran up and down the river chasing fish until she grabbed about a 10 pounder to bring back for her & her cub for dinner. We watched them devour the whole thing and then she went back in again. This time she splashed around for a little longer but came up with about a 15 pound salmon! The power and sheer strength of these animals is amazing! She got spooked around dusk by something and stood up on her 2 hind legs. All I could think of is how much Bruno would be smitten by this beautiful beast! Good thing we left him in the car. Finally she decided to leave because of something she was hearing or smelling. On our way out we noticed a black bear had appeared under the bridge. Maybe that’s what spooked her? Over all it’s been an incredible day. We’ll stay one more day here in Run-a-Muck campground before leaving on Monday (due to the mailing of the fish).