Alaska - Part XII - Prince Rupert to the US Border

Day 64, Wednesday, July 22, 2009

We are traveling today from Hazelton to just past Prince George. Once we got to Prince George, we found a Costco and went in for some food then traveled on down Hwy 97. We found a small campground on the map named Lazy Daze (just like our RV) in Quesnel BC. We decided to give it a try. We arrived at 7:30 PM PT and it was a real mess. It was cluttered and unkept and when we tested the water, it tested over 300 PPM so we didn’t hook up. But the electricity came in handy so we could run the air conditioner. After all, we would only be there one night. We drove 347 miles today. Our odometer reading is now 28,402.0 meaning we have driven a total of 8,000 miles since May 20th.

Day 65, Thursday, July 23, 2009

We didn’t sleep well last night, so we slept in and got a late start, which was not in our plan! We are still having trouble with the time here. Alaska Time is three hours earlier than Central Time. Now that we are in BC, we are in Pacific Time. By the time we get home, we are going to be really off track!!!!

Ed did maintenance on the tires, batteries, and checked the fluids before we left the campground. He found that the right front tire had a broken valve stem extender. He couldn’t air it up and it was five pounds low. We left the campground in search of a tire center and found Fountain Tire in Quesnel, BC. They were amazed that the tire was still holding air because almost the extender had broken off. They had to pull the tire, but had it fixed in a jiffy and we were on our way. One of Oprah’s favorite sayings is “listen to the whispers”. Thank God Ed was listening this morning when he decided to do the maintenance check. We left Quesnel at 10:50 AM PT. We made very good time down to Cache Creek. The roads were good and Ed managed to average about 60 mph. We got gas at Cache Creek and Jeanne took over the driving. We hadn’t even left town when the wind began gusting and the terraine changed from beautiful valley-floor farmland to barren dry treeless hills that only grew sage. The windstorm kept up all the way through Frazer Canyon to Hope. Frazer Canyon is through a gorge, very curvy, up and down long 7% hills, and a two-lane on the side of a mountain!! It took 3-1/2 hours to go 106 miles. We arrived at the border and traffic was horrible. We waited about 45 minutes to get through. We arrived in Sumas, Washington at the Sumas RV Park at 7:20 PM PT. When we stepped out of Tara at Sumas and there it was…the smell of money as we say in Montana…someone very close was fertilizing their fields. We had driven 379 miles today in 8-1/2 hours.