House” since this naming convention will be common over the next week or so. Back in the mid 1800's Canada experienced their own Gold Rush in the Western Territory, what is now central British Columbia. In order to provide services and supplies, a wagon road was established running North from the town of Lillooet in South Central BC to Prince George and North to the Cariboo gold fields. The road was over 400 long and was surveyed and constructed by the Royal Engineers from England. Along this route, known as the Cariboo Trail, were established a series of road-houses and stations for the wagons and stages traveling the route. Many of these way stations were simply named for the distance they were from Lillooet. A number of these towns remain today along Provincial Highway 97, which roughly follows the route of this old wagon road.As we headed South we passed through a small historic village called 108 Mile House Ranch and noticed that there was a big party going on. We saw a whole bunch of people and vendors
wandering around the historical site. 108 Mile Ranch is a Canadian Heritage Site and consists of a number of 19th century buildings which have been restored or rebuilt to resemble one of the old Cariboo Trail way stations. What we saw going on was the local Canada Day celebration. We stopped and wandered around, looking at the merchandise and enjoying the festivities. Jackie actually found a really pretty glass vase with a couple of calla lilies in it which she just had to have. You know her and calla lilies. After spending an hour or so celebrating Canada Day with the locals we continued down to 100 Mile House to do some caching. We explored around this very nice little town and managed to find eight caches. After our caching we went into the 100 Mile House branch of the Royal Canadian Legion for a visit. We had a couple of drinks and got another pin for our banner. We had a nice chat with the bartender about the area. When we got back to the RV park we found that there were still only about four other parties there, despite this being a National holiday.On Thursday, the 2nd of July, we headed back out after lunch to do some more caching. At first we were afraid that we were going to strike out and not get any finds - all of the caches we set out for turned out to be way out in the sticks requiring long hikes through the bush. We really weren’t up to that. However, later on in the afternoon we started having some luck with some easier finds and we ended up with a total of five for the day. One of them was near a Canadian National railroad freight station and I guess we arose the suspicions of the station-master. He came out and asked us what we were doing and we explained geocaching to him. At that point he acknowledged that he had seen other people from time to time in the area where we pointed out the cache. He thanked us for explaining, indicating that because of terrorism they were on a higher alert to suspicious activity. Why a couple of old white folks from Montana (our car plates are Montana) would come to Canada to blow up a freight station out in the middle of the woods is a mystery to me. Oh well, he was nice about it. After our caching we headed back to the RV park for the night. We found that there were now only two other parties in our park. The roads seem to be jammed with RV traffic - mostly small trailers and motorhomes - and the public dump station in 100 Mile House was backed up three deep when we went through town. I guess a lot of people went camping for Wednesday’s holiday then packed up and headed home today.
Friday morning, July 3rd. Got up and out of Lac La Hache headed North on Hwy 97 to our next stop, McLeese Lake. The trip is only about 70 miles through some very pretty hill country. No long grades on this trip, just some mild up and down and sweeping turns. The highway is basically a two lane road, but there are passing lanes every ten miles or so, so traffic doesn’t get too backed up. On the open stretches the speed limit is 100, but that’s kilometers per hour, about 60 mph. Again we notice that you never seem to be out of sight of a lake in this part of BC. A glance at the map confirms that this seems to be the “Land of a Million Lakes.” We pull into the McLeese Lake Resort around noon and our site is waiting. We have a pull-through with water and sewer, but after I get parked I notice that it only has a 15/20 amp outlet. When I go back to the office the lady tells me that they only have a few 30 amp sites, everything else is 15. She tells me there is one 30 amp site open, but it is kind of small. I go to look at it and, yeah, its pretty short and narrow - we decide to stay where we are. It doesn’t seem like its going to be hot enough to have to worry about AC, so the 20 amp service should work fine for three days. No worse than what we have when we go to rallies. We are only a hundred yards from the lake and have a great view of the lake out the window. AND - we have satellite again! After we parked and I saw the line of trees between us and what I
thought was the Southern sky I would have sworn the satellite wouldn’t come in, but it did. The signal strength is down to about 70 percent from the 90 percent or so it is in the States, but it still works. We decided to stay in for the rest of the day, even though we got here early. Although we have internet service here, we were unable to connect to our Geocaching.com website where all the geocaching information is stored. I did a little on line inquiry and learned that the company (Groundspeak) that runs the site had a fire in one of their off-site server locations. The source indicated that their was no damage to the servers or the information, but that they had to do some drying out and rebooting and would be off-line for at least all of today. Hopefully they will be back up by morning so we can get the information on the few caches that we know are in this area. We were hoping to be able to sit outside and enjoy the views, but we are so close to the lake the mosquitoes are a real problem. This is our first real taste of “skeeters” (or their taste of us) since we have been here. We have been told to expect worse as we go North. We did stock up on Off and After-Bite lotion before we started North from the States.Today is July 4th - Happy Birthday, America! All morning people have been pouring into the campground, lots of small trailers and tents - bunches of kids running around. Lots of folks out on the lake fishing, from the banks and from boats. We have been told that the first weekend after Canada Day (July 1) marks the real start of the Canadian summer season. Based on signs we have seen, the kids don’t get out of school until June 25th. We finally got some geocaches downloaded, although there are very few right close around where we are parked. There are a bunch in Williams Lake, a town of 12,000 about 25 miles South of us. We headed down there
after lunch to do some caching. The town of Williams Lake is, of course on the shore of Williams Lake, and is a very nice little town. We were able to find eight caches in about three hours, most of them urban type caches. It has been a while since we looked for caches in town rather than out in the bush. One of the caches took us to the visitor center on the edge of town, a huge beautiful log building. This part of the Cariboo, as this area is known, is big for camping. Not surprising considering the number of lakes in the area. The visitor center had a whole section dedicated to camping. One of the things they had on display inside the visitor center was a small car, a Geo Metro, with all kinds of camping gear stacked on top of it to a height of at least 20 feet. Very comical display. After we concluded our caching we stopped in and visited the local Royal Canadian Legion, Williams Lake Branch 139. Just like in Kamloops, we happened to arrive just as their weekly meat draw was about to begin. Jackie bought some tickets (3 for a dollar) and BINGO - first draw we win! Took a nice three pound pot roast which will go in the crock pot for dinner next week when we have a 200 mile drive. We also got a pin and had a couple of drinks. Williams Lake has an Elks Lodge, but like most up here in Canada, the lodge doesn’t have a bar so you can’t visit.Sunday, July 5th we decided to try for a couple of caches on Hwy 97 North of the campground. They were kind of spread out, so we only got three today. One of them was in an old (1800's) cemetery overlooking the Fraser River. This is the same river we were camped next to when we were down in Surrey, near Vancouver. We are at lot closer to its headwaters here. After our caching we washed clothes and relaxed, getting ready of our trip to Prince George tomorrow. Tonight a thunderstorm blew through a couple of miles East of us. We didn’t get too much rain, but we had a great view of the lightening over the lake. The wind blew pretty hard for about 20 minutes after the storm went past. Just like in the States, there is a website where you can go to view the weather radar for Canada, so I was able to watch the storms last night just like I did last summer when we were in the Midwest and dodging tornados every other day.
Monday, July 6th - our day of travel from McLeese Lake North to Prince George. Prince George is only about 115 miles, but we got an early start (9:30) because the weather forecasts for both McLeese Lake and Prince George showed rain and thundershowers, mostly in the afternoon and evening. We wanted to be in and set up before any serious rain hit. As we were leaving the campground we saw that last night’s wind had blown down a pretty good size pine tree near the entrance to the park. Glad it wasn’t one of the one’s close to the coach! We hit some light sprinkles on the way to Prince George, but no real rain. We got into the park about 12:30. The park is the Sintich Trailer & RV Park and is not too bad. The roads and sites are gravel, but the place appears to be well taken care of. We have 50 amp, water, sewer, cable AND AGAIN satellite service! Eeeeeeha! Jackie gets so excited each time we park and the dome locks in - she gets a few more days of her shows. We had fully expected to not have TV by now.
One interesting side note about Canada, they seem to LOVE their A&W’s. We have seen an A&W in every town we have been in, usually several. They are all large drive-ins in the old distinctive orange and brown paint scheme. Back in 1965 and 66,
my senior year in high school and first year of college, I worked as a cook at an A&W drive-in back in Phoenix, Arizona. We had car hop service and walk-up windows, but no inside seating. At that time we made the root beer in a big 70 gallon stainless cooler, using syrup and sugar, at least 25 pounds of sugar for each batch. It wasn’t carbonated until it went through the dispenser, which was a tap just like a beer tap. I don’t know if they still do it that way or not. I also remember that 1965 was the year that A&W started their “Burger Family” with a Papa Burger, Mama Burger and Junior Burger. Up here they still heavily advertise on the building the Family, and now they have added a Teen Burger to the line up. In the States you have to really search to find an A&W now, up here you can’t swing big stick without hitting one. I intend to stop at one while we are here to see if they still use the big thick glass mugs like they used to. We kept them in a cooler so they would be cold when you poured the root beer in them.Tuesday, July 7th started with rain - actually it rained most of the night. We hung around the coach in the morning watching the Michael Jackson memorial. Very sad - such a brilliant yet troubled entertainer. After the memorial we went out to do some light sightseeing around Prince George and do some shopping. They have a Costco here, so we went there for some stuff, then off to the Canada Superstore. This chain of stores is very similar to a Super WalMart in that they have both a full department store and a full grocery store. Although there seems to be a WalMart in every town, we have only seen one Super WalMart. The Superstore has a great selection of foods, although they didn’t carry a few things we find in stores in the States. They have a huge section just for Eastern, Indian and Middle Eastern foods and spices. We have found that Canada has a very large Eastern Indian population. We have seen Sikh temples in almost every larger town we have been in. We are hoping the rain will stop tomorrow so we can do some caching.
Wednesday, July 8th we woke up to more light rain, but we decided to still go out and try some caching after lunch. Around one o’clock the skies cleared, the sun came out and we had a great time doing some urban caches in Prince George, or PG as it seems to be referred to around these parts. After finding eight caches with only one DNF, we spotted a mall. Since Jackie was looking for a new pair of black walking shoes, and the mall had a Sears, we quit caching and started shopping. Jackie finally found what she was looking for in Zellers, a Canadian chain which appears to be similar to Target. We stopped at a Save-On grocery to try to get a couple things that the Superstore didn’t have, then headed home for the evening. One interesting issue is our mail. We knew that we had to get our mail delivered at least once before we started on the caravan, despite the fact that UPS delivery to Canada is expensive, twice what it is for a US delivery. We decided to have it delivered to the park in Dawson Creek, where we meet our caravan, since we knew they would hold it for us if it got there before we did. The UPS store in Pahrump told us it would take 10 to 12 days for the package to arrive, so we told them to send it to us on July 1, that way it would get there just as we did, or maybe a day sooner. The store always sends us the tracking number so we can get on line and follow the package. After about 5 days the tracking shows it arriving in Chicago. Keep in mind, we are almost exactly due North of Pahrump, Nevada. A couple days later it shows arriving in Syracuse, New York! On Tuesday it finally showed an “import scan” in some town in Quebec, Canada. At this point, I am guessing that there is a single entry point for UPS packages into Canada. Despite its 3,000 mile detour East, the tracking shows the mail is still scheduled for delivery on July 10th, the Friday before we get to Dawson Creek. However, as you will read later, all is not well with the mail.
Thursday, July 9th it was again foggy and drizzly in the morning, but by noon or so it had pretty much cleared up. After lunch we went out and did a little more caching in South Prince George, adding six more to our total. We are now within 10 finds of the 900 mark! One of the caches we found today was the DNF from yesterday. When I checked the email this morning I had an email from the owner of the cache we couldn’t find giving us a hint. Even with the hint it took us 10 minutes to find the cache. It turned out to be a very small container with a couple of pine cones glued to it hanging in the middle of a pine tree. I know I looked right at it a couple of times before I finally saw it as a cache container. These are the kind that make caching interesting and fun. After caching we made a quick trip to WalMart and then visited the Royal Canadian Legion downtown. The Prince George Elks Lodge shares the building with the Legion, but the bartender told us that there were no Elks in the lounge when we were there. She also couldn’t find a branch pin from the Legion or a pin from the Elks. Oh well, Prince George will not be represented on our travel banner. After a drink at the Legion we made a stop at the casino in town. Another private (non-Indian) casino. Both of us lost our $20 in pretty short order so we cut our losses and headed home. Tomorrow is a travel day with a long trip, just short of 200 miles to the town of Chetwynd in Northeastern British Columbia.
Friday, July 9th - woke up to clouds, but no rain. We packed up and left the RV park about 10:00 a.m., headed North on Hwy 97 towards Chetwynd. We stopped at the Flying J about a mile from the RV park and fueled up. I have been surprised to find Flying J’s here - our first fuel stop in Kamloops was a Flying J, and we found this one close by in Prince George. Diesel fuel is cheaper than gas up here. At 86.9 cents per liter it works out to about $3.30 a gallon Vs. 109.9 cents for gas, $4.18 per gallon. Once we got about 40 Km North of Prince George Hwy 97 wound through forests and river valleys with virtually no development. We passed a couple of spots where there was fuel and a restaurant, but they were far and few between. The Hwy is almost all two lane road, but its in pretty decent condition. They throw in a passing lane every 40 Km or so, so traffic doesn’t get too backed up. There is a lot
of construction work on this highway, we have gone through a number of construction zones since leaving Kamloops. About two thirds of the way to Chetwynd we had our first moose sighting, or actually, encounter. We are cruising along about 90 kmph (50 mph) and out of the trees about a quarter mile in front of us comes a big female moose. Fortunately, she was far enough away that I was able to slow easily as she crossed the road and we were never in any danger of hitting her. As I slowed down to about 50 kmph (30mph) she was trotting along with us on the opposite shoulder of the road. There was no place for her to head into the forest for a couple hundred yards so we got to watch her run along with us for a few seconds. Let me tell you, that moose was BIG - I can’t imagine hitting one, and the males are even bigger. Made me much more vigilant for the rest of the trip. As a matter of fact, that scanning of the sides of the road and edge of the forest allowed me to also make my first bear sighting. I spotted a black bear cub walking in the ditch along the road. Wow, a moose and a bear in the wild - both in the same day.We finally pulled into the Westwind RV park in Chetwynd, BC, about 3:00 p.m., just as it started raining. The rain was light, so we were able to get parked and set up without getting too wet. For the first time we were unable to get a usable satellite signal, even though our South exposure was clear. The antenna locked in once with a very weak signal, but most of the channels would not come in. Then the clouds moved in and all the signal went away. Oh well, we have recorded about 30 hours of movies on our DVR and also have a whole cabinet full of DVD’s, so we have stuff to watch. We do have pretty decent antenna reception for a couple of channels, so we can get news. Oddly enough, the TV channels up here have not changed to digital like they have in the States. I had to disconnect our digital receive in order to get the off-air TV. We also have very good internet service here. About an hour after we parked a really strong thunderstorm blew through. The wind got so bad I had to go out and put up the window and door awnings. The wind was blowing straight at the drivers side of the coach and it was blowing so hard for a while that I could see the back slide on the road side of the coach moving in an inch or so as the gusts hit it. It rained cats and dogs for about 15 minutes, then cleared up. We hope to be able to explore the local area and do some caching while we are here. The weather report for the rest of the week is cloudy, cool and off and on rain, so we may be spending a lot of time in the coach.
It sprinkled on and off all night, and we woke up Saturday morning to fog and drizzle, however, by noon it had burned off and become a very nice day. We headed into “town”, Chetwynd is only about 3,000 population, to look around and then do
some geocaching. Chetwynd advertises itself as “The Chainsaw Sculpture Capital of the World” and there are over 80 wooden sculptures scattered around the town. After driving down the two block center of town we stopped at the visitor center where there are a dozen or so chainsaw sculptures on display. It is amazing how detailed and intricate the carvings are. The town hosted the first International Chainsaw Sculpture Championship in 2005 and got seven carvers from the U.S. and Canada. By 2007 the number was up to 12 and the contest is held every year. It is primarily these contests that have produced the carvings on display around town. After the visitor’s center we started our caching. There are not a lot of caches in this area so we only had five caches on our list that were within our desired difficulty list. For those who don’t cache, geocaches are rated on difficulty (how hard it is to locate) from 1 to 5, and on terrain (how hard it is to get to the cache) from 1 - 5. We restrict our searches generally to a max of 2 on each of those scales. Anything over a 2 terrain usually involves long hikes or big hill climbs. One of the caches was North of town about 25 miles and it was a beautiful drive past a couple of very pretty lakes. We were able to add four caches to our find list. After caching we dropped by the Chetwynd Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. The bartender was very nice and we had a cocktail and played the BC Lottery’s Texas Hold’em game. We only played two games and won $21. Yea us! Unfortunately, the Branch did not have any pins, so they won’t be on our banner either. There is an Elks Lodge in town, but it doesn’t have a bar and we haven’t located the building. Sunday morning we decided we didn’t have anywhere to go, so we didn’t. We stayed with the coach all day, taking care of chores and playing on the computers. Tomorrow we head for Dawson Creek. This afternoon another major (though short lived) thunderstorm blew through the area. The wind was not quite as bad as it was in McLeese Lake, but this one did bring some hail. It was pretty small hail and didn’t last long enough to accumulate, but it sure made a racket on the top of the motorhome.We also found out today that our mail’s trip to the east coast was NOT supposed to happen. It seems UPS put the mail on the wrong truck in Las Vegas and the package ended up in Nova Scotia, about as far from British Columbia as you can get. The UPS store in Pahrump said they had talked to UPS and they were going to try to get the package to us by Monday or Tuesday in Dawson Creek. We will see. I am not hopeful.
Monday morning, July 13th, we awoke to gray skies and drizzle yet again. The 60 miles from Chetwynd to Dawson Creek was pretty uneventful and it sprinkled most of the way. We arrived at the Mile Zero RV Camp about 11:30 and checked in. We found
that the site we had been assigned did not have any sewer connection. Fortunately, I had dumped both tanks before we left Chetwynd, so we will be OK for the three days we are here. As we were setting up our caravan leader, Larry Stark, walked over and introduced himself. We had talked to him on the phone and exchanged emails, but never met. He welcomed us to Dawson Creek and said that he and his wife Evelyn would be over later in the afternoon with our “book”, the trip log for our journey, and to give us our initial briefing on the caravan. After we got set up and had some lunch, we went into town to mail a letter and stop by the bank to get some money. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but ScotiaBank in Canada is a partner with Bank of America, our bank in the States. We can use our ATM card at ScotiaBank to get cash and there are no fees or charges. Also, because of the exchange rate, when we get $200 in Canadian money from the ATM, our BofA checking account is charged less. Today the $200 Canadian cost us $172.03 U.S. The exchange rate is 86 cents for a U.S. dollar. This takes a little of the bite out of the higher cost of things up here. Like the $1.03 it cost to mail a birthday card for my granddaughter Crystal from here to Phoenix.We also did some last minute grocery shopping and then headed back to the park. When Jackie went in to just check out the laundry facility she ran into a lady there doing her laundry who told her that all four washers were available and now would be a good time to wash clothes because the park was going to fill up today and
tomorrow. She also told Jackie that the Laundromat in town appeared to double as a homeless shelter. With that, Jackie decided we would do laundry today too! After we got all our chores done Larry and Evelyn came over to the coach and talked for a while about the caravan. They have a house in Las Vegas and have been with Fantasy Tours for a while. Larry said this was their sixth Alaska trip as leaders. He also talked about some of the side trips and some of the neat things we can look forward to seeing and doing. We are getting so excited. We got our Trip Log, a three ring binder with a detailed itinerary of the trip and some maps and other useful things. We found that there are going to be a total of 13 rigs on the trip. We will meet all the other folks on Wednesday when the caravan officially starts. We have a briefing that day with everyone, then dinner and a social to let everyone meet. We leave Dawson Creek on our first leg Thursday morning.Speaking of morning - one issue have not yet mentioned is the looooooooooooong days! We have found that the further North we have come, the longer the daylight lasts. Even though the Summer solstice, and therefore the longest day of the year, was June 21st, it is still getting light at about 3:30 in the morning, and it stays very light outside until well after 11:00 p.m. Here in Dawson Creek the sun has been setting, actually going below the horizon, about 9:30. They tell us it will only get worse as we go North. It doesn’t bother us too much, but it is driving the cat nuts. Smokey is hopping up into our bed at 4:00 a.m. wanting breakfast! We need to buy him a sleep mask!
This morning, Tuesday, July 14th, dawned with SUN! The clouds cleared, the satellite came in and all was well with the world. We started caching early, about 10:00, and ended up finding a total of 12 caches around town. One of our caches was find number 900! While we were driving
around the area we saw huge farm fields full of plants with small yellow flowers. We had learned from some literature on the area that these are Canola plants. The seeds of these plants are used to make Canola oil. The fields are very pretty. We also found time to have lunch, do a little shopping at WalMart and visit the Dawson Creek Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. This Legion had a branch pin, so Dawson Creek will be represented on our banner. We got back to the park just in time for the 4:00 social with the group we are caravanning with. This was an informal get-together, but just looking at the folks, and talking a little with some of them, we think that we are going to have a really good time. They seem like a great bunch of folks, mostly outgoing and friendly, and the majority of them seem to be baby boomer generation like us.We finally found out today that our mail package is officially lost! UPS has a tracer out on it. It was last scanned somewhere in Nova Scotia, but right now they have no idea where it is. We are not going to become too worried about it. Mostly our mail is magazines and junk mail. All our important bills are done on line. There may be an odd doctor’s bill left over from my surgery earlier this year, but if that is the case they will bill me again next month - no big deal. Hopefully the package will turn up, they can send it back to Pahrump and we will get the stuff later on.
Tomorrow starts the actual caravan, so I am going to close this blog for now and publish again after a week or so on the road. Remember to laugh, love and live life to its fullest! I will write to you again soon.
