The North Cariboo of Canada

Hi friends and followers - we hope all is well with you. Our last blogisode left us on June 30th newly arrived in Lac La Hache, BC in a small, rural campground. The next morning, July 1st, was Canada Day, their version of Independence Day. After lunch we headed out to do some caching and exploring so we headed South, towards 100 Mile House, a small town about 10 miles from our park. Before I go too far into story of our day, let me explain the odd name “100 Mile 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.

Exploring Canada's Okanagan

Greetings readers. As you know, our last episode ended on our last day in Surrey, BC, Canada, a suburb of Vancouver. On the morning of June 16th we packed up and headed to a little town called Merritt, about 150 miles Northeast. Merritt is in an area of South-central British Columbia known as The Ocanagan, named after a large, 100 mile long lake. The area is dotted with lakes and rivers and is a principal recreational area for Southern British Columbia. Merritt is a small town of about 7,000 population which calls itself the “Country Music Capital of Canada.” The town has a couple of festivals each year, one of which is a very large weekend long outdoor concert event with dozens of country music acts. Many big American and Canadian country music stars play at the event every year. We were there just a couple weeks before the festival. The RV park we were staying at was doing a lot of work getting ready for hundreds of campers because the park is just a short distance from the event grounds. The town really makes a big deal of the festival. All around the town there are murals painted on the sides of the buildings depicting dozens of country music stars.

On Wednesday, the 17th we started the day driving around Merritt, just doing some sightseeing. We found the local Elks Lodge, but the list we have of Canadian Elks Lodges didn’t show that it had a lounge or bar. The Elks were in their own building, which we later learned had been built as an armory for the Canadian Defense Force. No one was around, so we weren’t able to make contact with anyone from the Lodge. We had intended to do some caching, but after finding one it started raining, so we did some shopping instead. The next day we went out caching again and were able to do three caches. There were a lot more caches around, but this was primarily a rural area and most were out in the boonies. Since we weren’t familiar with the trails and back roads, we weren’t able to get to too many of them.

On Friday, the 19th of June we left Merritt and went East to Kelowna, BC. Kelowna is a large city (100,000+) located on the shore of Lake Okanagan. It is a very pretty city with some lovely lakeshore parks. We settled into the Holiday RV Resort on the North side of town. The Resort is very large and is comprised of individually owned lots which can be put into a rental pool when not in use. The lots are quite small, but the resort has several pools and clubhouses and seemed pretty nice. It clearly was not built for large coaches - I had to take a couple shots at getting around one corner just to get to our site. The resort is built on a small lake (Duck Lake) and some of the sites (not ours) are lakefront property. On Saturday we headed to a local park for a geocaching “event” we had seen on the website. We got there after the event was over, but we still met a couple of the local cachers and had a nice talk. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town caching and sightseeing. We added nine caches to our total.

Sunday, the 21st, was Father’s Day and the city was putting on a car show in and around one of the downtown parks. We went down there expecting a couple dozen cars and were surprised to find one of the largest car shows I have ever seen. There were a couple of hundred cars on display, and a number of them brought back nostalgic memories. There was a nice 54 Chevy convertible (my first car) and a 61 Isetta. Some of you may remember the Isetta from the 50's and early 60's. It was made by BMW and sort of joined their motorcycle and car technologies. The car was very small and had a single door which was the front of the vehicle. It had a little two cylinder motorcycle engine. When I was a kid of about 14, living in Arizona, my dad bought a 56 Isetta as our second car. We only had it about a year before he got rid of it, but I still remember the fun rides we used to take in that little car. We spent most of the afternoon at the show. The city was also having a Barbeque Festival that weekend that we wanted to check out, but we were never able to find the park where it was being held. Monday we did some local touring and caching, adding four more finds to our collection.

On Tuesday, the 23rd of June we left Kelowna and embarked on a grueling 26 mile drive to Vernon, the next town North. Vernon is on the North end of Lake Okanagan and is much smaller, about 35,000. Vernon’s claim to fame is farming, mostly fruits and berries. We stayed at another RV resort where the lots were privately owned but rented out when not in use. This one was also on a small lake, called Swan Lake. This resort was smaller, but very pretty. Interestingly, when we checked in at the resort we mentioned to the lady behind the counter that we were full timers, originally from Indio, California. It turns out that she and her husband also full time and own two lots, one there at the Swan Lake Resort, the other at the Outdoor Resort in Indio, California! (The older one) They spend their winters in Indio and their summers in Vernon. They also own a Monaco, although theirs is a Signature. Sometimes it can be a small world!

On Wednesday we headed out to do some caching, but after finding two it started to rain, so we decided to visit one of the local casinos. We assumed it was an Indian casino, but later learned that it was a corporate casino and some limited casino gaming is allowed in BC. There are also Indian Casinos in the Province, but this one, the Lakeside Casino, is privately owned and operated. After losing about 20 bucks apiece we left and went to the Vernon Elks Lodge. According to our list this Lodge had a bar and we found it open! Yea! The Lodge was downtown and the bar was not very big, in fact the bar itself was only about five feet long with no stools and didn’t have a really big selection of liquor, but there were several tables to sit at and about six people drinking. One of them turned out to be the Exalted Ruler. His name was Bill McDonald and he sat and chatted with us for about an hour. He was a very pleasant guy and we learned a lot about the Canadian Elks from talking to him. Bill has also joined Jackie’s circle of email jokesters so she is in email contact with him. The Vernon Lodge recently celebrated their 90th anniversary, but the membership is small, less than a hundred members. We were able to get a lodge pin for our banner. Double yea!

On Thursday, the 25th, the weather cleared and we were able to do some serious caching. We were able to find eleven caches and had a real nice tour of the area in the process. We found that most of the farms and orchards are up in the hills outside of town. After our caching we decided to try to get into one of the Royal Canadian Legion posts. This organization is the equivalent of the American Legion in the States. While we had been driving around town the day before we had seen a building just off the main road which had an old warplane mounted on the roof, an old Spitfire painted in Canadian colors. We had assumed that this was the Legion, however, after finding it again, we learned that it was a different veteran’s organization called the Army, Navy, Air Force Veteran’s Club. (ANAFV for short) The place was open so we went in and when I showed my American Legion membership card they let us in as guests. They had a very large bar/clubroom and were very friendly and welcoming. We had a couple drinks and chatted with a couple people for about an hour. While we were there we asked about the Royal Canadian Legion and they told us that the Legion also had a post, or actually “branch”, located downtown. After we left the ANAF Club we went downtown and located the Legion. Again, we went in, I showed by American Legion card and we were warmly welcomed. We again found the folks there to be very friendly and chatty. We also found that most of the Legion branches had hat pins similar to those we get from Elks lodges. They also have colorful ribbons that they give out to guests. We were able to get a branch pin from the bartender which has been put on our Elks Banner. It seems that not too many Canadian Elks Lodges have bars, so our Elks visitation and pin collections will suffer while in Canada. However, almost every town has an ANAF Club or Canadian Legion, or both, and they all have bars and most have pins! Triple YEA! We can continue to document our travels on our banner.

On Friday, June 26th, we left Vernon and headed Northwest for a 60 mile drive to Kamloops, BC. Kamloops, a city of 80,000 is on the Northwest corner of the Okanagan area. Kamloops lies on the Thompson River which is sort of the Northern boundary of the Okanagan. We got to the Kamloops RV Park and found that it was right next door to the BC Wild Animal Park, a small local zoo. The park was small, but we did have full hookups and were able to get our satellite TV. That is an issue I have not mentioned up to now. I had been under the impression that once we got a little bit North of the US border we would have trouble getting our Direct TV satellite reception because the satellite would be too low in the sky. As it turns out, we have had good satellite reception at every park we have been in. We have had clear exposure to the south in each park and the dome has locked in with no problems each time. On Saturday we did some touring of Kamloops and found a very quaint little downtown area. Our Elks list had indicated that the Kamloops Elks had a lounge and we found the building right in the middle of downtown. Oddly enough (for the benefit of our friends in Indio) also located in the same building was a nightclub called Cactus Jack’s. Anyway, we couldn’t see any signs on the door of the lodge indicating when and if it was open, so we parked the car and I walked up to check. I found the front door open, but no one around. The place also looked very unkempt and disorganized. Then I heard voices coming from upstairs so I went up to check. What I found was four members of the Lodge, including the ER, working to pack stuff up. Turns out that they had sold the building and were moving all their property into storage until they figured out if they were going to get another building. Turns out they had closed the lounge several years before due to lack of participation and the Lodge membership just got too small to support the large building. I chatted with the guys for a little bit and one of them managed to find a lodge pin in one of the boxes he was packing. We probably got one of the last lodge pins ever from the Kamloops Elks Lodge.

After our lodge “visit” we did some caching in the area and found six. The total was small because the caches were kind of scattered far and wide. During our travels we found the Kamloops ANAF Vets Club in North Kamloops, on the North side of the Thompson River. The bar was open so we went in for a drink. The place was pretty busy so we couldn’t get a seat at the bar. As a result, we had to sit at a table and didn’t get a chance to really talk to anyone except the bartender. It turns out that the ANAF clubs also have hat pins, so we were able to get a pin from the Kamloops club. We thought about coming back to the club later in the evening for karaoke, but we couldn’t find anywhere close where we wanted to eat, so we got some KFC and went home. The next day, Sunday, we went out and did some more caching, finding six more. During our driving around we stopped at a liquor store because we had to restock our Absolute cabinet. We payed $170 for three 1.75 liter bottles of Absolute, which would have been about $80 in California. Canada taxes the hell out of liquor, even drinks in the private clubs are much pricier than they are at a club in the states. After caching we headed back to downtown Kamloops and the Kamloops Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. We were again welcomed and were able to get a branch pin and a ribbon for our collection. While we were there we played the BC Provincial lottery, which had a Texas Hold’em type game similar to what we had seen in the Midwest last summer. We also got involved in the weekly “meat draw” which was being held while we were there. We have seen these meat draws advertised in various clubs we have been in for a couple years now, but were never quite sure what it was. Turns out they go to a local market and buy a bunch of packaged meat, then hold a ticket drawing. The tickets were a buck apiece and there were three different draws. We actually won a package of pork chops, which we had for dinner that night. Our first “meat draw”!

Monday, the 29th of June, was our last day in Kamloops and the Okanagan area of British Columbia. We decided to visit the BC Wild Animal Park next door to the RV park before we did our shopping. We had a two for one ticket to the park from the RV park, so it only cost us $12.00 to get in. Turned out to be not much of a zoo. They had a few animals scattered around, elk, deer, bison, wolves, and a few smaller mammals, but for the most part they only had one or two of each species. The grounds were not really well maintained, but we did spend a fairly enjoyable couple of hours there. They had a little train that went around most of the larger animal’s enclosures so we took the train ride. We did see a week old baby elk which was kind of cool. Most of the animals were sleeping and some you couldn’t find at all because they were in their houses or burrows. The only real active animals were the four wolves, which we watched run around and play for a little while. After visiting the park we got some lunch and did our shopping. We wanted to shop in Kamloops because the next couple of stops on the way North to meet our caravan are going to be in smaller towns.

On Tuesday, June 30th, we left Kamloops and drove North 140 miles to a little tiny town called Lac La Hache. Our RV park is actually between Lac La Hache and 100 mile, a slightly larger town. We are now up in the hills about 3,000 feet in the forests. Our trip took us along Highway 97 which is known as the Cariboo Trail. We will be on 97 all the way up through Prince George to Dawson Creek where we pick up the caravan and start the Alaska Highway. Although the park we are in has full hookups with 50 amp and WiFi, it seems like we are in the middle of no where. We are back in the trees and there are not very many other campers. In fact, we were the only ones in the park when we first checked in. I had made reservations because Wednesday, July 1st, is Canada Day, their equivalent of 4th of July for us. It’s a National Holiday in Canada and I thought that the RV parks would be full. I guess we are far enough out in the boonies here that its not that busy. AND - despite all the trees, we still have satellite! After we got settled in we took a brief drive around the area. The actual town of Lac La Hache is on the lake and very small, but the lake and the surrounding area is very pretty. We are here until Friday, then we move another 60 miles North to a place called McLeese Lake.

That brings us up to the minute here in beautiful Canada. We have now been here for nearly three weeks and have found Canada to be a wonderful place to visit. In general the people are friendly and courteous, especially so on the roads. The speed limits are slower so folks are more willing to yield the right of way to you and let you in line. The traffic in Vancouver was horrible, but elsewhere it has been pretty light. The countryside is very pretty and we are very much enjoying our visit. Until we blog again, be safe and have fun!

O' Canada!

Greetings readers. Our last chapter left us in late May in Sequim, Washington on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula of Northwest Washington. On Saturday, the 30th of May, we went to the weekly street fair in Sequim. It was not too big, only about one city block of booths, but they had some nice stuff and it was an interesting hour or so of browsing. Afterwards we went shopping. Although Sequim is a small town, they did have a Walmart, a Costco and a Safeway in town, so we were able to get all our shopping done within just a few blocks.

The next day, Sunday, we drove east to the town of Port Townsend, Washington. Port Townsend is one of the oldest towns in Washington and sits at the “corner” of the Puget Sound, the inland bay that goes down to Seattle and Olympia, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which leads west to the Pacific Ocean. This location made the area one of the first settled by the early pioneers as they arrived by sea. The town’s late-19th century look was very charming. Most of the buildings in the downtown area dated to the 1880's. On the bluffs above the town were some very pretty Victorian homes. We spent a couple hours walking around the downtown area looking in shops. At the same time we did some caches in the town, finding five. Port Townsend is also the terminal for the ferry that runs from there to Whidbey Island, about five miles north. We will be taking that ferry when we leave Sequim next week. After spending most of the day in Port Townsend we drove back to Sequim for dinner. We went to a restaurant north of town, on theshore of the Strait, called “3 Crabs”. The place was recommended to us by two different friends who were familiar with the Sequim area. It was also recommended by the AAA book. We got there about 7:30 and found that the place closed at 8:00, however, they did take us in. The outside of place is kind of “fishing village” shabby, but the inside was nice, with big windows looking out over the water. The menu was almost exclusively seafood. We both ordered a variety platter, which you could get either steamed or fried. We both ordered steamed, but for some reason mine came fried. Since I was hungry and it was late, I ate it. The waitress did give us a free piece of pie for dessert for the mistake. Although the food was OK, neither of us thought it was worthy of the great praise we had heard. I don't think it was as good as Red Lobster. In addition, the service was only so-so. Perhaps it was because it was almost closing time on a Sunday - there was only one other customer in the place - but we wouldn’t go back and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone either.

The next day, Monday the 1st of June, we did some laundry and caching in the area. We added 10 caches to our total. Among those we found were a series of caches put out by a local Boy Scout troop which were placed in various historical locations. Each of the caches had a long story about the history of that particular site. We learned quite a bit about the early history of the area just from those caches. The next day we went to the Olympic National Park, located South of Port Angeles in the Olympic mountains. The park is very large, taking up most of the interior area of the Olympic Peninsula, however, there are only a few roads going into the park. We took the most popular route up to Hurricane Ridge. We went from sea level up to over 5,000 feet in about 25 miles. Up on the ridge there was still huge piles of snow in the parking lot. We also saw a large herd of deer grazing in a meadow right below the visitors center. Really pretty views of the Olympic mountains from the center. After visiting the park we went down into Port Angeles and visited the Elks Lodge there. The lodge was in a large beautiful old building right in the middle of downtown. The building was built in the very early 1900's and was five stories. The bottom floor was shops (providing income to the lodge) the second floor was the bar, dining room, and game rooms. The lodge room was on the third floor and the top two floors were apartments. The bartender told us that the apartments used to be for visiting Elks and for sailors who came to Port Angeles with the Pacific Fleet back in the early 1900's. It seems that the Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy would visit Port Angeles every summer with dozens of ships. In fact, the Lodge calls itself the “Naval Lodge” of Port Angeles. There were a lot of great old pictures in the lodge building of the fleet anchored in the Strait just off of Port Angeles. Even today the local Navy recruiter in town keeps an apartment at the Lodge. There is a surprising amount of interesting history up in this area. On our way home from Port Angeles we stopped at the Casino near Sequim for dinner and some gaming.

On Tuesday, June 3rd, we visited the Olympic Game Farm, just outside of Sequim. The farm has a whole bunch of wild animals, including buffalo, elk, deer, several varieties of bear, yaks, tigers, lions, zebras and other animals. The interesting part was that it was a drive-through type park. You drive around the park in your car and the animals wander around. Most of the hoofed animals, elk, deer, buffalo, zebras, etc., were free to roam right up to your vehicle and they let you roll your window down and feed them. In fact, they sold you a loaf of bread at the entrance for that purpose. They did require you to stay in your car. The animals are well adapted to visitors and will stick their head right in the car if you roll the window down far enough. The bears were in their own enclosures with electric fences, but you could drive to within three feet of them and they too would come right up to the fence and beg for food. The real predators, the lions, tigers and wolves, were in regular zoo-like cages. Since they never got fed, they were pretty uninterested in your passing. We had a great time. Turns out the park was founded in the 1950's by the Disney studios as a ranch for their movie animals. They also took in old carnival and circus animals. Many of the animals in the park today are relatives of these original “professional” animals. Today they are an independent zoological park. We had a great time driving through the park. Some California old-timers may remember the old Orange County Wild Animal Safari south of Santa Ana from back in the 1960's and early 1970's. That was also a drive-through type park, although much bigger and better populated with African animals than this one was. I went there a couple of times before they closed down.

After our visit to the animal park we stopped by the Sequim Elks Lodge for a cocktail. There was a gal sitting at the bar who struck up a conversation. Shirley was her name and I would guess she was in her late 60's or early 70's. She was a member of the lodge and it turns out she spent 12 years as a cook on an ocean-going tugboat up in Alaska. She told a bunch of great stories and was very entertaining.

Wednesday morning we got up very early to leave the park in Sequim for our next destination. Unlike most travel days, we were packed up and out of the park by 8:00 a.m. The reason we were out so early was that we had to catch the ferry in Port Townsend at 9:30. We wanted to take the ferry because if we took the ferry over to Whidbey Island, then drove North up the island and over to the mainland to I-5, we could get to Blaine, Washington, our next destination, in only 125 miles. The only other way was to go all the way back south to Olympia and up I-5, almost 275 miles. Plus, the longer route had us driving right through the middle of metropolitan Seattle. Because the Port Townsend ferry is relatively small in comparison to other Washington State ferries, large vehicles were required to have advance reservations. The ferry only has room for about 50 regular cars, so larger vehicles take up space and weight capacity and are therefore limited on each crossing. I called about a week before the day we wanted to cross and found that all three of the mid-day crossings were already closed to additional large heavy vehicles. We had a choice of either the 9:30 a.m. crossing or the 5:00 p.m. crossing. We didn’t want to be on the road late, so we took the early choice. Getting on and off the ferry was easy and the crossing only takes about a half hour. The trip was $55 for both the coach and the car. We would have spent more than that in fuel for the extra 150 miles of the land route, not to mention the additional three hours of driving. We arrived at the Beachwood RV Resort, just South of Blaine, by 1:00. This resort is one of our membership parks and was pretty big, although a little rustic. It is actually about 5 miles South of Blaine, Washington, and about a mile in from the coast. By the way, today, June 4, 2009, marks the 4th anniversary of our selling our house in Indio, buying the coach and living full-time on the road. Four wonderful years and looking forward to many years to come!

On Friday, the 5th of June, we took a driving tour of Blaine and the surrounding area. Blaine is a fairly small town located right on the border with Canada. I-5 goes right up to the border to the Peace Arch Park then into Canada where it turns into Hwy 99. There is also a truck crossing a mile or so East of the I-5 crossing. After driving around Blaine we drove down the coast, eventually getting to Bellingham, a large city about 20 miles South of Blaine. Bellingham is the first big city you come to us you drive South on I-5 from Canada. It was also the only town with an Elks Lodge in the area. We went by the Lodge for a visit and found a very nice, friendly lodge. We had a couple of drinks and visited with a number of the members who were in the lodge. The bartender couldn’t find a lodge pin so one of the members who was there took two off of his hat and gave them to us. Very nice people. If you are an Elk in the area, be sure to visit the Bellingham Lodge. The next day we went out to do some caching, mostly in the Blaine area. We found 14 caches. One of the caches was in the Peace Arch park and we have a picture of Jackie with one foot in Canada and one foot in the U.S.

Sunday, the 7th of June, we headed down to Ferndale, a small town between Blaine and Bellingham, for a Highland Games Festival. We had seen posters for the festival the first time we drove through the area on Friday. The Highland Festival is, of course, Scottish and there were bunches of people walking around in kilts and other Scottish dress. They had a big area of booths selling merchandise (a lot of kilts and tartans and the like) as well as a big food court. They had a couple of bagpipe corps, including one from the Vancouver Police Department and one from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC. They also had a number of folk dancers. In addition to the Scottish themed music and dancing they had a number of young adults participating in the traditional highland games. These included tossing large weights, either for elevation or for distance, tossing sheaves (20 lb bundles of hay) up and over a 15 foot bar, and, my favorite, tossing the caber, which is a large log. The idea is to pick up the log, which is about 15 feet long, and tossing it forward so it makes a complete flip and lands pointed at 12:00 in relation to where you were standing when you threw it. The judging is solely on the direction the log is pointed when it lands. Pretty interesting game. While at the Highland Games I also learned the Clan my Scottish heritage goes back to, and what my Clan's tartan looks like. I have postitively traced through documentation that my mother's mother was Scottish. Her maiden name was Swanson and the census records from 1910 show that both of her parents (my great-grandparents) were born in Scotland. Swanson is a family name that belongs to the Gunn Clan. The Gunn tartan is sort of blue and green, similar to the one the guy in the bright blue shirt in the photo is wearing. Fun to know one's heritage. Monday we hung out at the coach and took care of chores. On Tuesday, the 9th we went out and did some more caching, adding 16 to our total. A good afternoon of caching. Wednesday we drove back down to Bellingham to do our shopping before we head into Canada.

Thursday, June 11th - the big day. Our motor-homing becomes International! We left the park around 10:00 a.m. or so and, after a quick fuel stop so we had full tanks, we headed up to the border to enter into Canada. After about a 10 minute wait we approached the entry station and I handed the border agent our passports. He asked all the usual questions, how long would we be in Canada, when was the last time we were here, what was the purpose of our visit, how much alcohol do we have, how much tobacco, do we have a pet, does it have a rabies shot, and do we have any firearms. All the things we expected since we studied up well anticipating our entry and wanting to cover all the bases. I declared all the booze we had left, basically a couple of liters of leftover open bottles of liquor and a six-pack of beer in the fridge. No tobacco, no guns, no mace, and the cat has a recent rabies shot. There was a big fifth-wheel from Arizona in front of us. He stopped at the booth for a couple minutes and then headed off down the road into Canada. For us it was, “please pull over to side and go inside the office”. Inside the agent first had me empty my pockets on the counter. Then he asked me what I did before I retired. Since my badge case was sitting on the counter for him to look at I said I was a retired cop. That started the, “then you have a gun with you, right?” No, I don’t have a gun, I know the rules. His response, “you said this was your first time here, how do you know the rules?” I told him, I looked on the internet. Two of them then proceeded to the motorhome, sent Jackie out into the office and proceeded to go through the coach for about ten minutes. I guess they finally decided that I was either telling the truth and didn’t have a gun, or they were tired of looking. The fact is, I normally do carry a handgun, but I left it with my brother in Nevada specifically because I didn’t want any problems at the border. I know what Canada’s attitude towards firearms is. They finally let us go. At least they didn’t charge us duty for the open bottles of booze.

One thing I did find out AFTER we got the RV park was that during their search one of them took the keys out of the Jeep’s ignition - probably thinking they needed it to open the back hatch. When they put it back in the ignition they didn’t turn it to release the steering wheel lock. For the 15 mile drive from the border to the RV park the front wheels were locked and couldn’t steer. Fortunately, we didn’t go far or fast so there was no damage to the tires or the Jeep itself. Had we needed to go a hundred miles or so it could have been pretty bad. Anyway, we did get to the RV park in Surrey, BC, Canada and got settled in. Surrey is a suburb of Vancouver. After we got settled into the park we headed into town to take care of some chores. One was to get a few hundred dollars of Canadian money. The other was to get some Absolute vodka. We found a BC liquor store and found that the 1.75 liter bottles of Absolute were $56 each (Canadian of course). Two bottles were well over $100! Yikes.

On Friday we just got in the Jeep and took an all afternoon driving tour of Vancouver and the surrounding area. Vancouver and its suburbs are a huge metropolitan area and is VERY densely populated. You see dozens of huge apartment and/or condo buildings all over, especially in downtown Vancouver. The traffic is terrible - there are very few roadways with four lanes and almost none with more than four. The whole metro area is built on a series of islands and peninsulas, so there are numerous bridges - bottlenecks to traffic. However, it is also a very pretty town. We found the China Town area and walked around there for a while. We also had lunch there at a Chinese restaurant. The food was good, and plentiful, but a little different from what one gets used to in the states. Vancouver is a very international town, with a lot of Asians. Even out of the China Town area it seemed the predominant races were Asian. There are also a lot of East Indians, so much so that there is a TV station in the area that broadcasts in the Indian language. In some parts of town you see a predominance of Sikhs - all with the traditional turbans. A very cosmopolitan area. What you didn’t see much of were blacks or Hispanics. As part of our tour we went to White Rock, a suburb of Vancouver, which had a Canadian Elks Lodge with a bar. In our research we learned that, unlike in the USA, very few of the Canadian Elks lodges have lounges or bars. In the whole Vancouver area (about 7 lodges), White Rock was the only one with a bar. We found the bar open and spent about an hour chatting with the locals that were there. We had a very good time. Unfortunately, the lodge had no lodge pin, so they will go unrecognized on our banner.

Saturday, the 13th of June, we did some caching in the general area around Surrey. We found 13 caches and in the process hit our 800th find! Not too bad for a little over a year. We happened upon a caching “event” at a local park so we got to meet some of the local cachers as well. Had a nice chat with one of the guys who hid a lot of caches in the Vancouver area. On Sunday, the 14th, we decided to visit the Vancouver Aquarium. It was a nice aquarium, although a little small compared to some I have visited in the U.S. We did see a week old baby Beluga whale swimming around with mom. This was the big attraction and the place was packed. We had lunch there and spent about four hours walking around looking at the exhibits. A very fun afternoon. After the aquarium we spent another couple hours driving around Stanley Park. This is a huge urban park located just minutes from downtown Vancouver. The aquarium is in Stanley Park. The park is on a peninsula so there is water almost all the way around it. It has every variety of sports field, several large restaurants, view points, and huge areas of forested land and miles of hiking and biking trails. The park reminds one of New York’s Central Park, including the big lake in the middle of it. Stanley park is actually bigger than Central Park with 1,000 acres compared to 843. Since it was Sunday, there were thousands of people at the park. One of the nicer parks we have seen. Stanley Park is the big green area to the North of downtown Vancouver in the photo from the postcard we scanned.

Monday, the 15th of June is our last day in the Vancouver area. We decided to go caching again and managed to find eight. The numbers were sort of low because most of the caches were back in little wooded parks which are all over the Vancouver area. You look around and see a lot of houses and apartment buildings, but what you don’t see are all the little parks the cities have put in. Some can’t even be seen from the road, you have to park and walk a trail back between houses. Then you come out on this big area of woods and meadows, right in the middle of a housing area. We found it pretty amazing that there was so much open space in such a densely developed area.

Tomorrow we leave Vancouver to drive about 150 miles Northeast to a little town called Merritt. I know nothing about the town, only that it was a reasonable distance to drive and there were a couple of RV parks in the town. We will see what’s there when we get there. The big Canadian adventure continues. That concludes this episode of Travels with Roy and Jackie - until we have a chance to update you again, keep the faith and enjoy the road of life!

The Great Northwest

Greetings blog fans from the glorious Olympic peninsula of Washington. More on that later. Our last episode left us at the Valley of the Rouge State Park in Oregon on the 11th of May. The next day, Tuesday, we went out and did some local caching, finding 14. We also reached the "700 finds" mark in our caching sport! Yea us! On Wednesday we drove into Medford, Oregon, about 25 miles Southeast of the park to do some shopping. We hit the Costco there and went into the Fred Meyers store for the rest of our groceries and household stuff. After a little while we realized that everything we were buying seemed to be more expensive than we remembered from Walmart. We finally just quit and left the store buying only a couple of items that we liked that we knew Walmart didn’t carry. The next day we drove to the Walmart in Grants Pass, about 15 miles West of the park to do our shopping and found that we were correct. Most things at Walmart were five to ten percent less than the same item in Fred Meyers. A lot of folks don’t like Walmart because of the "big box store" affect it has on small communities, driving local businesses under - but you can’t deny the buying power Walmart has and the savings it can produce. I don’t always like the limited selections at Walmart, but you can’t deny the savings from shopping there.

Friday, the 15th of May, was Jackie’s birthday! Happy birthday to you, etc. etc. We went out after lunch to do some caching and found 6. Later in the afternoon we went into Medford so Jackie could have her birthday dinner at the Outback there. She loves the lamb at the Outback. I had a good time too because the Outback has King Crab, which is my favorite. We had a great birthday dinner! Saturday we drove into Ashland, Oregon, a small college town about 10 miles South of Medford. We have been to Ashland several times and love the laid back nature of the town. There are some really neat shops along the main drag and the Elks Lodge is right downtown and very friendly. We stopped in at the lodge for a couple of drinks, then went out and walked the town for a couple hours. After that we drove into Medford and went to the Elks Lodge there.

Sunday morning, the 17th of May, we left the Valley of the Rogue and drove up to the Keizer Elks Lodge. Keizer is a suburb of Salem, Oregon, the capital of Oregon. We had visited the lodge on previous trips through Oregon, but this would be the first time we stayed in their RV park. The park is great - gravel sites with paved patios, full hookups including 50 amp service and sewer. All this for $17 a night. The lodge is very friendly and active. The next day, Monday, we went out and did some caching, getting 8 finds in the local area. We also drove down to Salem and did some exploring around the capital area. Tuesday we stayed around the coach doing some chores. We headed over to the Lodge in the late afternoon for a cocktail and when we walked out of the coach we ran into Pam Matthews in the parking lot. She and her husband Glenn winter in the desert and she works part time as a bartender in the Indio Elks Lodge. We were really surprised to find them at the Keizer Elks. Turns out they have a home in King City, Oregon, a Portland suburb and they were on their way home from the desert. They stopped in Keizer for the night so they would arrive at their house early in the day to be able to have time to open the house after a long winter and unpack the RV. We had some cocktails with them in the lodge. We also arranged to have lunch with them later in the week after we arrived in the Portland area.

On Wednesday, May 20th, we left the Keizer Lodge and headed North about 20 miles to Aurora, Oregon, where there is a SpeedCo Service Center. SpeedCo is a sort of "Jiffy Lube" for large diesel trucks. It’s the same principle, drive in, get a lube, oil and filter change, and drive out. We have to get our coach serviced at least once per year. The service book also says at 15K miles, but we have never gotten that much in one year, so we usually plan on a lube - oil - filter change in late May or early June of every year. The first time we had the service, in June of 2006, we had it done at a Coach Care center in Elkhart, Indiana. Coach Care is a Cummins service center. We spent over a thousand dollars for the service. In June of 2007 we had it done at a Coach Care facility in Eugene, Oregon. This one was about $1,200. In June of 2008 we went to the Monaco factory service center in Elkhart, Indiana - again, over $1,000. Then I learned about SpeedCo Centers from reading the online chat groups for Monaco Coach owners. We went to SpeedCo and had the oil changed, the chassis lubed, new oil filter, both fuel filters, the air filter AND the oil changed in the generator (also including an oil and fuel filter) and the grand total was $355!! And this included three gallons of antifreeze and two spare fuel filters just so we would be prepared for travel in Alaska. I cannot emphasis enough that if you have a big diesel pusher - DON"T go to a dealer or to Coach Care for simple lube, oil, filter services - it is a major ripoff! SpeedCo lets you watch them work, in fact they require you to be there when they torque the drain plugs so you know that they are properly fitted. I also learned where the various filters are on my coach, which could be handy in case of emergency breakdown. SpeedCo can’t do any repairs, only the same kind of service you get in any JiffyLube type operation, but for that stuff you can’t beat it. It only took two hours for the service and we were back on the road heading the last 20 miles to an RV park in Tualatin, Oregon, a Southern suburb of Portland.

On Thursday, the 21st of May, we had lunch with the Matthews’ at a Chinese restaurant in Tualatin called Lee’s Kitchen. They had told us they eat there a lot and really like it. It was not a buffet, but rather a real restaurant. The food was wonderful and not expensive. We really enjoyed visiting with Pam and Glenn. After lunch we went down to the outlet stores in Woodburn, South of Portland and also to the Camping World store in Wilsonville. The next day we went out and did some caching after lunch, adding six finds to our list. Late in the afternoon we took Smokey the Cat to the vet! One of the things we learned about going into Canada was that if you had a pet it had to have a current rabies vaccination and a health certificate. Smokey just turned nine and hasn’t been to the vet since he was a kitten. He never goes outside and has always been healthy, so there has been no need to take him. Fortunately, there was a vet office right across the street from the RV park we were staying in, so we made an appointment for Smokey on Friday afternoon. We put him in the carrier and drove him to the vet’s office - he was not happy! Poor crying kitty, you would think he was being tortured. Surprisingly, once we got him into the exam room and out of the carrier he was a great patient. Didn’t fight the vet or try to jump off the table or anything. The vet - a very nice lady doctor - gave him a full exam and said he was very healthy except for some tarter on his teeth. He weighs in at just under 15 pounds, but the vet said he was not too much over weight, just a big cat. He also got his rabies shot and it didn’t seem to faze him a bit. He was less happy to be put back into the carrier for the trip home, but recovered quickly once we let him back out in the coach.

The next day, Saturday the 23rd, we headed into downtown Portland for the weekly street festival. There were a couple hundred vendors set up in an area along the Willamette River right in old Portland. It was mostly artisans and food vendors. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the various booths. We also had lunch at a regular restaurant in old Portland called the Thirsty Lion. It was an English Pub motif but we only had hamburgers, which were very good. We were originally going to visit a restaurant called Pause which is owned and operated by the son of my old boss at the Desert Princess, Lynn Gilliam. We have visited the restaurant on previous stops in Portland. Her son, Capron, has been very successful with the restaurant. Unfortunately, when I called to see when Capron would be in, the gal that answered the phone said he would be gone until the Tuesday after Memorial day, which was the day we were leaving Portland. So we didn’t get to visit the restaurant. Maybe next time.

Sunday, the 24th we stayed in so I could watch the Indy 500 and Coke 600 races. I got to watch the Indy race, but the NASCAR race was rained out and rescheduled for Monday. Monday was our last day in the Portland area so we went out to do some more caching and exploring. We managed to find 15caches - a pretty good afternoon. One of the more interesting things we found while caching was a Monkey Puzzle Tree. The cache was hid near the tree, which was one of the strangest looking trees I have ever seen. It was very large, with about a four foot trunk and very tall, well over 100 feet. I did some research later and found that the tree is native to the mountains of Chile and is actually a conifer, the same family as regular pine trees, firs and other evergreens. A really odd sight.

Tuesday morning we got up and packed the coach for the trip into Washington. We headed up the I-5 until Olympia, Washington, then went off onto US 101 headed North into the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. We stopped in a small town named Shelton, Washington, about 20 miles North of Olympia. Our book said the Elks Lodge there had RV parking so we decided to check it out. We found the Lodge was closed but there was an RV park in the back. The sites are on gravel and grass with only water and electric, but it was quite picturesque and we were only going to be there for two nights. Since we got there early and didn’t have to set much up for only two nights, we went out and did some afternoon caching. We found seven caches in just a couple of hours in the small town. Shelton turned out to be a very nice place to visit. One of the caches was located inside of the local history museum so we learned a lot about the history of the area, which mainly revolved around logging. The area is also known as the Christmas tree capital of the country, although we didn’t see any Christmas tree farms in our travels around the area. The lodge pin for the Shelton Elks Lodge is a Santa Claus, so they take the Christmas tree thing pretty seriously.

On Wednesday, the 27th of May we embarked on one of our famous "Elks Pub Crawls" for the South Puget Sound area. The Shelton Lodge was not open on Wednesday, however, as we were leaving for our adventures I noticed that the front door was open. I found the Secretary working inside so I was able to get a lodge pin even though we weren’t able to visit the lounge in the Lodge. We then headed South into Olympia, the capital of Washington. After some sightseeing in the area around the capital we found the Olympia Lodge - Unfortunately, they were closed until 4:00 p.m. Undaunted, we decided to drive up to Tacoma, Washington, about 30 miles North of Olympia on I-5. I had been told by a number of people that the Tacoma Lodge was one to visit because of the facilities they have. We arrived at the lodge and found that it was, indeed, a very large building with a very large parking lot. Their RV parking was in their parking lot, but they had a number of spots set up with electric service boxes. There was no water or sewer on the sites however. We went into the lodge bar and there weren’t very many other members there, but the bartender was a member of the lodge and told us a lot about it. She told us that the Tacoma Lodge has the distinction of being the largest Elks Lodge in the country as far as the physical structure, and until recently they were the largest in terms of membership as well. They have over 3,000 members! Apparently they were recently beat out in membership by a lodge in Montana which was created when three lodges merged into one.

The bartender asked one of the other members who happened to be there to take us on a tour. The building has the largest lodge room I have ever seen. According to the building code sign on the wall it seats just under 1,000 people in the theater style seating. The lodge also has full workout facilities, weight room, spa, Olympic size indoor pool, AND an eight lane bowling alley with commercial type auto pin setters. The restaurant and lounge are huge - the dance floor is bigger than some lodges we have been in! This was a very impressive lodge. After a couple drinks we headed Southeast to the Puyallup, Washington Lodge (pronounced Pew-allup). Puyallup is a suburb of Tacoma. We found a nice lodge, not real big, but very friendly. Almost everyone in the place - and it was pretty busy - took the time to introduce themselves and say hi. We had a couple of drinks and chatted with folks for quite a while. We then headed West to another Tacoma suburb called Lakeland. This was another medium sized lodge, but the atmosphere was just the opposite of the Puyallup Lodge. The bartender was lazy and listless and not a one of the other people in the bar bothered to even say hi. We had one quick drink, got our lodge pin and left.

Our final stop on the Pub Crawl was the Olympia, Washington Lodge. The lodge was not very big, but when we got there it was packed. It seemed that once a month a very large amateur jazz group comes into the lodge and plays a concert. They had also had a concert that afternoon from a local middle school band. The bartender was very friendly, but since there was a concert going on we didn’t get much conversation with any of the members. We finally left the Olympia Lodge and headed back up into Shelton. Since it was now close to 7:00, we went into town to find something to eat. We stumbled unknowingly into one of the nicest little steakhouses we have found. It was a place called The Strip Steak House and is located right on the main drag through Shelton, Railroad Avenue. The food was moderately priced and excellent. We both had great steaks, cooked just right. We recommend the Strip anytime you pass through this area. When we finally made it home we had five new lodge pins and nice dinner to remember the day by. Yea!

The next morning we closed up the coach and headed North on US 101 for the 80 mile drive to Sequim, Washington, on the North end of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. We have been told for years by friends who have RV’ed in this area that Sequim and the surrounding areas are wonderful places to visit. We were fortunate to have one of our membership parks, Diamond Point RV Resort, located just a few miles from Sequim. We got settled in by late afternoon and just relaxed. The weather was clear and cool and the surrounding area is very pretty. In the late afternoon we were sitting outside the coach having our cocktail when a deer just wandered past the coach, only a few dozen feet away. Very relaxing place to stay. On Friday morning, the 29th of May, we decided to just spend the day sightseeing around the area. We first went to the Sequim Elks Lodge for lunch. It was a very nice lodge, although the folks there for lunch were not very friendly. Maybe the evening crowd is more outgoing - we will check that later in the week. After lunch we drove through Sequim, then out to the shore. The town is only a couple of miles south of the banks of the Strait of Juan De Fuca which is the primary route for shipping into the Puget Sound and Seattle. A few miles across the strait to the North is Canada, specifically, Victoria Island. We got to visit Victoria on the last day of our Alaskan Cruise two years ago. After looking around Sequim for a while we headed West 20 miles on US 101 to Port Angeles. Port Angeles is the "big" city on the Olympic Peninsula, with almost 20,000 population. Sequim has about 5,000 or so. Port Angeles is where you can catch the ferry to go over to Victoria Island. After driving around Port Angeles for a while we headed back home, stopping for a while at one of the Indian casinos. Didn’t win anything, but didn’t lose much either.

And that, loyal readers, brings up to the minute with our travels. We will be here in Sequim a week, then spending another week in Blaine, Washington, just South of the Canadian border on I-5. That will be our last stop before heading into Canada on or about the 11th of June. We hope to have at least periodic internet access during our travels through Canada and Alaska, so I hope to be able to keep the blog updated on a timely basis - but no promises. We will have our phones turned off in Canada (international cell calls are very expensive) but will be checking our voice mail from time to time, so if you call - leave a message and we’ll get back to you when we can. Until the next update, live - love - laugh, and enjoy life to the fullest!

California South to North - The Summer 09 Journey Begins

Hello to all our faithful followers. Our last chapter left us at the Elks Lodge in Chula Vista on a camping trip with the Palm Springs/Desert Hot Springs Elks camping club. Thursday evening, April 16th, the group headed over to the Galley Restaurant at the Chula Vista Marina for the all you can eat fish & chips dinner. We used to come to the Marina RV park right down the street from the restaurant with both the Palm Springs and Indio Elks Lodge RV groups back when we still lived in Indio. Every time we came down we would have at least one dinner at the Galley. They have excellent food and a nice outdoor patio area. The fish and chips was great and I ate way too much. Friday we pretty much stayed around the Elks Lodge with the group. We had a Washer’s tournament in the morning - neither of us made the finals, but we had fun. That evening we went into the Lodge for the Friday night dinner. I had the New York steak which was wonderful and Jackie had the salmon. We spent the rest of the evening playing table games with some of the group. Saturday we did some shopping and then had a pot luck with the group in the afternoon.

Sunday morning we got up early and left the Chula Vista Lodge about 9:00 in the morning - early for us. We were headed for the Santa Barbara Elks Lodge, about a 235 mile trip through the heart of the Orange & Los Angeles Counties area. Since it was Sunday the traffic wasn’t too bad, but I was still pretty beat by the time we got to the Lodge, which is actually in Goleta, the next town West. Fortunately, this lodge lets you make reservations for their RV lot, so we knew we had a spot waiting for us when we got there. The next day, Monday the 20th, we did some local caching and found 15. Tuesday we did our laundry and then some more caching. We only did 5 because it was pretty hot and humid and we didn’t get started until late afternoon. On Wednesday we departed the Santa Barbara Elks for the 130 mile drive up to the Oceano Elks Lodge, near Pismo Beach. We always stop in the Pismo Beach area when we go through California because Jackie has family there. Her aunt and uncle lived there for many years. Although her uncle Barky died a couple years ago, her aunt Donna and cousin Judy still live there. Oceano has a very nice RV lot and is only steps from the beach. After we got settled into our parking space at the Lodge we went over for dinner. Wednesday is the Lodge’s spaghetti night. Donna, Judy, and Donna’s friend Ron met us at the Lodge for dinner.

The next day, Thursday the 23rd, we went out for some early afternoon caching, finding seven. We found some interesting areas that Jackie had never seen even though she has been coming up to this area for many years. That evening we went over to Donna’s home for dinner. Judy and Jackie fixed tacos and fixings and we had a great time just visiting. Donna’s house sits way up on a hill overlooking Pismo Beach and the ocean. Great views. Friday afternoon we went out and did some more caching and then went to Ron’s (Donna’s boyfriend) house in Nipomo for cocktails. After that he took us to a local steak house called Jocko’s for dinner. This was one of the best steakhouses I have ever seen. The prices were very reasonable and the meals were huge and tasted great. I would definitely recommend Jocko’s to anyone who is in the area. Nipomo is off Highway 101 between Santa Maria and Pismo Beach. Saturday we relaxed for most of the day and then spent the evening at Donna’s home with just her. We ordered a pizza and had a wonderful evening talking and reminiscing.

Sunday morning we left Oceano and headed for the Visalia Elks Lodge. We had never been to this Lodge before but it was located about halfway between Oceano and Lodi, our next stop, so we decided to give it a try. The Elks camping book said they had an RV lot. We found they had about 15 spots with water and 50 amp electric on a paved surface, a very nice setup. We visited the lodge after getting setup and found it to a very nice, friendly lodge. On the way to the lodge we had noted highway signs which indicated that Visalia was only about 30 miles from Sequoia National Park, so we decided to visit the park the next day. Monday morning we headed East to the park. I had been to Sequoia once about 35 years ago and Jackie had never been. You enter the park at an elevation of about 1,200 feet and then climb up a 25 mile mountain road to the Lodgepole center which sets at about 8,500 feet. There was still several feet of snow on the ground at Lodgepole where we had lunch. On the way back down the hill we stopped at a couple of the natural features, including the General Sherman tree which is supposed to be the largest tree in the world in terms of volume. All of the sequoias are huge - bigger even than the Redwoods which they resemble. We spent about four hours touring the park and really enjoyed ourselves. We love going to National Parks. After leaving the park we did some geocaching on the way back to Visalia, finding five.

On Tuesday, the 28th of April, we left Visalia for the Lodi Elks Lodge. Like Oceano, we always try to stop in Lodi when heading up through California. The Lodge has a nice RV lot overlooking a golf course and we have some friends, Fern and Andy Lenardini, who live in Lodi. They own a vineyard and have a wine grape wholesale business. We actually know them from Indio because they have a winter home in Palm Desert and are good friends with our friends, Barry and Colleen Cohen. On Wednesday we went out to do some local caching and found 10 caches. Thursday we found another 10. Thursday afternoon we went in to the Elks Lodge for a couple cocktails. This is a very nice friendly lodge. Their lodge building used to be the clubhouse for the Woodridge Country Club before the club built a new facility. The bar has one wall of windows which look out over the golf club. While we were at the bar we struck up a conversation with a guy at the bar who turned out to be the owner of a local winery. His winery (and family name) was Castamagna. He knows Fern and Andy and his property is just around the corner from their’s. The bar serves his wine and he bought us a bottle of Zinfandel from his winery. We were having dinner with Fern and Andy on Friday, so we saved it for dinner. Friday we did our laundry in town and then had dinner in the Lodge that evening with Fern and Andy. The wine from Larry Castamagna was excellent - and that’s from a couple people who don’t drink much red wine. The dinner was also great. The Lodi Elks has a great chef and has always put on a good Friday night dinner. Jackie had lamb and I had a nice steak - both were wonderful. We had a great visit with Fern and Andy.

On Saturday, the 2nd of May, we left Lodi and headed for the Carmichael Elks Lodge, about 50 miles north. Carmichael is a suburb of Sacramento. We always stop here because Jackie has a old friend, Kathy Yarbrough who lives there. The Carmichael Elks has a great RV lot and a great lodge. Two years ago when we were here we helped get Kathy and her husband Bill to join the Elks. After we got settled into the lot, Kathy and Bill picked us up and took us to dinner at a local card club where Bill works in security. The food was wonderful and very inexpensive. On Sunday Kathy came over to the coach and she and Jackie visited for a while. She also took us over to her shop so we could see what it looked like. She owns a gift shop in another suburb of Sacramento.

On Monday Kathy came by and picked us up for a tour of Sacramento. We went to the State Capital and walked around for a while. We even went into Arnold’s office, however he wasn’t in. Jackie wanted to complain to him about the condition of California roads. We then spent about four hours driving all over Sacramento on the grand tour. This was the first time I had ever seen the greater Sacramento area. That night we had dinner with Kathy and her daughter Julie at the Joe’s Crab Shack in Old Sacramento. Julie also had her six month old daughter Bella with her. We had seen pictures of the baby, but this was our first visit in person. We had a very nice visit and a great meal. After dinner we went to the Sacramento Elks Lodge for a cocktail. This is Lodge 6, one of the oldest Elks Lodges still in existence. Their old building in downtown Sacramento was the largest building in the city when it was built in the late 1800's. Their “new” facility (1980's vintage) is also huge with a full gym, sauna, indoor pool, racket ball courts and banquet halls. Although there were only a couple of people there when we were, two of them took us on a tour of the building. Very impressive facility. Tuesday we did some shopping and caching in the area and not much else. Since it was Cinco De Mayo we did go out to dinner at a local Mexican Restaurant. We would have gone to the Lodge, but they were not doing Cinco De Mayo until the 15th of May! Go figure.

Wednesday, the 6th of May, we left Carmichael and headed North for the 150 mile drive to the Red Bluff Elks Lodge. There really isn’t too much in Red Bluff, but we always stop here because it is about halfway between Sacramento and Medford, Oregon, and the Elks Lodge has nice RV lot. On Thursday we drove to Anderson, about 20 miles North of Red Bluff, to the UPS facility to pick up our mail. We “had” to spend a couple hours at the outlet mall because the UPS customer service office wasn’t open when we got there and we had to wait for a couple hours. Oh well, we suffered through it! On Friday we just went out and did some local caching, finding 10. That evening we went to the Lodge for dinner. They were doing their Cinco De Mayo, so they had a wonderful Mexican buffet. We ate way too much, but it was good.

Saturday we went to a local arts festival, which turned out to be pretty small. We also went to a local park for our first Geocaching “Event”. One of the local cachers, whose cache we had found and logged on Thursday had emailed us to let us know that a bunch of the local cachers were holding an event and he invited us to stop by. An event is really just a gathering of cachers for socializing and meeting. Usually they hide a bunch of new caches in conjunction with the event. We met about a dozen of the local cachers and had a nice discussion. Afterwards we went out and found another 10 caches locally.

Sunday, the 10th of May we left Red Bluff California and headed North into Oregon. We had reservations at the Valley of the Rogue State Park, located about halfway between Medford and Grants Pass on the I-5. We have stayed at this park several times and have always enjoyed the experience. It is right on the Rogue River and is a beautiful park with lots of trees and grass. They have full hookups with 50 amps, all for $20 a night. This time the spot we picked had a clear line of sight to the TV satellite, so I didn’t have to set up the outside antenna - the dome worked perfectly. This is the first time since the 14th of April that we have parked the coach anywhere outside of an Elks Lodge. We went from far Southern California (Chula Vista, 5 miles from the Mexican border) all the way to the Northern border into Oregon staying at Elks Lodges. We spent 27 consecutive nights camped at Elks Lodges in California - a record for us.

And that dear readers brings us up to the minute. We are going to be here at the Valley of the Rogue for a week before continuing north through Oregon into Washington. The plan remains to head into Canada on the 11th of June. I will try to do an update of our little blog prior to going into Canada. Until then, have a great life! We are!!!