On the Road for real this time–Headed South!

Once Hailey got all the mice on the home place trained again, there was not much reason to stick around.  I finished all the aerial photo work that was available this fall, everyone who was going to visit had done so, and the good weather was not going to last forever.
We were going to miss the many turkey suppers at local community halls, and a couple pieces of mail failed to arrive, but we may have saved a few turkeys, and the mail will still be there in the spring!
At any rate, the ‘alarm cat’ got me up early in the morning, and by 2 pm we were on the road.  It took a bit of time to drain the water lines, add some antifreeze to the drains, turn down the heat, plug in the back up electric heaters, drop the blinds, empty the fridge, but most of the stuff was already loaded in anticipation of such a departure.

Hailey didn’t have all her border crossing paper work in order, so we stopped at the vet on the way through town to get her shots.  She has a very, very short fuse and you don’t want to be anywhere close to her when she loses her temper, so I have the vet waiting with loaded needle when I whisk her in.  When the vet approached her with the stethoscope, I had to insist on the needle first; any other examination would be a bonus.  After the needle, she did get to listen to a low growl with her stethoscope, but when she offered Hailey a treat, that was the last straw!  I managed to get her back out to the parking lot without anyone bleeding, and she pulled me to the safety of the trailer sitting there!
After that we were on the road for real.  Southbound to the trans-Canada highway, then west through Banff we went, before turning south through my old stomping grounds of Kootenay National Park.  Nice to see a lot of wildlife fencing under construction, as well as numerous wildlife underpasses.  That should provide some welcome relief to the wildlife mortalities on the highway.  When I worked there, picking up the smashed remains of the park’s wildlife was a daily ritual – while the park did not seem to have the courage to ‘request’ some of the speeding drivers to defend their negligence before a judge.  The way I saw it was that the reckless speeders should ‘contribute’ to building fences and overpasses!
At this time of year a couple decades ago, there would have been herds of a hundred elk grazing roadside, as well as deer, moose and various predators.  I didn’t see a thing.  They might be closing the barn door after the stock have all escaped?
It was dark by the time I was immersed in the soothing hot waters of Lussier Hot Springs, an 18 km gravel detour off the highway south of Fairmont.  The springs suffered some damage last winter when an ice-jam clogged up the adjacent river, but BC Parks seems to have done a great job repairing any damage and improving the walkways and rock work.  While enjoying the stars from the hot pools with a cool beverage in hand, I decided that the winter travel season had officially begun!

Next day, after another early morning dip and these photos, it was back out to the highway, an on southward through Cranbrook, and down to the US border.  Got into a bit of a conversation with the customs officer about working in fire lookouts and flying UAV’s, but then another vehicle showed up behind me, and we had to cut it short.  My kind of border crossing!




Since then, we’ve spent a couple of nights in the rain near Sandpoint, Idaho, with a nice view of the Pend Oreille river, and then on a south-westerly direction through Washington state.  Only a few times has the sun peeked out, and the rain almost constant, but no snow or freezing temps, so I’m happy with that.
Continuing south-westward on I-90, then onto 395, we decided to have a look at the town of ‘Warden’, to the west.  Just past there are many public fishing access points indicated off the road and we took one to a deserted spot on the south end of Warden Lake.  Back on the road, we crossed the dam creating Potholes reservoir,
 
then checked out Potholes SP.

It seems like a very nice and well maintained park, with prices to match.  Fall colours were out, and the sun came out as well!

 
After that it was more of a zig-zag route down through Othello, then down and across the Columbia River – which is not that huge at this point, before it is joined by the Snake River.
Shooting south across I-82, and down through Sunnyside, we saw a tiny sign in Bickleton, indicating the route to Roosevelt, down on the Columbia River proper.  Good thing too, as the GPS wanted to plot a route there almost 4 hours longer!!  Whomever designed the next section of road was clearly drunk or stoned, as it winds aimlessly back and forth across the open rangeland, with a 30mph curve at least every mile!  Luckily there was no traffic to be seen, and the pavement was excellent.  I have never seen as many wind turbines as here – there were hundreds, as far as the eye could see!  And they had them all running full tilt, making it extremely windy as we approached the river  .

That’s it for now.  Oregon in sight!

Back to the Mainland

After crossing Vancouver Island from Duncan to Port Renfrew, we carried on along the coast of the south end of the island through Jordan River and Sooke.

I checked out Belcher Bay and went for a short hike along the coast before finding a quiet spot on a nearby mountain for the night.

While three friends in the area were all out of town or unavailable, I did manage to get together with two lovely young ladies in Victoria for lunch as I was passing through.

About that time, I noticed that the calendar was still ticking the days off and it was getting  closer and closer to the day when snow might start falling again around home.  I also had a request for some more aerial photo work back in Alberta.  So with that in mind we headed for the ferry …

In the tight passage between Galiano and Mayne islands we first met a tug with a barge load of gravel.

Then, another BC Ferry came into view right on a tight corner!

For a while there, it was headed right for us!

And then passed by us on the port side.

Once on land again, the GPS was ignored and we followed the signs (!) to the trans Canada Highway and headed east.  Beyond Hope (the town that is), we took the less travelled route through Princeton, Hedley, and Keremeos.  Traffic was light, the fall colours were out which made for a pleasant drive on a road that I realized I had not previously driven!

There were still a couple more ferry crossings to go in this trip – for a total of 12!

We got a front seat on this short ride across the southern end of Lower Arrow Lake.

A quick side-trip to check out St. Leon hot springs was cut short because it appeared that it would be relatively crowded during the nice fall weather.

The final ferry ride, and 12th of the trip was across Upper Arrow Lake.

The ‘fuel pirates’ were ripping people off with the fuel prices in Revelstoke.  It was $1.15/L when I headed for the coast, and up to $1.20 on my return a few weeks later. Prices were not even that steep at the north end of Vancouver Island!  By comparison, the price in Calgary was $.89, and around here it is still $.92/L  I realize that BC has higher taxes, but that is ridiculous.

Once back home, it was time to unload and winterize the truck camper, and start gearing up the 5th wheel for the southward migration.  My friend Don, from Driving Miss Donna stopped by and gave me a hand taking the camper off and moving the propane heater over to the 5th..

The weather was remarkably warm and sunny for this time of year, and even though the leaves are all gone, there was time to get up in the neighbourhood and take some fall photos.

As soon as the last photo job is out to the way, or at the sign of the first snowflake, you can bet we’ll be on the road south.  In the meantime, Hailey is enjoying the time at home and keeping all the local mice well behaved.  For the first time in quite a while, I guess you could say that the blog is right up to date!

Meanwhile, south of the line …

Wheeling It  Nina & Paul  have been in the Williams area, planning to visit the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Bayfield Bunch are enroute from Ontario to Arizona, one Cracker Barrel at a time!

Jean and Skip have been checking out the Lake Havasu area

Wandering Willy is making his way down 395 in eastern California, perhaps with Death Valley in his sights.

Looking forward to seeing everyone down south this winter!

Too soon to head South!

With work done (at least for this year), and still a bit early to head south for the winter, there was only one viable option.  A roadtrip!  But to where?  Out came the maps and Google Earth.  East? West? North?  After the little snow flurries at camp, I didn’t think it made much sense to head north and likely find more of the same.  That left east or west …

But as usual, I headed out with no real plan in mind.  I started out a bit to the south, but plans to meet up with friends in Calgary or further south did not work out, but at least I got to check out the new Bass Pro Shops at the Cross Iron Mills.  The thought of hot springs then came to mind, and since there are not many (any?) in Saskatchewan, before I knew it the truck had turned towards BC.  Weather was cooling off before departure and in a rare pre-emptive strike, I got busy one day and winterized both the fifth wheel and the truck camper!  As luck and poor planning would have it, the very next day I loaded up the truck camper, and watered it up for the trip.  We made the big pull over Roger’s Pass without the big diesel even downshifting, and visited a friend for the night in Revelstoke.  Diesel prices in Calgary had been 88.9/L, and Revelstoke was 115.9/L, so we upped the fuel economy and found cheaper prices in Kamloops.  Missed meeting up with some friends in Kamloops as I passed through, and took the less-traveled route towards Merritt.  By that time, it seemed like it might be a good plan to push on and get through the downtown Vancouver traffic on a Sunday afternoon, BUT a convenient, scenic little lake side spot scuttled that plan.  Weather was doing it’s best to be damp and raining, but that’s not much of a concern in a cozy camper.  It was just getting dark, when I noticed Hailey intently staring out the back window.  Sure enough, there was a very small black bear out there, feasting on the berries in the bushes!

Unlike the 5th wheel that has a shower on board and an ample supply of water, the truck camper does not, so we are always on the lookout for a convenient place to shower.  We stumbled onto a very nice aquatic centre in Hope, and had a sauna and a hot tub to round out the deal.

We paid a surprise visit to that elusive, stealthy Wandering Willy on our approach to Vancouver, which put us right in the middle of rush hour to get through the city!  Luckily, there were few delays in the direction I was headed, but there appeared to be several multiple mile long backups in the opposite direction.  We kept right on going onto the Sea to Sky highway, all the way right up to Squamish.

Hailey says it is about time we got on the road again.  Enough with all those darn helicopters!

After visiting with friends for the night in the Squamish area, and checking out their new sailboat, it was time to hit the road again.  But then a Facebook friend who lives in the area, whom I haven’t seen in years noticed I was in the area, and called me up for a short get-together.  I think what I need is an app linked to Google Earth that plots everyone’s address from my address book on google earth or google maps, so I always know who lives in the area I’m traveling.  That way, I would not miss as many friends or get reminded later who I should have visited!

Anyway, that still left a bit of time for a short hike up the bottom of the Squamish Chief, which incidentally is more very steep stairs than anything else.  That got the lazy legs humming a bit.

We retraced our route back down the Sea to Sky and got us on a ferry boat at Horseshoe Bay and headed across Howe Sound to Langdale and Gibson’s – home of the long, long running Beachcombers TV Series.   Did another short, steep hike there up Soames hill, for a nice view of the harbour, and rewarded my efforts with some ribs and beer at Grandma’s Pub – right across the road from Molly’s Reach (from the TV show). 

On the way back to the truck, we found the Persephone on blocks by the street.  Lots of boats to check out at the docks

And another hike down to Smuggler Cove Provincial Park – where rum running boats used to hide out during prohibition while delivering to the US!

After a few days on the road, the rains let up and the ‘Sunshine Coast’ lived up to it’s name.  We were usually able to locate remote, scenic, free spots to camp along the coast, but it would have been very difficult to do the same towing the 5th wheel.  We picked up some small grocery items in Sechelt, and found yet another great rec centre with pool and hot tub – on special at $2.! 

As we continued northward along the coast, there was yet another ferry to get us across Jervis Inlet.  But first – Egmont, and the famous tides of the Skookumchuck Narrows!