Prince George to Williams Lake, British Columbia

    

We broke camp at 9:30, headed over to the gas station where regular is almost under $1 per liter now (it is up to $1.29 per liter in parts of the Yukon and upper BC), and left the Yellowhead Highway turning south on Highway 97, the Cariboo Highway.  I find it interesting how up in Canada and even in Alaska all the highways have names.  Down in the states, it is “I-5”, or “I-80”, or US-50.  Of course in Florida US-19 has its own bumper sticker…”Pray for me, I drive US-19”.  Anyway, today’s travels and some of tomorrow’s will be on the Cariboo Highway.  And no, we did not see any Caribou…they are all far up north where it is cooler.  Their trek southward will take place real soon.  However, Highway 97 is also known as the Okanagan Highway, John Hart Highway and Alaska Highway.  Now we are all equally confused. 

As we turned onto the Cariboo Highway, we quickly drove over the Fraser River (pictures above), and followed it all day – though at times from a bit of a distance.  The Fraser River is the longest river in British Columbia, starting in or near Jasper National Park, and ends at the Strait of Georgia near the city of Vancouver where it splits into four forks before each fork enters the Strait.

I nearly titled this blog, “The Dragon is Snared”.  Sure glad I cleaned the windows when I got gas as we left this morning.  We thought it was dead, and at first the windshield wipers could not loosen it from the snare…but after 10 minutes it seemed to wake up (probably got knocked out when it hit the window at 35 mph), squirmed a little bit, and when I started up the wipers, it flew upwards…now I cannot say if it survived the hood of the motorhome or not…we hope it did.

Saw a lot more of the green fields today…and a view of today’s nemesis…electrical wires.  Marcia fought with not taking pictures all day because of electrical wires.  The further we go south, the more electrical wires there are, spoiling the view. But we understand and accept that they are needed…but we don’t want to publish ugly pictures.  (He says that after publishing a picture of a snared Dragonfly)

Eighty miles into today travels and we cross over the Quesnel River in the town of Quesnel.  We are half way to our destination…

What was that about not showing any bad pictures today???  Well, she was just getting even for me sneaking a few shots of her over the past two weeks.  Oh, you missed them you say?  Well, they are there…

After Quesnel the views got a bit better, and the wires did disappear at times.  Seems like you can see for miles and miles here…

This is the view around the same time from my side of the window.

Another brush with the Fraser River…and the threatening clouds.  We did have a little rain, but not much…but it sure threatened rain a lot today.

   

At least we are getting back to where there are hills again.

I pulled into a turnout and got this shot of “where we came from”.

     

And the clouds really make the pictures today.

And the only wildlife we saw was not wild…but these horses sure looked good out there.  We have seen a lot of horses over the past few days…that has been nice.

    

As we get close to our destination, Marcia gets a few pictures of McLeese Lake.  Just one of many lakes we saw today…this one had views with few electrical wires which you can see along the bottom of both shots.

Today’s destination was a mere 150 miles away from Prince George, to Williams Lake British Columbia.  I had read that the Williams Lake Stampede Campground had a nice laundry room, $31 full service sites for 30 amp, and unless there was something going on at the horse arena, it should not be too crowded.

    

When you pull in, just stay to the right and follow the signs.  It is a self-serve location, and you register here at the utilities building…clean bathrooms with clean showers and a very clean laundry facility (but with only two washers and two dryers…$2 to wash, $3 to dry but you can combine both washers into one dryer most of the time.

    

To the left is the arena.  Each year at the end of June and early July, they hold a huge stampede here.  They also have many weekend events which go on through the spring, summer and fall too.  In the picture upper right, you can see that the 50 amp area is the most popular.  They go for $33 or $34 per night, and are all pull throughs.  We parked right in front of the utility building so that I could have easy access to the laundry room.  By 5:00 the laundry was done, by 6:00 we were eating the crock-pot beef stew that Marcia had cooking all night long.  Yummy.  

Tomorrow we drive another 250 miles, and that will put us 50 miles from the US border, and 80 miles from our first lower 48 camping spot since we entered Canada way back on May 15th.  That will have put us in Canada and Alaska for nearly 13 full weeks.  WOW, seems like just yesterday…

Prince Rupert to Prince George, British Columbia

A look at the Skeena River just before it runs into the Hecate Strait of the Pacific Ocean.  The Hecate Strait is one of the few places in the world which contains Glass Sponges (pictured right from picture I got off Internet), a very uncommon sponge.  Due to the endangered status, commercial fishing is not allowed in the Hecate Strait…which explaines the lack of large numbers of fishing vessiles in Prince Rupert.

Another view a bit further up river.  One advantage to driving into a port city and driving back out is that you see the views coming and going.  This area within 40 miles of Prince Rupert is very pretty…and the same can be said about Skagway, Valdez, Seward, Haines…all those port cities which we stayed in…even Stewart/Hyder which is not the same type of port, but still a port city.  All of these cities are surrounded by mountains, and the roads which follow the rivers leading into the port cities have just been wonderful to drive.

    

Soon we are back in Kitwanga, pulling back in at the Cassiar RV Park where we stayed four nights ago.  Other than an hour long power outage which affected the entire community and not just the RV park, it was a nice place to stay.  There is no TV there, so we watched a few movies on our aircard, and from those downloaded to our Kindle.  One thing about not being able to use your aircard for a number of days is that you store up your data for the month.  We now have 8 more days left in our Verizon month, with 17 gigs of our 40 gigs left…so we can load up on a few more movies before we head further south.   

We get back on the Yellowhead Highway and the road takes us east, and even north for awhile, before it turns back to the southeast.  Marcia gets a picture of Seeley Lake as we go by, one of the first pictures she can take all day since the mountains are shrouded under a cloud cover which makes them look dark, and featureless except for their outline.

  

It is amazing the shots she can get right from the motorhome.  Of course, with each raising of the camera, her right shoulder reminds her of her “fall” back in Valdez back in early June…2 full months ago. 

We get to the furthest north that we are going on the Yellowhead Highway, a town called Hazelton, where we pull into the Visitor’s Center to take care of business.  (No, not that business…had to pick up the pan, bagels and paper plates that fell out of the microwave oven early on during our drive.  What a loud bang that was!  One of the reasons we don’t have much ‘glass’ in the motorhome.)   Anyway, I could not resist taking this “picture postcard” of their visitor’s center.

 

    

The three monuments represent the three important parts of their history.  Upper picture is John Jacques Caux, better known as "Cataline", the "best mule packer" in British Columbia...never failed to fulfill a freight contract.  He is buried on a piece of land overlooking Hazelton and the Skeena River.  The other two monuments represent the mining industry (left) and the logging industry (right).

A bit about the Yellowhead Highway.  It is a major east-west highway in the four western provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.  To the far west it actually starts on Graham Island at Masset, British Columbia,  heads south along Graham Island for 63 miles to Skidegate, then connects via ferry to Prince Rupert.  It passes through Jasper National Park, Edmonton and ends 60 miles shy of Winnipeg when it merges in with the Trans-Canadian Highway (Hwy 1) which goes all the way across Canada.

    

As we start to head south-east, you can see in the pictures above how hard it is to get a good picture of the scenery.  Although we had some light rain, rain was not much of an issue…but the clouds and mist they gave off played havoc with the camera.

As we get close to Smithers, we pass Hudson Bay Glacier to our west, nearly hidden by the clouds.  Hudson Bay Mountain is one of the best ski areas in British Columbia. 

And then we pass by Kathlyn Lake, and gets this shot…yes, there is a Bald Eagle in that nest to the right in the picture.  She had to wait for the power lines along the road to “rise” out of the view of the mountains, and she got the shot…did not even know the bird was there until I went through the pictures.

After we pass through Smithers and get closer to Houston British Columbia, the land starts to change…we start to see farm land again, lots of it.  And the fields are so green…and the mountains start to disappear further and further to the horizon.

    

As we passed through Houston British Columbia, I got two pictures of their Visitor’s Center area which includes this nice park (top 2 pictures above) and the picture below them which I had to get off Google Maps which shows “World's Largest Fly Fishing Rod”.  Now in Port Isabel, Texas they have the largest “functioning” Fly Fishing Rod and Reel…certified by Guinness…so it is all how you look at it.  Well, I looked at it as we drove by, and did not get the picture…so that is why I got it off Google Maps.

    

Further we go past more farm land…

    

…and come to Burns Lake.  Burns Lake is both a lake, and a community.  In America we call them “Native Americans” now, instead of Indians…up in Canada they call them “First Nations” or Aboriginal Canadians in place of the term Indians.  Burns Lake is home to a large First Nations population and is renowned for its rich First Nations heritage…along with its extensive network of mountain biking trails.

  

Another community we passed through was Vanderhoof, BC.  It is nice that many of these communities brighten up the travelers way with flowers and items that catch the eye’s attention.

Like the other drives we have had through the Yukon and upper British Columbia, the lakes and water are abundant.  After 450 miles, 150 miles the first day, and 300 the second, we arrive in Prince George.  The mountains are all but gone…except in our memories.  We're staying in Prince George for 2 nights, heading further south tomorrow.  Hope to cross into the lower 48 on Wednesday where we plan to stay for 2 days at a PA campground north of Bellingham. By then it is time to get more dog food, and shopping at a Fred Myer.