On Thursday morning Keith stopped by our campsite for a coffee before we headed out. It was great to see him and unfortunate that he had just arrived back in Whitehorse the afternoon before, so we only had time to visit at Debbie and Lonnie’s. Ray and I were on the roady by 8:30 heading east again to hook up with Highway 37 which is the Stewart Cassiar Highway. The drive from Whitehorse to the Hwy 37 junction was uneventful and quite boring. We saw not one wildlife, not even a raven! It took about four hours to get to the junction and once we were on Hwy 37 I took over the driving. Of course it seems that when I do this the road conditions change or it rains. This highway is very narrow and very curvy. There are no lines indicating the centre of the road or the shoulders, but why should that surprise me? The first mile or so was gravel but that changed to rough pavement with many potholes. There has been a recent fire in the north end of Hwy 37, probably in the last couple of years and the forest is black with some lush green on the undergrowth. The burned trees are so close to the road that you almost feel claustrophobic and the burned branches from the trees reach out like tentacles. I almost felt that we were being watched or followed. Marline,,,,,,,maybe it was a Sasquatch getting ready to jump out in front of me,,,,,,or maybe an alien??? It was actually a very creepy feeling! I was very glad a few miles down the road, to leave that part of the road behind. There was a bit of road work, but not much. I only drove for about 100 kms and gave the wheel back to Ray. He did have some time to catch a bit of a nap during that time. We drove until about 4:30 when we saw a big sign on the side of the road advertising an RV park with full hookups. We turned left onto the highway and headed down a fairly steep gravel driveway for about 1/2 a km. I was beginning to wonder what kind of place this would be as you could see nothing of it through the thick trees. As we rounded the last corner we came into an open parking lot with a very nice log building. Beyond the building you could see the well manicured campsites. We were in luck, they were all empty. The name of this park is Mountain Shadow RV park and is in a tiny berg called Iskut. The hostess was about my age or maybe a little older, but very nice and welcoming. Apparently there are two cabins that a person could rent if they chose to. They looked cute overlooking the campground and very small lake. When we pulled in there were no other campers but within half an hour they started rolling in. I imagine that this campground sees campers mostly just on overnight stops as it is in the middle of nowhere. The place is for sale and I am wondering who really would want to buy it and live there. Maybe “snowbirds” who can escape in the long winter months.
I was so tired as was Ray, but it didn’t stop him from taking advantage of me and kicking my ass in a couple of games of crib!! We hit the sack early and were up and gone by 7:30. Once we were south of Meziadin Junction the roads improved immensely! There were lines on the roads and not nearly as many potholes. From Meziadin Junction you can head west to Stewart BC or Hyder Alaska. I have heard that if you are in Alaska you must go to the Hyder Inn and get “Hyderized”! Apparently that is what Ray did way back in the Fall of 1968 when he was working on the tug boats. Anyway we decided there was really no point in going down that far only to have to come back, so we continued south east towards Smithers. Originally when we were planning this trip, we were going to go to Prince Rupert and take the beautiful BC Ferry over to Port Hardy and come down the island. But as we “fly by the seat of our pants” we always change our minds and go off in another direction.
I am so glad that I downloaded the Vinyl Cafe CBC Radio show podcasts as it has kept us entertained on these long lonely highways. Sometimes the Sirrus radio doesn’t come in and sometimes we just get tired of music. And domestics we just sits and thinks…..ha ha ha….The Vinyl Cafe always showcases local talent that is more of a “folk” type music, so very easy to listen to. Stuart McLean always reads a story sent in by an audience member and then of course one of his own. He is such a great narrator!
We Stopped in New Hazleton at the Information Centre as I had to use the facilities and it was a great place to actually pull off the road. There were a couple of food trucks set up with people milling around. We decided it would be a good time to take a break and have a bite to eat from some of the locals. We chose the fish and chip truck as we were only going to share a side of fries. In the end we shared an order of halibut and chips. It was good but not quite as good as what we had in Skagway. I chatted with the lady taking the orders and learned that her husband ran the food truck and did the cooking, she had a “real” job! She worked at the local school as the janitor, so helped her husband out in the mornings until she had to happily skip off to work. She told me that she found the food truck way too stressful,,,,,especially if there are more then two people waiting in the line up! I had to laugh at that, but I guess when the area you live in only has “maybe” 5000 people then serving up more then one at a time would make one stressed out indeed!!!
We were back on the road after about a 45 minute stop and continued our way eastbound. We saw a couple of black bears today one was running up the bank and his old black fur was just quivering!! The highway between Smithers and Prince George has the unfortunate name of “Highway of Tears”. There are huge signs on the roadside with photographs of the young teens who have all gone missing. All are teen girls. Another thing of note between Smithers and Prince George you can see the devastation the pine beetle has done to our forests of pine trees. Miles after miles of dead pine trees! You do not see this at all up in the far north, most likely because it actually does get cold enough to kill of the pine beetles before they have a chance to kill the trees. And a funny sign I am seeing a lot of…… “Do not pass snow ploughs on the right”…..now who would do that??? Pass them on the right???? Last time Ray did that, we ended up in a snowbank!!! Driving into Smithers we saw a Safeway with a Starbucks sign on the side of the building. Ray, the good man he is, offered to pull in so that I could get a latte, but I declined as it was close to 3:00 and that is past my cut off time for my daily intake of caffeine. Yesterday a brilliant thought popped into my pretty little head, why not bring the laptop into the truck and I can work on my Blog by typing it up as a document and then when I find wifi, then I can copy and paste it into my Blog and add some photos. So that is what I did. It was just sad that the wifi that we had last night and actually had to pay for, was so lousy! Now that is something that stresses me out,,,,,,, slow and crappy wifi!!! Okay,,,okay Vivian,,,,,,I am “o.mmmmm-ing”!!
Our campsite last night was actually pretty decent. We stopped in Vanderhoof at a place just east of town called “Dave’s RV Park”. It was run by an old guy (well he looked old but maybe he was more “weathered” then old). We asked for the full meal deal, all hook ups, cable TV and wifi. Not sure why we asked for TV because again we were so tired that we went to bed early. Also Ray is getting a cold, so he needs his beauty rest! Anyway the sites were very nice and clean and if I had chosen to do laundry, Ray said they had a great little laundromat. But I chose to do my Blog instead! Thankfully the sun went to bed last night and we had some darkness to help us sleep!
Saturday morning we were again up and on the road by 7:30. Gee I can’t wait to get home so that I can actually sleep in. While making the turn southbound towards Valemont today we crossed over the Fraser River. How many of you know that the Fraser River here is the same nice clean color as the Thompson? But by the time it gets to McBride it is that dirty brown that we all know. Today we are heading down to Scotch Creek which is in the Shuswap and is where friends Marlise and Doug Jordan have a cabin. We are going to plant our sorry asses there for a couple of days. Ray told me today that he is so impressed with his truck. He is impressed with the mileage he is getting and impressed with how well the truck pulls on the hills. So I am thankful to hear that. Who doesn’t like it when their husband is a happy man!?
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