Travels with Donna, Steve and Gus

7/6/15 – 7/9/15

On July 6, we drove from Bellingham, WA, to Williams Lake, BC. This required us to cross a border, and, after our last experience, we had some trepidation. We pulled up to the border control and presented two people passports and one canine passport. The smiling guard asked where we were from, where we were going and why, and whether or not we had ever visited Canada before. When Stephen told him Dallas, Alaska, for fun and yes, he asked when and where we last visited. We told him that two years ago we had traveled to Cape Breton Island National Park, and he wanted to know where that was. Then came the, “Do you have any guns?” question. Stephen said we did not. He handed back the people passports (never took the canine passport) and told us to enjoy ourselves in Canada. We were at his post for about 45 seconds.

Driving north on Canada Highway 1 we passed through the Thompson Valley that is likely beautiful under most circumstance. There were many fires, much smoke and helicopters picking up water out of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers to drop onto the fire. We were very happy to be staying in Williams Lake where the air was cool and clear. Now our daily mileage gets shorter, and all three of us are pleased by that.

The campground in Williams Lake was a very tidy older campground with mostly small sites and a lot of trees. As it wasn’t full we basically got two sites. On Tuesday we moved on to Prince George that is a community of about 80,000 working class folks. Houses were small but well maintained, and everyone we encountered was friendly and welcoming. This was not a destination location. Again, we were in an older well-maintained campground with nice shade and good facilities. Wednesday took us to Smithers, and Smithers is lovely, as was the drive from Prince George. Many of the towns we have passed through have had roadside parking, picnic tables and shade near their Visitor Information facilities. Today we lunched in Houston, and it had a fenced dog run in addition to other amenities, so Gus had a nice romp. We stayed at Glacier View RV Park just west of Smithers, and indeed we had a view of the mountain and glacier. As we frequently find park names to be somewhat deceptive, this was a pleasant surprise.

We walked up Glacier Gulch to see the Twin Falls of the melting lateral moraines of the Kathlyn Glacier. Huge forest fires are burning in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. They are suffering the same sort of drought that the western part of the USA is enduring. We hope rains come eventually. Beautiful British Columbia should be here for enjoyment of the natives and all the tourists who come to enjoy it.