Category: Destinations

Ton has begun to refer this trip as the Fire and Rain tour, with all due respect to James Taylor.

Today we began by debating our next designation.  The direct route would be to Prince George BC, but we had been reading about Prince Rupert so we decided to head there.  As we were discussing Prince Rupert Ton mentioned that maybe we should check the weather there.  We did not have any service at that point, and by the time we did have service we were already committed to Prince Rupert.  As we got closer to Prince Rupert the rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was blowing a gale.  It was a serious storm.  When we pulled into town it looked like a nice enough place, but there was no way to walk around town without getting drenched and blown around.  The campground situation was not so good, and the BC Park we had as our backup was soaked, so we made the decision to double back to Terence BC.

By the way the road to Prince Rupert from Terence is spectacular.  You are going to have to take our word for it as we could not get any pictures thru the rain.  There are a great many ribbon waterfalls, and a couple of proper waterfalls. The road follows the gorge formed by the Skeena River, and near the end broadens out to an estuary with mountains on either side and multiple islands.  It is really a nice drive.

As the trip winds to an end we are getting focused on miles over seeing things.  Today we found ourselves on good roads where cruise control was the norm.  When we arrived in Prince George we did a little poking around the town before finding ourselves in the Walmart parking lot for the night.  

While there is not much to talk about we actually enjoyed the day.  The sights were nice and while not as spectacular as Alaska still varied and pretty.  We have found we are getting comfortable with a variety of places to stop for the night, even urban camping in Walmart.

Today we headed to one of our favorite campsites on Naval Airstation Whidbey Island.  It is located right on the Puget Sound and is really a great place to camp.  

The initial drive was down the Fraser River Valley and is quite spectacular.  I know we are sounding like a broken record but the trip to Alaska is full of spectacular drives.  

Ron was focused on making it to the US before buying any more fuel.  We made it but only just. Ron was sweating bullets in the line to clear customs, wondering what the punishment would be to run out of gas at the border crossing.  When we pulled into the first gas station available after the border it took 33 gallons to fill the truck, a new record by 5 gallons so we really were on fumes.

We arrived early at the campsite at Whidbey and got the last space available.  The Navy has spent a lot of money upgrading this park and it is the equivalent of the best campground you would see anywhere.  On top of that the camp host does an incredible job both keeping the place clean and keeping gardens throughout the place.  It really is special.

Today was a relatively lazy day.  We started out a little later than usual, and parked for the night around 3:30 pm.  As we drove south we saw signs of the fires that had closed the roads when we were heading towards Alaska.  The firefighters did a great job saving property, but the land along the road showed that the fires must have been quite intense.

We targeted Spences Bridge because Ron had read that there was a log cabin pub there worth checking out.  It turned out to be a real jewel.  It is a very interesting building, much larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. The owner was fun to talk to, and had a very refreshing view of life.  It had been a tough year for them because the fires in this area were very intense and had the highway closed for long periods of time.