Monday, August 6th
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Even though I made a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon (for me, not Sadie) and taking my time getting things ready to go we got on the road by 8:15 with the temperature down to 66⁰. It wasn’t a good start to the day as a few miles down the road I realized I didn’t have my cell phone. At the first chance to pull off the road I went back and searched the trailer to no avail. Next I went through all the maps and guide books in the truck and whew, it was in between the pages of one book.
With that behind me I was looking forward to crossing the border by noon if possible.
The terrain continued to be bare hills with sagebrush and nice fields of hay below them.
It wasn’t long before I knew I had spoken too soon in the last post. The Frazier River canyon was beginning before me.
They must grow apples or some other fruits as there were fruit stands all along the highway in the first part of the canyon.
The river is impressive in size
Further down the vegetation changes back to more what I had envisioned. In the upper portion of the river canyon the river was somewhat muddy then in some of the middle portion it became clear only to be muddy further down. Must be other rivers flowing in that changes the color.
The road is next to the river many places along the way with a lot of place to pull off but not with a trailer. When there was, I saw it too late or I had other cars or trucks behind me and couldn’t safely slow down quickly enough. It isn’t the scenery that I had imagined, kind of like someone telling you how great a movie is and you get your expectation up and then feel it is a dud. This certainly wasn’t a dud but I like the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming, Glenwood Canyon on the Colorado, and the Yakima River Canyon between Yakima and Ellensburg, WA as well or better. Now you have some other river canyons to see.
As I approached Hope, BC at the end of the canyon the vegetation changed to pines, fir, and maples, more like Oregon and Washington. The Mountains were all around me.
From Hope towards Vancouver on the Trans Canada Highway the traffic was heavy and there was smog in the air. Welcome back to civilization. For those of you that saw Lee Marvin in “Paint Your Wagon” it reminded me of the song he sang that said “they civilized east, they civilized west and before you knew it, it was too civilized even for snow”. Something like that anyway.
Crossing the border was not a pleasant breeze through. The signs as you approach indicates the wait to get through and it indicated 10 minutes. I told the Border Agent that I was glad I had made a restroom and gas stop before I approached. He asked how long it took me and when I replied 35 minutes he said, that’s not bad many times it take 2 hours to cross.
Seattle and Tacoma were the next challenges as the traffic was bumper to bumper and just inching along all the way around on I-405 and then on some around Tacoma. I started going through before 3 pm and it took me until 5 pm to reach the Outback RV Park in Rochester, WA and that is just about 60-70 miles. It was quite a culture shock for someone that two days earlier saw only a few cars in 100 miles. Maybe I’m going the wrong direction at least until winter.
Today we traveled 369 miles and it was 81⁰ when we arrived, much better than yesterday.
One of the blog followers is trying to guess where I will wind up each night. So far he has only gotten one night right. He only has one more chance to guess as I plan to be home Wednesday night.
When Linda gets home I think we will do a recap of the trip and our favorite spots, tours, etc. with some of our favorite pictures. She may be home next week for a while at least.
It is hard to imagine that I was in Anchorage on Monday night a week ago, it seems much longer than that.
Keep on truckin Glen! Still lovin the photos....the hayfields are beautiful! Drive safely :)
ReplyDeleteLisa