We had a group of one night stops between Stewart, BC and getting back into the Lower 48 at Birch Bay, WA. No pictures other than campsites.
August 25th we had mixed feelings leaving Stewart, we enjoyed the area and were tempted to stay longer. Some other friends were coming in the same day, another reason to stay. But the forecast was wet weather and we did not want to stay more than one day extra so we took off. We ended up passing our friends Roger and Toni on the highway.
The further we got from Stewart the nicer the weather was. It was sunny and getting warmer by the time we were on Trans-Canada 16, The Yellowhead Highway. After 245 miles we stopped at Shady Rest RV Park in Houston, BC, a place others had recommended. It was sunny and warm:
August 26th we drove 198 miles to Prince George, BC to replenish groceries and fuel. Scenery was decent, the weather was warm and sunny, we will have to come back and take our time exploring.
This time in Prince George we tried Hartway RV Park north of the city:
If we would have stayed longer we would have moved to a campsite we could use our satellite dish in, but the campground had wireless so we used it.
We did our grocery shopping, we scoped out places to fuel up the motorhome and fueled up the CRV. We had a recommendation for a restaurant but we did not go out to eat since it was Saturday evening and restaurants were busy. We learned that some friends we were expecting to visit close to Vancouver, BC were going to be out of town so we were going to be on our own when in that area.
Late in the evening the cell phone rang but we were not in a position to answer it. Once we realized who called we called back even though we were roaming. A family member was in the hospital. We decided we were going to get back to Washington State earlier than planned to be in cell phone range and to be closer in case we needed to help. Our Canadian friends were not going to miss us since they were out of town.
August 27th Bill decided to drive more than halfway to the border and drove 285 miles to Cache Creek, BC and Brookside Campsite. We saw many a place we wanted to linger and vowed again that we will be back. Here is our campsite:
Again trees blocked our satellite dish, but this time the campground did not have wireless so we were offline a night. If we would have been staying longer, and frankly Cache Creek was not a place we wanted to stay longer at, we would have changed campsites to get online. It was in the 80s here and the air conditioning ran into the night. It also got dark earlier than we were used to, we were definitely moving south.
August 28th we drove 156 miles to Chilliwack, BC and stayed at Cottonwood Meadows RV Country Club.
Chilliwack is the edge of the greater Vancouver BC metro area. We went grocery shopping for some items that we only find in Canada and like. It was still hot here. The forecast was it was going to cool off the next day and then get warm again for the weekend.
August 29th was supposed to be a quick 50 mile journey to Birch Bay, WA. But there was a border crossing in the way. That border crossing, Aldergrove/Lynden, is normally not very busy but it was backed up a long ways this day. The locals knew the short cuts and were cutting in before us on the main road, which made it take 1-1/2 hours to get to the border guards. The border guard asked us if we had bought any food in Canada, we said "yes" and the had us go aside for agricultural inspection. No other guard had cared, but here they were doing many agricultural inspections and it was a first for us. It took half an hour and they took away a couple items. We also learned the patrol was wondering why they were so busy, it was not normal on a Tuesday. When security people get nervous they slow down and check more, lucky us.
By the time we had driven the entire 49 miles to NACO Birch Bay and got partly setup it was after 2PM and we needed to eat. Off we went to Paso Del Norte in Blaine, a good Mexican restaurant. Then we came back and finished setting up. Here is our campsite for at least a week, it is good to be staying in one spot after many days of one nighters:
We made a lot of phone calls, drove down to Costco in Bellingham for some supplies, and made plans to visit some friends while in the area. It was good to be back in the Lower 48, but we really enjoyed our trip to Alaska even with all the driving.