Chaos Leaves Town

I still haven’t remembered where we spent the night but the next morning, we were off to Idaho and an attempt to visit with my friend Stacy. I’d met her up in Fairbanks, she’s an artist and was living at the RV park where I volunteered. But she was now back down here in Coeur d’Alene with her family. I’d tried to talk her into holding up her departure date so she could travel with my brother and me but that didn’t sound all that appealing to her. Rightly so.

So when it got to around 10am I gave her a call to set up a meeting to say hi. Since she wasn’t working yet, no problem. When we got to the border, it only took us maybe 15 minutes to get back into the US. Keeping you mouth shut and only answering questions asked is the best way. And don’t make any stupid jokes about anything. It’s a small customs office and the traffic was fairly light so most of the time we spent there was waiting for what traffic there was to move.  There isn’t even a town there.

This whole area is a drainage for the Columbia River system. Imagine what it must have been like 12,000 years ago when there would have been an ice sheet in this picture.

I stopped to get this shot because it is so like the area I grew up in.

That’s her son, he came down to join us since he’s not working either and has plenty of time. And he knew where the brew pubs and college bars were so that helped. I was really surprised at how big and modern Coeur d’Alene has gotten since I went through it so, so many years ago.

I’m all pasty looking from having spent 2 years up in Fairbanks where there is no sunshine to speak of. And fat. Gained over 20 pounds up there. After we had lunch and a few brews here at the brew pub, Stacy wanted to show us a college bar down by the lake. So…off we went, but in her Jeep instead of my RV.

Then the conversation got interesting as Stacy told us what was going on in her life, at work (or lack of it), with her son, the grandchild, the grandchild’s mom, etc., so I never bothered to get a picture from this point on.

We were invited to Stacy’s mom’s house for dinner…which was excellent…and then were allowed to park the RV next to the house for the night. Watched a football game or something in the house while getting tipsy so I forgot my cow hat. Stacy scooped it up for me the next morning and although it’s grungy, she’s promised to take care of it and give it back to me. I can’t replace it because the owner of the RV park where I got it, Sourdough RV Park of Tok Alaska, was killed in an accident last year and the new owners didn’t order any more of the hats. I’d checked with them when Dan & I passed the place a few days previously. Damn.

The next morning, around 7, we head off to Spokane.

Then next morning, we left the Jasper National RV park and headed south to Banff, arriving around 10:30am. This is a nice little tourist town that’s in really good shape. Picturesque and all. Looks like a fancy ski town. I’m betting, based on the types of stores we saw here that that’s mainly what’s happening here. Winter sports.

When I tried to pay for my internet time and coffee, my card was declined, so, once again, recognizing that the anti-fraud company had put a stop on my Visa card, I had to call my bank and get them on the line with the fraud company to straighten it out. Not so bad here in Banff, an area with cell phone coverage. Usually my crappy T-Mobile doesn’t have service in areas where Dan’s Verizon works fine. This was one of those rare areas where I actually had service. But it was a hassle none the less.

Just a note about that. I would say that Dan’s Verizon coverage was around 75% throughout this entire trip from Fairbanks, through remote areas of Canada and down to Walla Walla, where Dan caught a flight back home. My T-Mobile coverage this entire trip was no better then 25%. There were many places, small and big towns in Alaska & Canada where Dan would have 1 to 5 bars and I’d have none.

Then in Walla Walla, in a RV park no more then 4 miles from downtown where I was told T-Mobile had their own cell tower, I got no better then one bar. Usually had zero bars and couldn’t call out. Actually had to leave my RV, walk 50 yards or so to find an area where I got coverage. I even called them and complained when I could and they said, “Oh, we have coverage at that address so we can’t do anything for you”. Idiots. Recommendation from here based on experience is to stay away from T-Mobile’s crappy coverage.

The weather was spectacular with miles of blue sky dotted with the occasional fluffy white cloud.

After we left that canyon, we traveled around an hour to the ‘Paint Pots’ area. This is an area where minerals are very close to the surface and once found by ancient Indians, have been mined since then. The Europeans followed the Indians here and did extensive surface mining first with hand tools, then with power equipment. The minerals are valuable for the colors that can be made from them in paints and cosmetics. A large paint factory was built not far from here to take advantage of this resource. To get to the area, we crossed this nice suspension bridge.

Here we passed open areas of mineral rich ground surface. This area was mined for the ocher color of the minerals here. It’s so iron rich that scant flora grows here. The Indians used it in their daily lives, the Europeans used it to color paint.

The Paint Pots are pools of water formed by gradual deposition of iron salts around the rim. It isn’t as colorful in this picture as it was in person. Many subtle colors were visible including what looked like an oil slick on the water surface.

After we finished that nice hike, we decided to walk along one trail that was like 4 miles round trip that was suppose to take us up to the highway, with an easy trek back alongside the road. Well, we hike all the way up the trail…a little to fast too, and when we got here (see next picture), we noticed that the bridge was just gone! No way to get across to the road over there. So, we hiked back and at the sign, we found that someone (not the park service) had scratched an X over the trail name. We didn’t see that when we passed as it was too lightly done. The idiots in the forest service didn’t bother to let us know the trail was not a loop but an up & back.

After that frustrating experience, we got back on the road and a half hour later stopped here at Radium Hot Springs. Not much to see so we didn’t spend much time here.

I don’t know where we stayed this night. I do know that we stayed somewhere in BC because the next morning we only had a couple hour drive to the border with Idaho.

The next morning, at that nice little RV park outside of McBride, BC named Beaverview RV Park, I took a couple pictures of where I parked. The evening before, dark came so suddenly, I didn’t get any.

This place is quite well appointed by the Canadian forest service. Nice steps and such for the weary traveler. We saw perhaps 100 people while we were there. Crowded but not the bumping elbows kind of crowded that you’d find here in the middle of summer.

While I was taking the picture, I noticed the RV started rolling downhill so I had to jump back into the drivers seat and slam on the brakes to prevent rolling into that ravine. Scary, if I’d walked up the road to take the pictures from where I’d initially stopped the RV and it had started rolling downhill. Would have been a disaster. Usually my parking brake holds on steeper hills then this one but this day it decided to let go. I know enough to chock the tires usually but I didn’t plan on chocking, so that’s why I only went to the doorway to get this shot. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t hold because I shut off the engine before they could completely engage.

This glacier is the head waters (or head ices) of the Columbia River. It is retreating very quickly. In another 20-30 years, there won’t be a glacier here.

There was still a nice hike to do to actually get within about 50 yards of the face, and there is a small lake at the foot of the glacier so you can’t actually touch the ice face from this area but they do have tour buses that take you uphill a few miles so you can walk out on the glacier. When we were there in Sept. of ’09, there were bunches of Japanese tourists all lining up for 5 or 6 buses. We passed on that sort of crowded excursion. Preferring instead to hike up as close as we could to the face of the glacier. We grew up within spitting distance of the Columbia River so this was very interesting to us.

The whole time we were in this area, from the parking lot up to the face, there was this stiff and very cold breeze coming off the glacier. Coat, hat, & gloves were necessary. Standard hiking shoes were OK though.

After that refreshing hike and visit to the Columbia River headwaters, we get back on the road and head off southeast. Time was only around 3:30 pm. Nice leisurely travel day with plenty of stops of interest.

I have no idea where we spent the night. Oh, wait, yes I do. We found a provincial RV park an hour later with over a hundred sites inside the Jasper NP and spent the night there. Had electric for the heaters so it was comfortable enough. Had plenty of water in the tank and food in the pantry so no shopping was needed.

The place was surprisingly crowded and the showers were packed in the morning. We had thought of spending two nights there but changed our minds and boogied out of there soon after breakfast heading for Banff. Town with a silly name. Just to visit. We must have seen a hundred glaciers along the way in the park. Dan promised himself that when he retired and got on the road in his Class C that he’d come back up here and spend a couple months traveling around the park and backpacking. I’m no longer drawn to backpacking like I use to be so I won’t be doing much of that. Day hikes are about all I can stand to do anymore. That damn 55 to 70 pounds on your back is just no fun anymore. I could do an overnight backpacking trip I suppose as long as the weather was OK, but to do 3-6 days like I use to? No. No more. Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.

The next day in Prince George was a running around day. I’d decided the night before where I was going to try to get the leaking tranni hose fixed and where to go to try to find used spare tires. Luckily, our RV campground was close to the industrial park where I expected to be able to do everything. Including finding a good price on diesel.

I had another 1,000 miles to drive before reaching a large enough town in the states to get a reasonable price for four new tires for the rear of the RV. I didn’t want to pay $360 for a tire that would be $250 in the states. And I needed four. Anyway, we drove over to the shop and got the work started on the hose repair around 9am. I walked over to a nearby junkyard to try to find a usable spare tire. I did find one after 40 minutes of searching but it had a slightly different size.  But it was only $50. I asked two tire stores later (one within walking distance, the other we went to after the hose repair) if I could use it anyway and they both said no. When I got the time to do some research, I found that the only thing different was the width. Which means if I’d pumped it up to a nice high pressure along with it’s mate (dual tires), that probably wouldn’t have been a problem for a hundred miles or so to get me out of a jamb. The width might be a problem in that the tires could rub together while traveling so adding air pressure would separate them a bit more. So, I passed on it. Meanwhile, I’m getting worried about finding spares to take with me on the next 1,000 miles.  After a couple hours, the shop finished the hose replacement and $220 lighter, we head over to a Goodyear tire store because I’d called and they said they had a used tire my size. The guy told me $108 each, they had two. So I got the work started on both of them and used one to replace my blown tire. That one went into the tire cubby, the other unmounted tire I put in my bedroom. Then they started to ring everything up and now the tires were $150 apiece! I didn’t like that at all and complained enough that they and I settled on $130 each. They dropped the price $20 each and I came up $12 each. Then there was the $60 just to mount one of them on the rim! Rip off. I should have left with just the one tire but I was worried about it because, like I’ve said, the three tires on the rears were all the same age, had cracks in between the treads, suffered the same as the one that blew, and the spare that was running on the back now was made in 1990, and tires do age. It looked good, but it was old. I didn’t put the new used tires on because they had too deep of tread, I’d have to use both of them on the same axle and side or in the front where I already had two brand new tires, and I’d just been charged $60 for one tire to be installed on a rim, not even mounted on the rig. Geese. Well, anyway, $365 lighter, off we went. If you wonder which Goodyear store ripped me off, it’s the one in the industrial district in Prince George, BC.

Back on the road now, we were heading south-east into the Rockies where Dan wanted to do some hiking. We looked for trails that seemed interesting but not to taxing for me, since I’d let myself go in Alaska and had gained 30 lbs or so. In just over 2 years. Not smart or healthy. Spent too much time in my favorite bar, The Big  I, and not enough biking or hiking. I’m determined to do better at getting some exercise my next trip back to Fairbanks, starting in May of 2010. But the draw at the I is hard to resist, the most beautiful woman on the planet hangs out there and doesn’t seem to mind talking to me, and several other beautiful and very pretty woman hang out there too. Sigh. Yes, I am that shallow.

After an hour or two of travel, we were back in the boonies and along the way we found and stopped at a nice little trail into some old growth forest. It had started out as a mining interest but that petered out. Before the old growth was all cut down, some conservationist put a halt to it and the old trees were saved and are still there. Interesting but I forgot my camera so all the pictures I got were of after the hike.

After that hike, we just traveled a couple more hours and stopped at a nice campground in McBride, BC named the Beaverview RV Park. We didn’t view any beavers, either kind. Damn.

The next morning, I had the opportunity to wander around and get some pictures. We were near a small lake with a mirror surface with wispy fog kissing it.

After a three hour drive, we arrive in Prince George. Ready to find a shop to work on my tranni leak, and a tire store to try to find a good used tire or two to take with me on the nearly 1,000 miles that are left on the trip before we would get to the states. Costs in Canada for things like tires are prohibitive.

We got to Prince George today in the early afternoon and stopped here because it’s a brew pub Dan wanted to visit. Had an early dinner, (late lunch?), while I borrowed the phone book and looked up tire stores and RV repair places. Called several places and got some quotes and recommendations so I could get the tranni fluid leak (remember that?) fixed and maybe find a used tire to take with me since all four of the rear tires were the same age as the one that blew. We found the visitors center and Dan loaded up on maps and books about local trails and provincial parks he wanted to hike. Later we found a nice RV park off the freeway a few miles from town and settled in. The next day would be one of running around and getting things fixed.

Next morning, we head off down the road, south, into the vast stretches of mid-central British Columbia, Canada. On highway 37. Heading for Prince George.  Vast areas of treed mountains & valleys dotted with the occasional lake. Very few homes spotted along the way, in fact, didn’t see hardly any roads other then the one we were on nearly all day. In the early afternoon we came upon this road construction. There was 30-40 kilometers of ripped up road that was just graveled. At least they’d already graded the surface most of the way so it was somewhat smooth. Near the end, going no more then 30MPH, there was a huge bump followed by a dip that crossed the road. My RV went UP, then DOWN. Felt like a roller coaster ride. Lots of compression. Which is what I believe caused my tire to blow out a few hundred miles later.

This stretch was typical of the entire roadway in the construction zone. The road that wasn’t ripped up was in pretty bad shape so the work was certainly needed, it’s just I could have done without the bumpy ride. Our slow speed wasn’t a problem since I had no schedule and my brother had two weeks of vacation with more then a week left of it.

You might notice that this area has lots of pine trees, but they’re not the size I’m use to in the Pacific Northwest. Stunted like.

Dease Lake turned out to be 25 miles long. Not very wide though, a few miles at best. The rest of the day was uneventful. I don’t remember where we stayed that night and I don’t have a picture of my RV set up in a campground for the evening of the 5th. This area of BC is lightly populated and RV parks are few and far between but we must have found someplace to stay since I don’t remember boondocking it. Sometimes we could go for an hour without seeing a building, road, or another car for that matter.

The next morning we continued on south on highway 37 to Kitwanga and then east on highway 16. There were many small towns along this stretch of highway and we stopped occasionally to sample the local brews or do some tourist shopping. One time we passed some road construction in a small town, their equipment was making lots of noise and Dan makes a wise crack about how I should pull over and fix my flat. Sure enough, 25 miles later, I get a flat. He jinked me. I got the flat (blow out) on a two lane highway without shoulders so I backed the RV up to a farmers property and pulled in off the road. Went and talked to the farmer and got his permission to park there while we got the flat fixed.

Turned out that the farmers son was getting married and several people were working on doing some fill work around the trailer pad shown above, which was to be their new home after the wedding. The kid was there with his fiance. Pretty cute the way they hung onto each other the whole time they were zipping around in a big farm loader scooping up gravel and dirt and filling in holes.

After 3 hours, the ERS (emergency road service) truck showed up and the guy put my spare on in short order and off we went. Cost us 4 hours overall and it was getting late so we stopped at a bar in a small town around 5:30 and had dinner. After dark we headed over to the local city park and set up for the night without services. I believe we were in Telkwa that night.

This part of the journey could be called a little boring and lonely as there was practically nothing other then the occasional tumbled down ancient business along the road. There was hardly any traffic. The day was gloomy and overcast but it was warm enough and scenic enough to make it a little interesting.

After driving 7-8 hours, I was in no mood to keep at it and when I saw this RV park along the road, even tho it was 4:30 in the afternoon, I pulled in and paid the fee for the night. The guy that took my money was Chinese and didn’t understand a word of English other then the amount of money he wanted. Every question I asked was answered with a yes, when I came back to complain of the outright lies he told me, like he said, “Yes” when I asked if they had 30 amp electric, he had (or pretended to have) no idea what I was talking about. They had nothing at the RV sites, no electric, no water, no sewer, and they certainly didn’t have Wi-Fi like he told me. They did have a dump station, but also a water source with a sign put up by the provincial government that said the water was undrinkable. The owner hires these people from China, they don’t speak English, then uses them as virtual slaves to run his business out here in the boondocks. Or so I surmised. It looked like there were 3 Chinese immigrants working here. Not that there’s anything wrong with all this, it’s just that the owner could have a printed sheet to pass out to campers telling them what’s up. The owner is a douche.

But the asking price was low, I didn’t want to drive any further, the lake was beautiful, so we stayed. There were several nicely remodeled cabins there, and a very nice bathroom with showers. One problem was they only started the generator (genset) for electricity in the shower room or cabins in the evening or the morning on request, since it was late in a very slow season. That’s all they had for electricity at this large campground, a big diesel generator, which was kind of noisy. None of the cabins were occupied and only 3 of the RV spaces had vehicles in them. They did fire it up for themselves to watch TV after it got dark. Dan went over for a shower while it was still light out so they didn’t have to fire up the genset just for him.

Although we didn’t have any services, it was a pleasant stay here. The owners have spent allot of money on rebuilding here, hope they have enough in the old bank account to hang on and weather this economic storm. I know up in Fairbanks, our RV traffic was down 40%. Can’t imagine these people doing better then us considering how far from any major town and how far off the beaten path they are.

We had arrived in Whitehorse in the dark the night before, found a provincial park and parked the rig for the night, without services. Next morning I find that the refer isn’t working. I remembered passing a RV repair shop the night before so off we went to get it fixed. But first I ran some tests and discovered that the burner had propane, it just wasn’t lighting. I could bypass the control board and get it to light but it wouldn’t stay lit. At the shop I told the tech what my tests had shown and he had the control board replaced in 45 minutes.

Then we headed into Whitehorse, and we wandered around town visiting bars and pubs trying to find one that had satellite TV and a comfortable place to watch the University of Oregon Ducks football game. Oh, and would turn on the game for us. After finding one, off we went to explore.

There is a very swift river that runs through town that forced a paddle wheel boat builder to invent a very low draft boat that was an innovation of its day.

We did visit a small museum in downtown but there wasn’t much there so we didn’t stay long or take any pictures. The town of Whitehorse does have a colorful history, we just didn’t run into anything about it.

After the game, since it was late, we spent another night at the local provincial park and got back on the road the next morning.

The next morning, in Skagway, we get up to coolish weather. After a shower for Dan and breakfast, we button up the RV and head into town.

Turned out this RV park is nice and big with lots of scenery. I could be happy staying here for weeks while wandering Skagway. It’s just all the cruise ship tourists that make that seem uncool. I know, I’m a tourist too. But, unlike them, if I find a place I like, I can stay there for months and get to know people if I want. If I do come back here to stay a spell, I’ll get here either early or late in the tourist season.

Our ferry parked at that same dock the night before. Shows you how close the RV park is to the ferry landing. Very handy when you’re tired and just want to go to bed without having to drive a big RV through a little town late at night looking for an RV park.

We left the park around 10AM and found a nice large parking lot right on the edge of town big enough for the RV and just a mile from the park. Very handy. We wandered over to the train station, which was right across the street,  and bought our tickets for the train ride later that afternoon.

Meanwhile, we walked the streets of old Skagway. This place is unique in that the US Forest Service owns many of the old buildings and restores them. It’s a giant historical town. Nearly every building has a business in it and they pay rent to the US government. We did wander into a ‘going out of business sale’ so they don’t always do well.

The original builders of the town did it right. Notice how wide the streets are.

The old building with the red roof below was being worked on by a Forest Service guy who filled us in on the kind of work he did as a carpenter. He was always busy here in Skagway, but this was his biggest project. He was restoring that old building so they could rent it out. He had the entire floor ripped out and lots of bracing holding the structure up. We talked to him for a half hour and got a good look at how they worked at getting some old buildings in town up to tourist standards. This building is a block off of the town center.

Note that this town still exists because of the tourists that come here by the 10’s of thousands in the summer. The population of the town is only 3500 during the cold and wet winter. All the workers we saw, with some exceptions, were young kids that come here for the summer and leave after the seasons over. We ran into one gal, probably 28 or so, who lives here all year. Interesting to talk to her and get her perspective on the town during the off season.

Later in the afternoon, it was time to board the train. This train was constructed during the gold rush to take advantage of all the miners traveling up the Chilkoot trail a hundred years ago. Cost was around $120 per person for us in 2009 and there were several cars so they are doing quite well.

After we arrived back in town, we got back on the road heading east into the mountains. Just a couple miles out of town we notice a brew pub along side the road. While on the train an hour before, Dan had been grousing about not having found some of the brew pubs that should have been there or he expected in Skagway. I saw an old mill across the river and pointed it out to him telling him it was a brew pub. Sure enough, as we passed that building, we found that it WAS a brew pub. Hah!

After having a brew, we head east and onto one of the steepest grades anywhere. It was suppose to be 11% and I worried that my old RV might blow a tranni or worse up on a steep hill. But we made it safely without problems except when the terrain flattened out and we stopped for a break, and to add antifreeze, I found tranni fluid leaking from one of the tranni cooler hoses. I had some spare tranni fluid to top off the reservoir so we continued on. A couple days, and several bottles of tranni fluid later, we found a shop in Prince George that replaced the bad hose for me.

We were headed for Whitehorse, British Columbia and after that steep grade, the road was relatively flat with lots of scenery.

Dan convinced me to drive all the way to Whitehorse that day (two hour drive from Skagway), and we did, with no daylight left when we arrived. We roamed around for a bit looking for a bar where we could watch the Ducks game the next day but darkness cut that short and we decided to settle. Dan had selected a place to spend the night previously…at a provincial park…but since he’s a novice at this camping in an RV thing, he selected a campground, not an RV park so we settled in without electric and had no heat. I could have fired up the propane furnace but didn’t want to in such moderately mild temperatures. And the thick blankets I have helped with that. The next day we were going to be looking for a place to watch the Univ. of Oregon Ducks football game so after dinner and an hour or two of reading, it was off to sleep.

The next morning, we awoke in Haines, AK. The weather was cooperating and although a bit chilly, it wasn’t raining. I’d read about Haines and had friends tell me about the town several times so I was excited about being there and woke up at 7:15am. A little earlier then my normal 8:30-9:00.

I’d planned on 3 days and 2 nights here in Haines while I waited for Dan to backpack the Chilkoot trail. He later canceled that trip so when we got to Haines, we had new plans which required we get on the ferry a couple days early. I’d already booked and paid for the ferry trip to Skagway. Changing our ticket took a little trip around 5 miles out of town to the ferry terminal and a visit to the ticket office. Not a problem and in 10 minutes we had changed our departure time and paid for it. Can’t remember how much it cost…$18 or so for the change? But even then, what with the 40% decrease in tourist traffic, we had no problem rescheduling our departure to that evening. Then we headed back to town to check out the bars and brew pubs. One of Dan’s favorite things to do.

After we wandered around town, visited the museum, found a brew pub and bought a growler of beer, hung out in three different bars while Dan sampled the local beers, we drove back to the ferry dock and staged. There were a few RV’s there but traffic was a little light. Downturn in the economy and all.

I did have to drive so I couldn’t get allot of pictures as we boarded.

After leaving the ferry, we just went a couple miles and drove into an RV park that is right close to the docks. Hooked up and turned on the electric heaters right away. It was close to 45°F there. Not too bad but a little chilly. Next, we explore Skagway and take a train trip.