Kamloops, BC to Othello Washington, USA, Aug 29, 2009

We made it through the night by running our coach AC while the generator was on to cool everything down. We did not have it run through the night but it did get cool enough, low 70's, to sleep. We left Saturday morning to head for the good ol' USA!

I am sorry but you will have to put up with me and the fact that I love old buildings, especially those with "character". This is a little old log home just south of Kamloops. It is abandoned, sadly. I always wonder what stories these buildings would tell, if they could talk.

This is a looong old barn with some old tractors out front. I think this one is still in use. Look at the shingles. Cool, eh?

This is a scene on Rt 97 south of Kamloops. I thought it was near Monte but I may be wrong.

This is another old barn and attached buildings. I love the old wood on these buildings!

This is an old church. I am sorry about the insect blobs on some of these photos but they were very thick and unavoidable! Naturally I had to take these photos through the window as we whizzed by. Or maybe it was raindrops??? I think it was insects.

This is a side window shot and therefore the reflection! :-) This is another grand old house... or barn?

This is a Falkland Town Street Scene.

Lake View Coming south into Vernon.

More views of the lake.

Kelowna Sign

Biking & Floating on the river near Kelwona.

Lake & Cliffs near Oknagan Falls.

Vineyards south of Okanagan Falls.

Migrant Workers houses near Osoyos.

Chief Joseph's Dam, Washington, USA

Abandoned Ranch south of St Joseph's Dam on Rt 17.

Soap Lake Ephrata, Washington

This sign about Dry Falls says that it was the world's largest fall for it's time. It is now a dry waterfall.

This shows what it probably looked like.

This is another sign explaining this waterfall.

This is what it looks like today.

Here is the motorhome & Jeep in the parking lot of Dry Falls.

This is another view of Soap Lake from the south.

...and another!

and another.... pretty rugged!

and the last view of Soap Lake.

This is a rock wall near Soap Lake. It almost looks like a cave on the left.

Prince George to Kamloops, August 28, 2009

We are still in Canada, changing routes from Rt 16, "The Yellowhead Highway", to Rt 97, the "West Access Route to the Alaska Highway". We now head south to Cache Creek on Rt 16 and then east to Kamloops on Rt 97.

It is nice to see large farms with hay and other crops. It is also nice to see electrical poles. We are in civilization! (Compared to rugged Canada & Alaska!)

As you can see, I love old barns! This one is near Hixon, BC.

The town of Quesnel had flowers growing everywhere! We loved it! This is their railroad station. Note that it is a two story RR station.

This is Williams Lake, near the town of Williams Lake.

This Bucking Bronco statue is famous for Williams Lake. People around here have lots of rodeos or "Stampedes", as they call them.

This is a high elevation pond, south of Williams Lake.

These barns are really old, just south of Williams Lake on Rt 97. (Don't you love them!)

This is a pretty lake called Lac La Hache.

This really old log barn is on Lac La Hache.

There are several towns on this road with the number and mile and house in the name. This is unusual, to me. Coming south out of the town of 100 mile house is a 7%, 3 mile hill. It was the first really warm day in weeks. We overheated going up the grade, turned around and went back to a truck repair place and had the mud pressure-washed out of our radiator. After that, the RV ran cool all the way up the long grade, no problem. Great combination - Freightliner chasis/Caterpillar engine/Allison transmission!

This is a brief, "fly-by view" of the town of Clinton, B.C.. It seemed quaint!

Scenic road south of Clinton.

Scenic church north of Cache Creek in an Indian town.

This was interesting. There are several of these dried up ponds, some all white, some with white in the middle and red on the outer ring. This one has lots of red on the outside edge. We need to find out what makes these colors. Any ideas?

In Cache Creek, Rt 97 does a 90 degree turn from south to east bound. (Check your map!) :-)

This is Savona Lake, west of Cache Creek.

Look how the terrain changes so much! It becomes very hilly and desert-like. Notice the scale by looking at the white dot, in the middle of the picture, that is an RV.

We made it to Kamloops, now to find the Walmart! This town is built on the sides of hills and there are no straight roads here. This made finding Walmart difficult, but we finally got there. By now the summer heat is catching up with us! The weather went from 56 degrees in Ketchikan last week to the high 80's here. And to boot, our dash air-conditioner doesn't work well.

Hyder to Prince George, August 27, 2009

Thursday, August 27, we left Meziadin Provincial Campground & headed back south on Rt 37, the Carssiar Highway to join Rt 16, the Yellowhead highway to Prince George, BC.

Our neighbor's boy, about age 8-9, went into the lake on this cold 56 degree morning before 11 am. He made me cold just looking at him! He was a brave little guy. It was summer and he was going to enjoy it.

This is Seven Sisters Mountain in the background.

This is anoher view of those seven peaks. The highest one is 9,140 ft.

Once we were back on the Yellowhead Highway heading east, the first major town we came to was New Hazelton. The Visitor's Center there had a free RV Dump Site which we used. These statues at the Visitor's Center, represented the three major economic influences in the town. This one is the Lumberjack. Logging & Timber Manufacture is their biggest employer here.

This is the miner. The Skeena & Bulkley Rivers join here and the town provided a place for the wintering of miners. Many goldrushers traveled through here in the 1870-1880's.

This statue represents a fur trapper. The Hudson's Bay Company established a post here in 1868.

This is a distant shot of Hudson Bay Mountain, north of Smithers, BC.

This is a closeup of the same mountain with it's glacier.

This statue of a pack horse was unnamed. Someone must have erected it to honor all those horses who helped the miners & trappers with their goods.

We had seen all kinds of road construction signs but this was a new one for us. He came at us in the middle of the road, as you can see and wanted us to stop, which we did.

There were lots of old barns in this area of Canada and I wanted to capture a few. This one is pretty neat!

This is a hotel in Burns Lake, about halfway to Prince George, B.C..

This is a Cairn, called the Tintagel Cairn. (Look it up in Google!) It has a stone, the large, square-ish green one, in the middle bottom, which was once part of the Norman walls of Tintagel Castle, where King Arthur supposedly was born. Interesting...why here???

This is Fraser Lake Sawmill. This is only a little bit of the wood they had piled up. They really had lots of lumber!

We made it to Prince George & another Walmart for the night! :-)