Connie had a great time with daughter Leslie and grand-daughters Kaylee and Khloe at their "tea-party". We attended another soccer game with Khloe then spent our last day in the Seattle area making some final purchases for our Alaska trip.
We left the Seattle area on May 12th and headed North to Arlington, WA. Using the Casino Camper website, we stayed a couple nights at the Angel of the Wind casino. We met up with friends Bob and Joyce Childre, who will be traveling with us for the next few months. They made the Alaska RV trip 5 years ago and jumped on the chance to go again. Although electric RV sites were available at the casino for $15, we decided to dry-camp for free. Unfortunately, it seemed our batteries weren't doing as well as they should. To play it safe before the big trip, we decided to "bite the bullet" and replace the 6 house batteries in the motor home. The old batteries were about 7 years old. $1100 later, we now have new batteries and are set to dry-camp without issues (or use the generator much). One of the reasons we stopped near Arlington, WA was to visit Larry's sister and her family. We had a great dinner and visit with Wendy, Kenny, Matthew, Christopher and their families.
Our next stop was at a hidden city campground (Riverfront Park) in Sedro Woolley, WA on the Sagkit river. A RV site with water and electric was $15 a night. I took some time to play with the Drone and make a short video of the campground. We also made a trip to a local casino and exchanged some US dollars to Canadian dollars. Whew! We got lucky, as the exchange rate is the best it's been in over 4 years. $1.20 Canadian for $1.00 U.S.
First thing Saturday morning (May 16th), we headed North again to the Sumas, WA border crossing. We had heard from friends that there was a ban on all raw poultry products crossing the border. We verified this, so we decided to "cook" all of our chicken and hard-boil the eggs. Our border crossing was as smooth as silk. No line and the only questions asked were about weapons, ammunition, and where we were headed. No problems this time! Let's hope the other 3 border crossings we have are as smooth.
After the border crossing, we drove about 160 miles and spent the night at a quiet rest area. We stopped for fuel in the town of "100 Mile House". Again, we are getting lucky for traveling this year to Alaska. Diesel fuel was only $3.55 a gallon in US Dollars. Not the $5+ a gallon we were told to expect in Canada. We hope it stays like this the rest of the trip!
The next day (May 17th) was fairly short, driving about 120 miles to Williams Lake. This weekend happened to be a Canadian 3-day holiday weekend (Victoria Day), so some of the campgrounds we hoped to stay at were full. We spent the night at the Williams Lake Discovery Center (52.12281, -122.0926). It was a pretty quiet stay. The next day, we looked at a couple alternative locations, but had problems finding another location and decided to move up the road some more.
Another short drive of 82 miles brought us to the town of Quesnel, British Columbia. We drove a little further out of town and spent May 18th and 19th at the 10 Mile Lake Provincial Park (53.0708, -122.4419). Since the long-weekend holiday was over, the campground was nearly empty. For C$18 a night, we got a beautiful camping site (no hook-ups). While our goal is to try and keep camping costs low, we wanted a place to relax and explore for a couple days. Again, the holiday had forced us to here. With the current exchange rate, camping here was actually US$14.75 a night.
While staying at 10 Mile Lake, not only did we relax (the weather has been great), we spent a day visiting the historic Barkersville. This old gold mining town from the mid 1800's has been kept in great condition and reconstructed. There's "actors" in period costumes running the town. On our drive to Barkersville, we saw our first bear of the trip. While not a Grizzly, we had to take a photo of this Black Bear along the road. Besides wanting to see a Grizz in the wild, Connie and I have never seen a moose in the wild. After a day at Barkersville, Connie spotted a moose outside of our campground. Although only a cow, we've finally seen a moose in the wild!
Barkersville was real interesting. We could have spent two days exploring the old equipment and restored buildings. Although the weather has been sunny and warm at the campground, it was cold, windy, and raining in Barkersville. But this just added some realism to the town main street.