A Return to a Favorite Spot, Muncho Lake

We have stayed at several new campgrounds this trip. However, we have been looking forward to returning to Muncho Lake. There are two campgrounds at this Provincial Park, Strawberry Flats and McDonalds. Both are right off the Alaskan Hwy and right on the water. We thought about staying at McDonalds since we hadn't been there before but it was late in the afternoon and Strawberry Flats is the first one we come to and we wanted to make sure we got a spot. There are 15 sites with most on the water. They were all taken but we got one in the back row at the end near the loop where you can turn around. It still had pretty good views of the water. Besides, we noticed the people in the spot across from us on the water were leaving the next day, which they did. They left early in the morning and we quickly pulled in the slides and moved to that spot. It also is right on the water and we have an unobstructed view of the water. No hookups here and we pulled forward to get maximum coverage of the beautiful jade colored water and the lovely mountains across the way. The header picture I just added is one I took right from our campsite with a little painting effect that is an option on my camera.

This was our first night's spot

Our motor home is just a few feet from this spot

Last time we stayed here it was for about a week. We hadn't planned to stay that long but the ranger came by after a few days and said hoped we liked the spot as we were going to be there for another 4 or 5 days. The road ahead had washed out and they needed to repair it. We loved our spot and so were quite happy to spend more time here. The weather has been cool to cold and windy, which it seems it has been for the last little while with some rain as well. Our last day here turned out to be the only day we were really able to spend sitting outside. However, as I have said before, if you have to stay inside, the views ain't bad.

Savannah likes the view from the front window

We took several drives, including checking out McDonald;s, which is very nice and might be in the cards for a future Canada trip. We also went back south a little to have lunch at Toad River Lodge.
There is an interesting story on how it got it's name. Back in 142 when the Alaska Hwy was being built, there was a problem crossing the river as the bridge hadn't been built yet. Therefore, everyone had to be towed across. The owner of the establishment there named their lodge Towed River Lodge and somehow it became Toad River. The little cafe had pretty good food. It's claim to fame, though, is the thousands of hats on the walls. We had wished we brought one of our Anaheim Ducks Stanley Cup Winners Hat to add to the collection. Next time. We actually met a Chicago Blackhawks fan while we were there. We talked a little hockey, both of us agreeing that whoever won that series would go on to win the Cup, which as I am writing this a week or so later, it did come to pass that the Blackhawks won. The western teams have sure be dominate in the Finals the last 10 years, winning the majority of the games.

We enjoyed our 4 day stay at Muncho, but time to head further north. Well, actually not to far north. We drove only about an hour up the road to stay at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. We had driven up to soak in the hot springs our last trip, but thought it would be fun to stay at the park. This way we got in a couple of soaks.

The campground is very nice. Our site is close to the path to walk to the Hot Springs. There is a 5 dollar charge per person for the Hot Springs but is waived if you are staying at the campground. As the campground fees at the BC Provincial Parks are low to begin with, it is a good deal. To get to the Hot Springs, you walk on a boardwalk through warm water swamp and a lush boreal forest.

The Pools are the second hottest Springs in Canada and the temperatures range from around 107 to 125 degrees. There are 8 pools but only one for visitors to soak in. I had hurt my back stupidly lifting a heavy chair in the MH to pull an area rug from under it. I could hardly move without pain for a little while. I think the hot water helped heal my back sooner. The hot water felt so gooood!!!

We went in when we first got there and then later in the early evening. There are suppose to be a lot of moose around here but alas we didn't see any.

We just had an one night stay. We are headed for Skagway, Alaska with another one night stop on the way there.

A Couple of Spots in the Trees and a Bridge in Canada

We left our first Canadian stop and drove up to Edmonton. We stayed at a commercial campground which was just okay. We got there late in the day and left the next morning. Our next stop on the 4th of June was Kiskatinaw Provincial Park just north of Dawson Creek. Dawson Creek is the start of the Alaskan Highway. We had stopped there on our last trip up here and so didn't stop again. The campground sites are well separated by spruce and poplar trees and some are on the river. The first picture was of a truck that had overturned on the road in. Someone was checking to see if anyone was still in it. Fortunately, we found out later, the driver was okay and someone was on the way to get it off the road.

All the riverside spots were taken. We first picked a large site and had pulled in when the ranger came over and said someone had just asked him to save the spot in this first come first serve campground as they would be back shortly. He said he would call them to see if they wanted a different spot but we said that wasn't necessary. We found another spot that was actually a double spot but no one else took the other spot and so it turned out okay. We could just get a peak of the water and there was a small path where we could walk down to the water's edge. We could see a peak of the Kiskatinaw Bridge which is the only original wood bridge still in use. Travelers often take a detour to drive across the bridge on their way north.

Bridge just below the tree tops

We took a drive in the Jeep to take some more pictures of the bridge.

Below is a picture of us in the motorhome as we crossed the wood bridge on our way out.

We had a long day's journey to our next stop with lots of beautiful scenery.

We made a stop  in Fort Nelson to do a little shopping. Joe was in the zone driving and so we continued on with an audio book to listen to helping out. We arrived at Tesla River Campground Regional Park in late afternoon. It was a former provincial park with nice sized spots again with lots of trees separating the sites.

We took another nice walk along another pretty river.

This was another one night stay. Another summer we would like to just do a Canadian trip up this way to stay longer at some of the great little spots we have been finding up here. Our next stop is one of our very  favorite campgrounds. Maybe number one or at least in the top 5. Below are a few pictures on the way to Muncho Lake. More on that in the next post.

This Stone Sheep was the first wildlife we have seen as we get close to Muncho Lake.

Just a note, I am just catching up on a couple of weeks of posts. We are now in the Fairbanks area and finally have good internet so I can blog. So many places advertise they have wi fi and then either say it's not working or only can be used in the office or for a short time use only. We don't remember this from the time we were here before. Oh well, it is nice not to know what crazy things are going on in the world for a little while. We have been watching the second season of House of Cards. Love this series.

Writing-On-Stone PP, our first stop in Canada

We left Wyoming with an one night stay in Montana at Dick's RV Park a commercial park in Great Falls.

WE had an easy border crossing with 20 questions but mostly about guns, or any gun related products. Gracie, our GPS guided us to our next stop through some unpaved roads. We later had to check the settings and checked unpaved roads to be avoided. Joe had unchecked it when we were doing some off roading and forgot to recheck it. It wasn't a bad drive but we were a little nervous not knowing if the roads would get back. Writing-On-Stone Providential Park, in Aden, Alberta, is a very nice park in a really interesting area.  It is in the largest area of protected prairie in the Alberta park system. On the Milk River, there are many aboriginal rock cravings and paintings that are also protected. We got a nice spot in the campground with no one around us.

The day we got there it was actually on the warm side. We drove over to a trail head to check out the hoodoos and other rock formations. They don't have the coloring of the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon but are still pretty impressive.

The trail leads to some petroglyths of a Battle Scene that are protected by a fence. They have faded so much you can hardly see anything and we couldn't even get any good pictures even by enlarging them on the computer. Below shows what it looked like at one time.

Anyway, it was a nice walk in an interesting area.

It was a little hot and Savannah was happy to find a little shade to rest.  We would have liked to take the Hoodoo Trial on Tuesday but it rained all day. Yes, more rain. Yikes!! We did drive into the nearest town, Milk River, to change some US dollars into Canadian money. We needed to do this anyway but especially as we had a credit card issue. WE had gone to the visitor center to get wi fi to check email. We found that we had several charges on one of our cards that weren't ours. In fact, they were in the Los Angeles area and just went through the day we got to Canada. We had just used it for our camp fees and wondered if there was a connection. However the person Joe talked to when canceling the card, said it was probably due to the Home Depot situation from last year where a bunch of credit card numbers were stolen. They were just starting to see the numbers being used illegally. Oh joy. Well, instead of our back road travels, credit card problem and more rain we still liked our first stop on our adventure to Canada and Alaska. We are now at a  campground for an one night stay in Edmonton after a day that included more rain and then will have another long day drive to the Dawson Creek area in BC. No rain here in Edmonton and hope that continues for awhile on our drives and stays as we head north. Stay tuned.