To Prince George and onto Dawson Creek

We left our lovely spot in Clearwater and continued our travels to Prince George, which is about a 5 hour drive. It was overcast the whole day but still beautiful. There are so many lakes around every corner and trees, trees, trees. Clearwater is near Wells Grey Provincial Park, in the wilderness of the Caribou Mountains which has a number of waterfalls as well as great place to hike. Another time perhaps. Mount Robson, the tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies, was one of the awesome mountains we passed by.

                                                             

  We stopped at several rest stops on the way to stretch, walk Savannah and have a bite to eat. Even the rest stops were scenic.

        We finally got to Prince George

         We picked a campground called Bee Lazer RV Park and Campground, which is 9 miles south off Prince George on the 97 which is what we will be heading north on to Dawson Creek and byond for awhile. the campground is nice for a commercial park. Closer sites than we usually care for but lots of trees and a nice walking path. We also did some laundry while here.

                                                                      It is really starting to stay light later in the evening. It was still not fully dark at 10:30 when I hit the sack.    It will be an experience to have almost 24 hour day light soon.
Our next stop is Dawson Creek and we will spend a few days there. Rain continues and is suppose to be around for the rest of the week at least. Oh well, we got our sunny 2 weeks in Avila and I guess the rain gods felt that was enough.        Oh, we got to watch the Kings/Devils Stanley Cup game. WOW, the Kings are really doing it. Sweep, sweep. Go Kings, win that 4th game and the Cup!!!!!!!!!                                                                                                               

We Head North to Clearwater and a Great Spot

Sunday morning we drove packed up and headed north on the 97 The first part of this leg of our journey was through wine country up to Kelowna. There are suppose to be around 120 wineries in this area but it seems like a lot more. Grapes filled the hills everywhere and we kept seeing signs for wineries and wine trails. We also passed a bicycle race and there were a lot of riders. Joe really had to be extra careful sharing the road with so many bikers so close on our side. We were glad to finally pass them all

We drove through Kelowna and a number of small towns and then on through Kamloops and then onto Clearwater. We found another beautiful park, North Thompson Lake Provincial Park, set in a lovely forest setting. It was late Sunday and there was hardly anyone there and so we picked a great spot right above the river. When we talked to the ranger, she said even the weekend wasn't that busy as they don't start to get real busy until the third week of June when the kids are out of school. Lucky for us.

View from our site

             We took a walk around the park and down a trail to the river, which was flowing pretty fast. We felt a few rain drops and after we got back, we got some full on rain.

        We have certainly been picking campgrounds with the it factor lately. This was another spot we could spend more time in. However, we will be packing up in the morning again and making our way further north. Our next destination is Prince George.                                                                                                                 

Made it into British Columbia, eh

All the blogs I have read talk about how easy it is to cross the border and that has been our experience the last six times we went to Canada, both by flying, ferry and in our rv. The Osoyoos border was a different experience. They asked us a number of questions and then had us pull over and go into the office where they asked us many more and did a search of our rv and car. Not sure what the deal was as we didn't have guns or drugs and only one bottle of wine and a few pieces of fruit. They seem to be pulling almost everyone including a couple with two kids and a few single women and a number of truckers. Guess we won't use this border crossing again. Their search was short and they didn't even open the slides or search the basement. They didn't even take the fruit. Anyway, we made it through and were on our way. It was getting late in the day and Friday and so we decided to try a campground right in Osoyoos, Nk'Mip Campground, which was a great find. We have a site right on the water. There are a number of permanent residents and many of them have nice decks built on their sites.

Back of our motorhome about 5 feet from the tree

View from our site

On Saturday we went into town to a Farmers Market. However, it is too early for the local produce and so there was mostly just crafts and homemade salsas and that type of thing.

                 

       It is a nice little town  in wine country. With more than 120 wineries, the Thompson Okanagan is British Columbia's oldest, largest, and most popular wine-producing region.   We went to the Nk'Mip winery, which is part of the complex that includes the campground we are at as well a 9 hole golf course and resort and spa. We tasted a number of wines including a delicious ice wine which Canada is well known for, but we ended up buying a dry Riesling, which was also very good.

We headed back to our site to enjoy the afternoon, doing a little reading on our kindles. We could stay here longer but are heading up the road on Sunday. We want to get up to Dawson Creek, which is the kick off point for the drive to Alaska on the Alaska Highway, this week.

Hard day playing in the lake

                                                                                   

Long Days Journey to Washington

We had another enjoyable week at Avila. We only had two overcast, cloudy and cool days out of our two week stay. The rest of the time was wonderful sunny weather. Very unusual for us former So Cal people use to what we call June Gloom where the sun doesn't come out until 4 or 5 o'clock most spring days. We mostly just took it easy. We paddled a few times. One evening our neighbor Scott brought over some excellent wine to taste. We got some things done for our trip up north such as changing our Verizon plan to include Canada and taking Savannah in to get a health certificate in case we get asked at the border.
Tuesday, after memorial day we finally started our trip north and what a start. We drove all the way from Avila to Medford. Oregon in one day!!! We haven't done that since our vacations taken when we only had two weeks time off. Joe just was feeling fine and just kept driving. After spending two weeks in one place we just wanted to make up some time. We drove until around 9 and then headed up staying at a rest stop. The next day we drove through Oregon and to Olympia Washington.

                                                     





We stayed at a commercial campground called American Heritage Campground which we had read about in Mike and Terri Church's book, Pacific Northwest Camping Destinations. They had mentioned it was more like a state park than a commercial campground and they were right It is a beautiful campground with Japanese maple trees and other gorgeous flowering trees at the front entrance and the sites sitting in a forest like setting with 60 foot tall Douglas fir trees all around

  We have been to Oregon and Washington a number of times and just love the beauty of the area Of course there is a reason for all the greenery. Lots of rain In fact, it rained all night we were in Olympia. We did some laundry while there and stocked up on some food as it is so much more expensive in Canada. We also bought a new camera. We got a Nikon Coolpix P510 which has a bunch of cool features. Some of the reasons we liked it is that it is smaller than our current Nikon camera but also has a 42x telephoto zoom lens built in. That will be great for closeups of the wildlife we expect to see in Alaska.  
We loved the campground and only spent one night there but it is definitely a place we will return to. Washington is so beautiful and we would love to spend a month here exploring some time. We made our way north east heading to Wenatchee.

We had about a four hour drive and arrived at the Wenatchee River County Park in the late afternoon. Another great park set right on the Wenatchee River in Monitor, which is right next to the city of Wenatchee. The weather was nice and we sat outside trying to figure out what our next stop will be when we cross the Canadian border tomorrow.It should be about four hours drive. We plan to make our drives shorter from now on. No hurrying now though Alaska is calling