Home again )-:

OK, it's been a few days so I guess I should finish off the 2010 summer trip with the final post. 

We spent Thursday in Chetwynd again, basically as a carbon copy of Wednesday.  Tom & TJ headed for work, the girls went to the pool in the afternoon, and I headed out to find another trout stream. 

On Tom's advice I found a nice little spot out the Tumbler Ridge road and spent a nice quiet afternoon.  I hooked one trout and had a few other nibbles, found an artifact on the shore (looked like an ancient golf ball), and got to see a little black bear terrorize some picnickers. 

Friday we bid farewell to the Stewarts and headed down the road.  Enroute we decided to take Highway 40 (through Grande Cache) rather than the direct route, so Friday night found us at the campground at Musreau Lake.  After a nice big birthday breakfast for Wendy on Saturday, we finished the trip home. 

All in all I thought it was a great holiday, and of course it was WAY too short. 

'til next time, Happy Trails!

Chetwynd

Another relaxing day, for the most part. Tom headed off to work again and the rest of the gang went off to the swimming pool again in the afternoon, so I snuck off down the road to practice my fly fishing skills. I did manage to land three and get a bunch of nibbles (once I figured out where they were), plus there were virtually no bugs and it was cool and quiet at the river so I had a great afternoon. I finally managed a couple pics for those doubters in the crowd. The one out of water was the first and smallest, the other two were about twice the size (10-11") - but I had a time reviving the little guy so I didn't take the other two out of the water. The area I was in was catch-and-release. BTW I think these are either brook or brown trout but I didn't look close enough to ID positively.

Chetwynd, city of chainsaw carvings

After a relaxing morning we packed up and headed the last couple hours up the road to Chetwynd to Tom, Karen, and TJ's house. Breanna and Samantha are visiting as well, so the house is full. Turns out they passed us yesterday on the road; they recognized us but we didn't them. In my defense, imagine how many vehicles pass us in the course of a day's drive at 90-95 kmh.


Christina arrived in late aftertnoon, so Nana and Papa are off babysitting duty.

To make up for my lack of pictures in the last couple posts here are some of the great chainsaw carvings on display throughout the town. You can find out more about all that by googling so I won't get into it here.

Google map

Whiskers Point Campground

Monday we bid Fraser Lake adieu and headed north for Chetwynd. In keeping with our leisurely travel mode we split the 7 hour trip into two days, stopping off at Whiskers Point provincial park for the night. Fuzzy enjoyed the beach once again and managed to propel her bike around the campground loop under almost all her own power, which is a milestone.


I dunno what's happening with the pictures these days - have to try to do better.

Google map

More fishin'

Sunday Kelly and Chris came out to Fraser Lake, and we went out and caught another 10 rainbows for good measure. Other than that it was just a relaxing day. Sorry no pics today.

Trout fishin'

Friday night Kathy, Jack and I went out in the little boat for a couple hours and caught four rainbow trout for Saturday dinner.  Saturday Jack, Kathy, Wendy, Fuzzy, and I loaded up and went out in his big boat for a few hours fishing.  We were fortunate to limit out in about 3 hours with 12 - 14" rainbows.  Everyone had a great day and we bbq'd up a mess of fish for the birthday (Jack and I) supper. 

Pics of all having fun, except Jack and Kathy were doing their best trying to be non photogenic...

Back to Fraser Lake

No pictures; this was just a day to pack up fast and make the run back to Fraser Lake. Like I said, the weekend crowd had begun to arrive Thursday, so Thursday night we had enough kids, bikes, motorcycles, family discussions, dogs, kids, loud music, kids, etc. to last us the whole weekend. We were on the road by 9:30 and after a leisurely day's drive (90 - 95 km/hr is fast enough) we were back in Fraser Lake around 3:30 PM.


By the way, if you stay at Lakelse bring along change for the dumpstation as well... they want you to pay an extra $5 to dump off, despite having already taken $75 of your cash for the last three nights. Imagine! We hauled our honey back to Fraser Lake, where we'd planned to fill up with water at the FREE dumpstation anyway. Needless to say. Sheesh.

Kitimat

Thursday was for a day trip down to Kitimat, which was only about 40 km from the campground so a lot shorter trip than Prince Rupert. We were MUCH more impressed than the day before, and Wendy and I can see ourselves coming back for a few weeks or so some future summer. One of the great things about Kitimat is the Giant Spruce Park area, which is right along the river just below the bridge. There's a free boondocking area there, with all the comforts of BLM land plus a river with salmon just outside your door... I'm not sure it gets much better than that.

After a quick tour of town, lunch at the local DQ, and a few groceries we headed back to the campsite. Wendy and Fuzzy headed for the beach while I grabbed my tackle and headed back down the road to practice a little fly throwing. I managed to catch one, too small to keep, and get a few more bites so I was happy, and the others had a great afternoon at the beach.

Google map

Prince Rupert

The campground at Lakelse Lake is amongst the big Cedars and Sitka Spruce, so if you're looking for a shady spot with a beach and you don't mind paying $25 for an unserviced site it's great. During the week the campground wasn't too crowded so they gave us a spot right on the beach loop as long as we promised to vacate by Friday when it was reserved. Come Friday morning we were more than happy to leave as the weekend crowd had started to arrive. Most of you will know what that means.


Anyway, we made Wednesday the day to dash out to Prince Rupert to see what that was all about. Interesting drive and the weather was good but we were not knocked off our feet by the destination. Maybe it we were headed for a charter booking it would have been a little different but just to do the tourist thing I don't think I'd do it again.

We made a detour to Port Edward on the way back, and went out to see the North Pacific Cannery museum. Quite interesting, if you're out this way and have a spare couple hours it's worth the browse.

Terrace

In between the repairs, we did manage to have some good visit time with mom and the Greens, honest. Still, it was time to pack up and head west so we could get a couple touristy days in before the long weekend rush. The plan is to hit the coast and be back in Fraser Lake before the rush.

So far, so good - we made the run over to Lakelse Lake campground, which is about 20 km south of Terrace. Plan is a couple of days here while we day trip, and then run east again before the weekend.

Hose repairs

Fortunately, the local Auto Sense dealer could make me up the two hoses in about 5 minutes, which was about 100 times faster than the time it took me to take the old ones off and put the new ones on, bleed the connections, make darn sure they were tied up away from the manifold, etc. Oh well, a minor bump in the road really. My only real regret is that I didn't have a certain shirt to wear for the repairs...

Trust me, the picture doesn't do very good justice... I wore more oil than I have for a couple years.

Hooch time.

Fraser Lake #1

Made the trip from Lucerne to Fraser Lake in a long driving day. May have been just a little too long as this was the closest I could get to a smile from the two passengers.

When we checked into our usual spot in the 24-mile campground, I got a rude awakening when I hit the switch for the levelling jacks: hydraulic fluid everywhere! Uh oh, didn't we do this last year? (yep, we did). Something about Fraser Lake that those jacks don't like.

Slightly different problem this year - see that bundle of hydraulic lines? Those are for the jacks. See the exhaust manifold? It's not supposed to be quite that close to those lines. Turns out a cable tie or two let go and dropped the whole bundle onto the manifold - melted one line in two and halfway through another.


Time for hooch.

2010 Summer Holiday

Well, here we are again on a summer vacation. If anyone's still reading this, we're off to two weeks in sunny BC - the usual circuit, almost. We'll be making the Fraser Lake / Chetwynd stops, but this year we're gonna try to break new ground and get out towards the coast as well.

First night got us as far as the Edson rest area (I'll spare you the pic) but the second easy day got us to Lucerne Campground in Mt. Robson park. Checked out a nice gravelly wading beach - the water was just a LITTLE cold for swimming.

(Note: Been without internet for a while, so I'm just getting these posted Aug 4.  Bear with me). 

Trip Trivia

Finally got around to compiling some data... you know how it is when you get back and all the other... stuff... starts getting in the way. 

Route map (click to enlarge).  Motorhome path in green, Cavalier disconnected path in purple.  Green flags note the overnight stop locations:

Camping:  Here's a summary of the overnight stops:

Distance travelled (from the odometers):

Motorhome - 5613 miles (8981 km)

Cavalier (under power) - 2927 km (1829 miles)

Fuel consumed and cost:

Motorhome - 3032 litres / 802 US Gallons / 668 Imperial Gallons / $2402 Cdn

Cavalier - 240 litres / 64 US Gallons / 53 Imperial Gallons / $181 Cdn

Average miles per gallon:

Motorhome - 33.6 litres/100 km / 7.0 mpg (US) / 8.4 mpg (Imp)

Cavalier - 8.2 litres/100 km / 28.8 mpg (US) / 34.5 mpg (Imp)

Auto maintenance & repair:

No breakdowns this trip (-;.  Had an oil & lube on the Cavalier in El Paso for $34.40 CDN and a service on the motorhome and generator in Mesa for $229.44 Cdn.  Bought a couple hundred dollars worth of doo-dads to repair and upgrade the motorhome, most of which were not really needed and will be installed this summer. 

Generator:

12.9 hours use, estimated 6 Imperial gallons fuel consumed (included above). 

Propane:

56.3 litres / 12.4 Imp gallons - $60.00

Water and dumpstations:

No cost except for $10 in Gila Bend, which was a mistake.  Filled and dumped at campgrounds when we stayed there, and at travel centres (truck stops) between. 

Food and souvenirs:

I don't keep track of these.  Food is little different cost than at home because we eat in and out about the same ratio.  Souvenirs are totally discretionary so they don't count either.  Outfits for the granddaughter - no comment. 

General comments:

We had a pretty favourable exchange rate (6 - 8%) the whole trip, which kept costs down.  Gas prices were reasonable also (~$2.59/gallon in AZ), which helped.  Cavalier use was about the same as in 2008, but the motorhome travelled about 2000 km further because of the circuit through northern California and New Mexico, plus the return to Arizona seeking warmer temps.  In retrospect this was VERY ambitious of us and not something we'll likely do in future without more time. 

What we missed the most was internet.  Have to do something different next time.  TV wasn't really a great loss, but probably bring a dish and receiver next time anyway.  Less moving plus more electric use will probably mean more generator hours to recharge batteries since we only have 85W of panel on board - but that might be better for the genny anyway.  Phone was cheap, and good coverage using a TracPhone from Wal*Mart. 

Nothing to do with the trip, but I couldn't resist - Fuzzy came by the other day for some shrimp, hooch, and a hockey game (the good guys won).  I think she enjoyed it. 

That it from me, until winter loosens it's icy grip...

It's good to be home.

It's good to be home.  It's GOOD to be home.  It's good to be HOME.  Nope, still not working, have to repeat it a few more times. 

OK, so we're home... got back Wednesday evening, and we now have the Bounder parked and unloaded.  Probably take a few more days to put away the stuff, so it's good that we still have a few days before work beckons. 

We headed north from Laughlin Sunday morning, just after the last blog post.  Good trip through Las Vegas, where we broke even for the first time ever (it helps when you don't stop).  My preferred view of Vegas is now from the interstate...

Our first rude awakening was just across the border in Utah - there's snow in them thar hills.  Definitely a bad sign as we were hoping to get to at least Leduc before seeing any white stuff.  Dang. 

Sunday night was in Payson, Utah (if you followed the blog in 2008 you might remember that name - I overnighted there after purging water).  The MH on the left is from Saskatchewan, headed to Palm Springs for 6 weeks.  Lucky B*st*rd.  We were to see more over the next few days. 

Monday morning was dank and drizzly - exactly what you DON'T want when you still need to drain water and winterize.  Luckily we got a break in the weather north of Salt Lake City and were able to do the deed in the back corner of a Flying J lot - by noon we were essentially water (and toilet)-less. 

Crossing the border into Idaho we were again tempted to check the calendar and the casino fund and make sure we actually did need and have to keep going.  Dang. 

Somewhere in Idaho we passed by the oversized Budweiser case and pop cans, which broke the depression for milliseconds.  Sorry about the quality on the bottom pic; it was a quick snapshot. 

Monday got us to a rest area just south of Butte, Montana.  As you can see it was still in the winter half of the year, although I can't really complain too much abouth the temps.  Overnight it got down to about 25F, and warmed close to 40F during the day.  In retrospect we could have waited a little longer to drain the water, but that's the kind of decision where a little too late can be really expensive. 

Tuesday was a short day, travel-wise at least.  After several stops in Helena and Great Falls to stock up on those 'you can't find this crap in Canada' items we rolled up to the rest area north of Great Falls (one of my favourites) for the night.  To the casual observer these rest area (and Wal*Mart) pics may all look similar, but trust me: some of us connoisseurs can spot those subtle differences a mile away. 

Yay!  Back in Alberta on Wednesday morning after a stop in Shelby to top up the fuel tanks on the last of the cheap(er) gas and an extended discussion between Wendy and the customs agent on all the great things you can do with a "Cricket".  OK by me, since when all the discussing was done he waved us through despite us being significantly over on both the grand total and the alcohol amounts.  Go Crickets, whatever you are! 

Wendy and I created a game to pass the time away on the trip north:  spotting the southbound RV's and being the first to point and call out "Lucky B*st*rds!".  Actually, it quickly got shortened by dropping the first couple syllables off, and putting the emphasis on the third.  It made the time go by...

If we were deceived when we crossed the border into thinking that the weather was actually reasonably pleasant (just look at the pic), we were brought back to reality once we passed through Red Deer.  Welcome home, us! 

If your blue brick is at the top of the stack (if you don't get that, don't worry), check back in a few days as I'll compile some stats and do another post, similar to 2008.  If you're blocks are yellow or green, you may want to put this bookmark onto the back burner for 6 months or so... from the looks outside we're not travelling anywhere soon (unless that 6/49 retirement plan matures unexpectedly).  If you've been following along, thanks!  And get a life!  TTFN!