Lower British Columbia

OK folks, a new phase is here. I (Chris) am learning to post to the blog. This segment covers our travel from Rosedale, BC to Smithers, BC. Most of the roads here follow railroads, which follow rivers because that was the only way to circumvent the mountians. While it is not the most direct route it certinaly is scenic. The train picture is the Canadian National Railroad along the Thomas River. There is another railline on the road side. Usually they are seperate but in places they share the roadbed because the is just barely room for the tracks do to the sheer cliffs.

The water picture is from our campsite on Kokanee Bay, BC. As you can see the weather has improved a little. It only rained a of and on that day. The saga of searching for WiFi continues because the aircard costs .69 per minute. We were able to capture a signal outside a restuarant in Lac La Heche and do our email and a little research. I took a bike ride and am discovering that the side roads usually only go to a specfic location and stop. That, and the fact that they often turn to gravel or dirt, makes loop riding difficult. Usually I just ride the road ahead on our route to see if there is anything interesting or to scout out fuel, food ect. Speaking of fuel, diesel here continues to climb. The last fill-up was $186.01 OUCH! Since our campsight was so beautiful we decided to have our 1st picnic with our travel partners Janet and Ron. We almost finished eating before it rained. Dessert was enjoyed indoors with a hot cup of coffee as it was only about 50 degrees.

The 3rd picture was taken from beside the camper in Glacier View RV Resort just west of Smithers. It's obvious where the name came from. This is Kathryn Glacier on Hudson Bay Mountian. The campground is at 3500' and the mountian top about 8600'. We were able to do some chores in Smithers. Oilchange, farmers market, groceries. laundry ect. We tried to ride the bikes to the twin falls below the glacier but again ran out of pavement. The gravel portion of the road was about a mile long and then it was a hike on foot from the end of the road. We decided we really didn't need another close-up. We went to a salmon hatchery instead where they were raising about 190,000 baby fish. It takes two years in the hatchery before they are tagged and released.

Later in the day the weather was getting pretty nice. Sunny and 60. Carol was working on a sunshade for the skylight in the bedroom so I decided to go for another solo ride. After runing out of pavement a half dozen times I decided to try a dirt road. (It looked like good dirt) I rode about 20 miles and saw some really pretty Alpine type farms. I had to stop once to let a young farmer herd his cows down the road from the milkshed to the pasture. It was getting late and I was getting worried because I had no idea where I would end up when I began to see mileage markers decending from 10-9-8 ect. I ended up in a little town only about 10 miles west of the campground on the main road. I returned around 7:30 PM in time for dinner and to join Carol as she talked to 2 guys setting up their tent in the campground. They are on enduro bikes, riding from Michigan to Alaska! She had finished her skylight cover along with a cardboard cover for the bedroom window. We needed these so we could have get a little more sleep. It is getting light here about 3:00 AM and not dark until 11:00 PM. This morning we were able to sleep until 8 for the 1st time in a couple of weeks!

We head for the Cassiar Highway Tuesday morning.