We left the Run-A-Muck RV Park in Hyder, AK this morning about 8:00. The car and camper were absolutely filthy, so I wanted to stop in Stewart, BC, three miles from Hyder, to use the carwash. Carwash had a sign that said change was available at the hardware store down the street. Went to the hardware store. It was closed. Went to the gas station where Jim had filled up with "marked" gas before finding out that marked gas is only for farm machinery. No wonder it was cheaper. There is some huge fine if you're caught with it in your road vehicle. No problem, though. The kid at the station said I should have gone to the hardware store owner's house to get change for the carwash, like I should have known that!
Anyway, we headed down the road. I was still following Jim in case he blew another tire. He still didn't have a spare. During the day, we saw a young black bear, a black bear sow and her three cubs, a coyote, and another black bear. When we got to Smithers, BC, he went to the Canadian Tire store and I went to the carwash. $25.00 later, the car and camper were pretty much clean. First carwash I've seen where you can use a credit card and the dollars just keep charging up until you push the "STOP" button.
Jim found out that the tire store in Smithers didn't have the correct tire for him, but they called the store in Prince George and had them put one on hold. On the way to Prince George, I noticed that the right-side tire on Jim's trailer looked funny. That's the spare he mounted when his other tire shredded itself. So this tire has a broken belt or something. These are Goodyear tires! We decided to camp at Dave's RV Park in Vanderhoof, because we couldn't make it to the tire store in Prince George before the service dept. closed. Jim called them and told them we'd be there in the morning. So here we are in Vanderhoof, BC, the geographic center of the province.
In the morning, we'll follow Jim to Prince George and then split off on route 16 to follow the mountains southward as far as we can. We had our last supper with Jim & Bonnie tonight. Brats, rice, corn, salad at the campsite.Also had various home made desert goodies from the restaurant where we ate lunch. Good stuff!
We drove 380 miles today.
We got up to a fairly nice day in Hyder. We went to the Glacier Inn for breakfast. It was great by all accounts. I had the Skillet Breakfast (see picture). After breakfast and a quick tour thru the attached gift shop, we headed for the bear viewing platform. Just before getting to the platform, there was a large grizzly sow and her cub just up the hill on Marsha's side of the car. Marsha saw it, but it soon ran into the woods. No picture!
No bears to be seen at the bear viewing platform, so we continued up the dusty dirt road for about 20 miles to see Salmon Glacier. We were told that it is spectacular. It's about 6 times bigger than Bear Glacier, pictured in yesterday's post. When we got about 5 miles from the glacier, we were in the clouds and when we got to the Salmon Glacier viewing area, all we could see was fog! We continued about six miles based on information that the smaller Berendon Glacier was visible. It was, but it wasn't what I'd call anything close to spectacular. There were two apparently unnamed glaciers near it, so we traded quality for quantity.
We headed back down the mountain and saw a black bear sow and her two cubs as they crossed the road in front of us. I almost missed getting a picture because I pushed the wrong button to turn the camera on. We arrive back at the bear viewing platform around 3:00. Nothing going on there, so we were ready to leave when the same black bear we saw last night came strolling out of the woods along Fish Creek. He messed around in the water all the while working his way down stream. He missed a couple of fish and went farther down stream until he was out of sight on the other side of a bridge. Word is, he caught a fish and headed into the woods.
We got back to camp and met up with Jim and Bonnie who had only gone as far up the road as the Salmon Glacier. We voted and the women decided to got back to The Bus for more seafood instead of going to the Sealaska Inn for pizza. I had grilled halibut.
Excellent!We figure we've got about 1,000
miles to drive before we hit the lower 48, so it will be a few days
before we cross into Idaho (that's the current plan). We'll keep you
posted.
We drove the 344 miles from Boya Lake Provincial Park to Hyder, AK. Stopped in Stewart, B.C. (2.5 miles from Hyder, AK) at 5:30 for gas. The Cassiar Highway is B.C. Hwy 37, but 40 miles from Hyder, you take 37A, the Stewart/Hyder Cutoff. This stretch of highway is the most breathtaking we've been on so far on this trip. We followed Jim and Bonnie because they haven't yet found a place to buy a new spare tire.
We checked into the Camp Run-A-Muck RV Park in Hyder at about 6:00. When we asked the host about buying a tire in Hyder or Stewart, he said that would not be wise. He said an Eskimo on the side of the road would probably sell a tire cheaper than anyone in Stewart, and you can't buy a new tire in Hyder. There will be a larger town down the road where prices will be more reasonable.
We thought it pretty strange that there is no U.S. Customs station coming into Alaska at Hyder, but there is a Canadian Customs station when crossing back into Canada from Hyder. Strange, that is, until you see Hyder. What terrorist would want to go to Hyder? And there's no place to go from here. We were reminded of the movie Deliverance on our way across town to the campground. Jim said (over the walkie-talkie), "If you see a kid playing a banjo, don't stop." I'll get some pictures tomorrow.
After setting up camp and eating at the finest seafood restaurant in Hyder (see picture; the food was quite good), we drove 3.5 miles up the dusty dirt road to the Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site in the Tonga National Forest. There was a single black bear there trying his hand, er, paw at fishing. I think he was a young bear. He needs practice. We're going to go back up there in the morning after eating breakfast at the finest breakfast place in Hyder. More pictures tomorrow.
We're debating whether to stay here a second night. I guess we'll make a decision at breakfast in the morning. I forgot to take a picture of our campsite while it was still light out tonight. I had to use a flash at 11:30, but there was still some light in the sky. Yes, we're far enough south now that it's getting dark at night, but it's still light enough to read a newspaper at 10:00pm. I'll try to post a better picture tomorrow night if we have Internet service.
