Made It to Prince Rupert

Leslie Monday, May 26, 2008


We’ve made it to Prince Rupert, BC. We’re really quite far north. This morning I looked out at 4:15 am and the sun was already up. I was looking to see if any of those mythical moose were grazing on the golf course. They weren’t!


Today was more driving westward, mostly along the river. The mountains were on our right, the river on the left.

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There were some beautiful waterfalls coming out of the mountains.

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About 30 miles east of Prince Rupert we could see mud flats in the river, likely a result of tidal movement. We assumed that we would not be crossing another mountain pass since it was likely that the road would follow the river. At 20 miles out of Prince Rupert we started climbing. Although we only climbed to 500 ft of elevation, it was a steep hill to haul.


By the time we had reached Prince George we were too far north to pick up the satellite radio so we won’t have CNN any longer. We’ve put the XM radio away until September.


We’re staying at the Park Avenue RV park just up the hill from the ferry dock. Considering that most areas around a working waterfront are a bit seedy, we weren’t expecting much. Actually this park is very nice. The rows are on a hillside and there are only 10 rigs here although the park would hold over 300 during busy season. And finally, we seem to have reliable WIFI service.


There are some funny sites here. Okay gentlemen: what year is this?

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The occupant is one man in a cowboy hat.

And then there is another neighbor who appears to be waiting for his rig to show up. He’s been sitting here since 4:00 pm and it’s now almost 9:00 pm and he doesn’t appear to have a place to sleep. Mmm? Who knows?

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(We seeemed to lose our internet connection last night as I was trying to post this so I can update you a bit. Sometime around mid-night many rigs showed up. I'm guessing that they came off a ferry. I think the man who was rig-less was joined by a rig later. Most of the late arriving rigs left early this morning.)

We were outside about an hour after we got set up and noticed that water was flowing from the front of the rig. That’s not good. Further investigation revealed that we have a leak in our water system. Robert ended up drenched as he investigated. The weather here is beautiful (sunny and mid-60s) so that wasn’t too much of a problem (for me:-) ). His diagnosis of the water problem is that a brass fitting in the water control center had broken. I didn’t know that something made of brass would "break". The temporary solution is that we have to use water from our 100 gallon fresh water holding tank and not from the city water connection. This isn’t a huge deal because we can fill the fresh water holding tank and then pull from the tank with our new water pump. (I sure am glad the water pump is now working...) We’ll talk with the factory tomorrow about shipping the fitting to us in Ketchikan.

When we left Colorado the freezer unit of our 10 cubic foot refrigerator was completely packed. Because the rules on how much and what types of meat you are permitted to bring into the US are complex and constantly changing, we’ve been trying to eat our way through the freezer. I’m happy to report that we have only 2 packages of stew beef yet to consume. I’ll likely make one batch for lunch/dinner tomorrow so that at most we’ll have one beef item to carry back into the US. (When we board the ferry on Thursday, we’re headed for Ketchikan, AK.) The last time we went to Alaska I promised myself that I would eat only fish for the entire trip. Really suffering, huh? I don’t know that I can pull that off this trip but I might give it a good try.

More later,

Leslie