July 28, Hyder to Vanderhoof, BC

Still more towering mountains before leveling off to beautiful high plains later in the afternoon. We haven’t seen much of British Columbia yet but what we have seen is spectacular. Tonight we stopped at Dave’s RV Park, one of the best campgrounds we have been in. The park has lots of grassy space between campers, picnic tables and beautiful flowers. Today is Sunday so going to stay here a couple of days to see if we can get a tour of a lumber mill.

July 27, Prince Rupert, BC to Hyder, AK

Today is going to make our highlight reel. We got off the ferry about 9:15 a.m. (still without our promised beer) and drove through Prince Rupert to Hyder and Stewart. The drive was probably the most beautiful that we have seen since we started our trip, towering mountains, huge waterfalls and rushing streams with several black bears and cubs. We made the right decision to come this far by ferry as the Cassiar highway from Watson Lake to Hyder/Stewart is closed several days, maybe weeks, because of an avalanche. It would have been a looooong drive out of our way to get here had we not taken the ferry. Might have even skipped it. Tonight we saw a grizzly bear with triplets come out of the woods, walk down the stream and eat a salmon; we watched them for probably 20 minutes before they wondered off into the woods again. We stopped at an old converted school bus for a great supper and ate with some locals as well as some tourists from Tennessee. Terrific clam chowder and halibut.

July 24, 25 and 26, Alaska Marine Highway

We got situated in line for the ferry about 8:30 Wednesday to get our assigned loading spot. Some dip stick from Texas backed 10 feet square into us in spite of me laying on the air horn. We were lucky because he didn’t do any damage but he did leave an impression of his spare tire in the dirt on the front of the RV. Funny thing was, his spare tire was covered so he hit us pretty good. He offered to buy us a beer when we got on the ferry but we haven’t seen anything of him. Since we were to be on the boat 2 nights we got a berth that was quite nice, 2 comfortable bunks with a bath, including a very good shower. Some people slept on the deck lounge chairs; one even pitched his tent. The ferry made several stops on the way to Prince Rupert but we didn’t have a lot of time to go ashore. The ride has been very scenic and many picturesque small fishing villages that are only accessible by boat or airplane. The stops along our route have been Hoonah, Sitka, Kake, Petersburg, Wrangell, and Ketchikan before off loading at Prince Rupert. We met several nice and interesting people on the trip; one native lady from Hoonah has 130 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. How would you like to keep track of birthdays? Also visited with Father Jim, a Catholic Priest who is a southeast Alaska icon, (according to locals on board) that filled me in on the history of most of the towns we visited. Not a lot of wildlife on the trip but did see a few whales.