Day 119 Friday August 26, 2022 We departed about 8:20 and drove 40 miles and stopped in the town of Houston British Columbia to see the World's Largest Fly Fishing Rod at the Visitor's Center. And just across the street was a Tim Horton's, or as we have begun to call them, Timmy's. So of course we had to get some of their great donuts and a Latte. I really like their S'mores donut. The Visitor's Center had a glass room on the front with a huge grizzly bear that had been killed in the area. The local ranchers had been having cattle killed for a long time and assumed it was a grizzly bear that was killing and eating them. Finally someone was able to kill him.
We didn't have any bears jump out in front of us today but an idiot in a burgandy Ford pickup tried to take the side of the motorhome off when he squeezed in between us and an 18 wheeler going in the other direction.
We got to Sintech RV Park in Price George and setup. The Jeep was so filthy we could hardly see out the windows so we drove back into town and ran it through a $5 car wash. They have a special on Friday where you can get any car wash for $5. Then we stopped at Walmart for a few groceries. After we returned to the RV Park we walked over to a building in the park where some local people were picking and grinning.
Day 120 Saturday August 27, 2022 Well Happy Birthday to me. We slept a little late this morning and I decided since it was my birthday and also probably our last chance ever to visit a Tim Horton's I would treat myself this morning and get a few things on the Internet done. The WiFi in the RV Park is useless and the cell service is weak since we are roaming while in Canada. We stayed about an hour at Tim Horton's and the entire time the drive through was lined up around the building and out into the street in the shopping center. And the inside dining room was about half full also. And they are several Tim Horton's in town. Sure is a popular place in Canada. Sure wish they would open some stores in the USA.
Fantasy held our fairwell dinner at Carmel Inn Restaurant in town. Everyone got two tickets for a drink of their choice at the bar (beer, wine, mixed drink, soft drink, etc) followed by a buffet of salad, roasted chicken, lasagna, vegetables, prime rib, mashed potatoes, BBQ ribs and the biggest dinner rolls I have ever seen. Followed by several types of dessert.
Steve (one of the men in our group) and I were having a birtday today so I told Denise (Mrs. Wagonmaster) that we sure did appreciate Fantasy throwing us a birthday party.
Day 121 Sunday August 28, 2022 Fantasy gave a farewell breakfast this morning with coffee and pastries from Tim Horton's with fruits, juice and yogurt.
We said our goodbyes to the group and pulled out about 8:45AM for Juniper Beach Provincial Park just past Cache Creek British Columbia. We drove with mountains all around us but the surface of the land looked like a desert with all the scrub bushes everywhere. Kind of weird looking, somewhat like New Mexico except more mountains. There were lots of beautiful ranches with hundreds of acres of hay fields, cow, horses and even saw some fields of sweet corn which we though was kind of late in the season for fresh corn.
I chose our site 14 on the web page when I reserved this park and boy did I pick a bad one. First of all the electrical hookup was on one side of the site and the water on the other, DUMB. So I drove into the site so I could easily hookup to electrical power. We didn't really need to hookup to water as we had plenty in the holding tank for one night. The site was 10” lower in the back than the front so we were sitting down hill because our leveling system on the motorhome will not handle that much sloop. We will have to live with it for one night. We had a nice view of the Thompson River out the front of the motorhome. There was also a train track on the side of the mountain across the river and another behind us. We lost count of the number of trains that came by, one every few minutes.
Day 122 Monday August 29, 2022 We drove all day in the mountains, up one hill and down the next, around one curve after another. Most of the surface still looked like the desert but finally began to see some green trees. The valley between the mountains was very green and lush because lost of irrigation was being used. They were probably pumping water out of the Thompson River that ran through the valley. The land that was not irrigated was very dry looking and there were fire danger signs up in several places. We passed through the small town of Mariposa and was amazed at the number of large fruit and vegetable businesses. Everywhere we looked around the town there were vineyards, apple trees, peach trees and other crops we could not identify. We would have liked to of stopped and got some fruit but we were going to be crossing the border back into the USA in a few miles and they probably would take it all if we were honest and told them we had any produce.
We got to the border crossing and answered a bunch of questions including about fruits and eggs. We had a dozen eggs, grapefruit and avocados. So the agent had us to pull over to the side and a agricultural agent came and rummaged through our refrigerator and freezer. She took all our frozen chicken we had brought from NC, eggs, grapefruit, avocados, cherry tomatoes and my last apple I had forgot I had. She even looked through some of the cabinets and asked if we had any orange peelings in the trash can. Then she asked if we had any bags that she could put all the stuff in. My thoughts were (that I didn't express) was “hey when we go grocery shopping we carry our own bags, so maybe you should”. I probably would have spent the night in the “pokey” if I had of expressed my thoughts. I would like for someone to explain to me how frozen chicken that was grown and processed in North Carolina was going to cause a problem bringing it back into the USA. The agent mentioned that the avocados we had came from Mexico and that were not allowed. Well guess where Walmart and Food Lion in the US gets their avocados, MEXICO. Oh well I guess the border agents will eat good tonight. But we weren't the only RVers to be searched for fruits and vegetables. We saw 3-4 others while we were there. I guess they were cautious since right up the road was all those fruit and vegetable stands.
After some more very curvy roads we finally got to Gold Mountain RV Park in Republic Washington about 2PM and setup in site 6. This is the nicest RV Park we have been in for 3 months. It has long pull through sites, more space between sites than most RV Parks and has grass between the sites. We even have a huge weeping willow trees beside our site. Even the WiFi works, WOW.
After resting for awhile we drove back into the little town of Republic and had dinner at the Knotty Pine Restaurant. Lena had the biggest chicken fried steak we have ever seen and I got a huge roast beef sandwich. We ate all we could and took half of it with us for a meal later.
Day 123 Tuesday August 30, 2022 I started washing the motorhome about 7:30 before it got too hot. I washed the passenger side and then the Jeep and waited until the sun was off the drivers side to wash it. The motorhome had not been washed in about two months and it looked like it. Lena did some inside cleaning and helped me wash the drivers side. Very few RV Parks will allow you to wash on site but I asked the hosts here and she checked with the owner and gave me permission. I will need a more through cleaning inside and out when we get home but it does look so much better, except for the bobo where the bear hit us.
Day 124 Wednesday August 31, 2022 We drove the 4 miles back into Republic for breakfast at Sitka Coffee Roasters.
We were sitting outside under the weeping willow tree and the park owner came over and introduced himself and said he was having his WiFi service evaluated by an IT Specialist that was with him and wanted to know how the WiFi was working. We told him it was the best WiFi service that we have had in over two months. He said he wanted to improve it even more which we commended him for. We told him that most RV Park owner could care less if the WiFi even worked. They advertise WiFi but in many parks it is useless. We also told him how nice of an RV Park he had.
