Wednesday 9/5
All night last night my concern about the passing trucks was building. We were so close to the edge of the road, and the trucks were traveling so fast, I could not erase visions of them rear-ending the sleeping Admiral. At midnight, I decided to ease my concern by putting out our reflective warning-markers. I slipped into my jeans and stepped out of the passenger side of the Admiral into the inky night. As I inched toward the rear of the RV, a truck came over the horizon and its headlights framed the startling silloutte of a man just in front of me. He was walking straight toward me and I pulled back as he reached out and said, “Man, I had a little trouble and I’m tryin’ to get home, could you spare me a Loonie or a Twonie?” Taken aback, I struggled for a response and finally stuttered, “No…sorry…can’t help you…got no Canadian coins…good luck”. “Aw…man”, he answered, “You sure?”. “Yeah”, I answer lamely, half expecting him to produce a gun or knife, but instead he mumbles something unintelligible, turns around and starts walking across the road. We are parked up-road from a couple of sleeping vans, and quite a few trucks have been passing by, but otherwise we are in the boonies (not to be confused with “loonies” although at this point I’m not all together certain that this guy isn’t one). He’s walking across the highway, but maybe he’s really in trouble or maybe he’ll find a way to make trouble, so I call out, “HEY, wait a minute, maybe I can give you some American money.” He starts back and I go into the Admiral and find a few dollars, which I hand to him. “Only six bucks. Hope that helps out.” “MAN”, he says, “THANKS! My name’s Bob.” Without further ado, he turns and disappears into the night. He becomes then, now, and forever: “Midnight Bob”.
Despite my late and eventful night, we are up early. Today is our 43rd Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations Nancy & Brian! Extra-Special, Double-Duty Congratulations to Nancy who has managed to put up with me for two score and three.
With the trucks and Midnight Bob, last night was not one of our best. When I go out to pick up the reflective warning triangles from the rear of the Admiral, I discover that in the haste and confusion, I set them up incorrectly and they’ve all fallen over.
It’s sunny, in the 60’s, and warming up. We’re just a few miles out of 100 Mile House so soon we’re at the lake where we anticipate some good birding. It is not to be. The lake, which is really more like a big pond, has partially dried up and the remaining water is covered in thick pond scum. There are a few common ducks plowing through this muck, but no new species.
Back in the Admiral we discuss the possibility of a side trip and quickly agree that the bubble has burst—let’s just get on down the road as quickly as possible.
As you’ve probably been able to discern, in this section of the road many places are named or associated with miles ala the town of “100 Mile House”. We passed through these places on the way up, but never really paid attention to the locus from which these miles are measured. Now this becomes important to us because we want to stop at “Mile 43” and take an anniversary picture. We research our guide books and determine that the “miles” were measured from a roadhouse near Lilooet that originally was the starting point of a stage line that ran to Prince George. The roadhouse no longer exists, and the route has been slightly altered many times—so it makes finding the exact “Mile 43” impossible, but we pick a point that makes sense relative to the other known locations. There we take our anniversary picture. We’ve been lucky enough that we’ve had anniversaries on the Amazon and in the Galapagos. This one is special. It’s our first anniversary since retirement. This has been a spectacular trip. And, the fact that we’ve been able to live very happily in the cramped quarters of the Admiral for more than two months is profound evidence that 43 years ago we each found the right person with whom to share the rest of our lives.
Though we are now retracing our exact route from earlier in the summer and the dramatic landscape in which we find ourselves is vaguely familiar, we see it from a different perspective—both physically since we’re traveling south, and intellectually since we’ve seen the land beyond. This country, where we are paralleling the Fraser and Thompson Rivers is gorgeous—some green and some that reminds us of the desert badlands of southern Utah.
At Cache Creek the road forks. We’re take the less-traveled, slower, more scenic spur that was our original route. We’re back in the craggy canyon that was so electrifying on our way north. 10 weeks later it is no less dramatic. Though we’re sure we have hundreds of earlier pictures, we cannot resist frequent stops to take more. This is our last day in British Columbia and the finale lives up to our highest expectations.
As we near the Canadian border, the narrow, north-south spur we’ve been on bursts from the mountains and merges with Canada 1—four lanes of east-west concrete evidence that we’re back. Amazing! Three days, 72 hours ago, we were in Hyder with bears and glaciers and shrews—now we’re at the functional end of the trip. Oh, my.
We pass Bridal Veil Falls where we hiked in June. It is remarkably puny in comparison to the falls we’ve seen in the north. We make our last gas stop in Canada to use up our remaining Loonies and Twonies. We pay the equivalent of $4.19/gallon—the least we’ve ever paid in Canada. Later in the day, we fill up in the USA for less than $3/gallon—but not without a little “adventure”. In heavy traffic we pull into a station and position ourselves near the pumps. When it’s our turn and we approach the pumps we realize the Admiral is too tall to fit under the canopy. Because of CJ, we cannot back up the Admiral, so we’re forced to disengage the Jeep and back out of tight quarters.
We’re back in the USA. Beatles anyone?
Back in the US of A.
Is this not our lucky day? Oy?
Back in the US of A.
At the border the agent asks us if we’re “bringing anything of value back from Canada”. We say, “no”, but as we pull away from the checkpoint we know that we’re returning with priceless memories—is there a duty on memories? We hope not.
It’s been a long day of driving. We’ve covered over 300 miles and traveled in two countries. There are no rest areas near our route so we spend the night in the parking lot of a Costco in Burlington, WA.
