July 30, 2022 (Fri)
A long day on the road.
9:00 am Prince George, BC
We know we’re in for a long day of driving—we’re trying to get two days worth of driving into one day, so that we get a day off. Which is a lot of days right there!
Anyway, up at 6:00 am, trip log written and off, breakfast done, tanks emptied (smoothly this time—with triple checking that the valves were closed before removing the cap!).
So long, Prince George!
Harvey is ready to leave Prince George!
9:45 am Outskirts of Prince George
But first, time for a bath for Harvey. He’s got a couple of days worth of grime—plus all that dust from yesterday (which has gotten everywhere), and we spot an RV friendly hand car wash (our hands, though). We try to rinse the A/C unit on the roof as well as we can without actually climbing onto the roof.
And as usual with these sorts of car washes, we get a bit of wash, too. Which we kind of needed…
11:30 am McLeod, BC
We stop at the “town” of McLeod, consisting entirely of the McLeod General store, which happily sells us two drumstick ice creams (“When it’s this hot,” says Gini, “It’s important to eat enough ice cream!”).
The metropolis of McLeod welcomes you
We have seen a lot of logging trucks going the other way, up to half the vehicles. There are so many logging trucks, the entire road is pine scented. But there are so many trees around us, that we don’t even notice the missing ones.
We’re about to head into the Canadian Rockies and so far, there are just aggressive hills and not much rock.
12:15 pm Canadian Rockies
Holy sweet mother of pearl! These are some mountainous mountains! They are jutting up so high that even the trees won’t grow on them. We agree that these are the rockiest rockies we’ve seen.
We also think about the pioneers in covered wagons and what they must have thought. Probably something along the lines of “Let’s turn back!”
The rockiest Rockies
1:30 pm Chetwynd, BC
This is the first collection of people we’ve seen since crossing the Rockies. This town used to be called “Little Prairie, but then in 1962 it got named after a white guy, because it was too easy to spell the old name.
Chetwynd is the self-proclaimed "Chainsaw Sculpture Capital of the World,” and it’s easy to see why. Every five feet, there’s another wooden sculpture, some of them funny, some interesting, and some just bizarre.
Some of the many sculptures of Chetwynd
We park and walk around some of them until a nice lady asks how long we plan to stay. “Um, why?” is our answer. Turns out we’ve parked in the middle of where the Farmer’s Market will soon be set up.
“You’re welcome to stay, but you’ll get boxed in and you’ll need to start selling something.”
We decide the better move is to head on out for lunch.
3:00 pm Chetwynd, BC
We finally found an open restaurant, got lunch and have now wandered back to the Farmer’s Market (since we know where it is!).
We discover a new berry! The “haskap berry" as it is known in Japan; “blue honeysuckle” in Russia; and the “honeyberry” in North American. The original Canadian name was “Swamp fly honeysuckle,” and we can totally understand why nobody uses that name.
After purchasing a jar of Haskap Berry jam, and some regular old blueberries and strawberries, we’re on our way!
4:30 pm Dawson Creek, BC
Gini really enjoyed having a swimming pool at the RV park several days (months?) ago. Since we couldn’t find an RV park with one, we decided to find a Hotel with one and stay an extra day to let us recharge after a grueling five days on the road (yeesh—just imagine how we’re gonna feel after another 27 days on the road!).
Here we are the Pomeroy Inn & Suites and—Holy Cow! This room has two rooms! And there’s a full-sized refrigerator and a stove and a microwave and two TV sets and a dishwasher! Our hotel room has a freaking dishwasher!
This is just one of our rooms!
We are definitely Gypsies in the Palace here and we wander through our suite open-mouthed at all the wonderful amenities and then we see the king-sized bed and lay down and…
6:00 pm Still in the Palace
We wake up an hour later and gawk some more. Now we’re headed to the concrete swimming hole pool in our cutoffs swimsuits, where we also soak in the hot tub...ah.
8:00 pm The Palace at Dawson Creek, BC
Whew! Well, we swam, sat in the hot tub, put on our finest shorts and walked across the parking lot to the local restaurant.
There’s about a 50-50 chance that the restaurant in the parking lot of two (three if you don’t mind crossing a street) hotels will be a Denny’s (or equivalent). We beat the odds tonight, because the restaurant (FIXX Urban Grill) serves a fine steak, a lovely jambalaya, and icy strawberry daiquiris!
We retire to our sleeping quarters to dream of gold and jewels and cooler temperatures (the TV says it’s going to rain and we’ll be cold starting tomorrow!).
By the numbers
Without numbers, we’d be tumbling through an unknown and scary void.
Miles traveled so far: 795*
Estimated Percentage of total road miles: 23%
Days so far: 6 days
Estimated Percentage of total road days: 19%
*This is the official distance from Woodinville to Dawson Creek, and does not include the washboard detour or the going back for gas.
Gini & Robert
Harvey Staff
P.S. We understand that our granddaughter will be reading these from now on. Welcome, Zoe! We think about you often!
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