No overnight camping allowed at the dump station

We woke up at 6:15am Saturday and got Sherman ready to hit the road. We figure that we might as well use the engine heat to warm things up rather than wasting propane by using the furnace.

It doesn't take us very long to get going... we have done this so many times that even when we aren't ready at all, it only takes us 15 minutes to get things packed away and secured for travel. We both know the drill and what has to be done, and before you know it we're on the road.

We drove straight through to Fort Nelson. And by the time we got to Fort Nelson 106 kms (66 miles) later, we had already spotted two different bears! We had been starting to think there wasn't any wildlife up here.

Black bear by the side of the road.

Forest fire remains from a 2015 blaze.

The Muskwa River just south of Fort Nelson.

We parked at the Fort Nelson Visitors Center and used the free wifi coming from the campground across the road. We've been doing pretty good using a combination of free wifi and the Telcel cellular internet coming from our phone. In fact, I'm super impressed with both the Telcel SIM card, and the weBoost cellular booster.

First of all, the Mexico Telcel SIM card obviously has roaming agreements with all Canadian carriers. This is fantastic because it means that it will pick up a signal from whichever is strongest, be it Bell, Rogers, or Telus.

And, I've been able to successfully test the weBoost Drive RV product. Click the link to check it out. I've actually had situations where the phone itself has not been able to register a signal, and using the weBoost I've been able to get on the internet from as far away as 47 kms (29 miles) from the nearest tower. I have an app on the phone that shows tower locations in Canada.

It was only yesterday that we used up the 4 GBs that I had renewed on May 13th. So this morning I renewed it again for 500 pesos plus the fee, which came to a total of $39 CAD ($30.50 USD) for unlimited talk and text in Canada, U.S., and Mexico. And this time, it came with 5 GB of data instead of 4, so they must have some kind of special on. Also, it comes with unlimited facebook not included in that 5 GB of data.

So, unless we are really out of the way (which is going to happen at times on this trip), we should be able to keep you updated most days.

No overnight camping at the dump station. 

Too funny.

The town of Fort Nelson has a really nice free RV dump station with fresh water fillup, so we took advantage of that to have nice showers in the motorhome knowing that we could dump and refill before we left town.

We found a laundromat and got a load of clothes done. Ruth says there were 5 people in there speaking Spanish, and so she asked where they were from. Guanajuato, Mexico! Apparently they are working in a circus up here and heading for Anchorage in an RV with Dakota plates. Interesting stuff because you wouldn't think circus folk would have an easy time making their way into the U.S. and crossing the border in an RV. Who knows what their story is, but it was kind of odd speaking Spanish in Fort Nelson, British Columbia!

We put another $100 worth of fuel in at $1.47 CAD per liter ($4.35 USD per gallon). It's 3 cents per liter cheaper in Watson Lake, Yukon, so I only put in enough to get us there.

It was almost 2:00pm in the afternoon by the time we finally left town! It had clouded over and we even had a half hour rainstorm while we were on the road.

A few raindrops along the way.

Did I mention there are lots of trees?

The Alaska Highway.

We thought about overnighting here.

We came across several free camping opportunities. I don't think anybody out here cares where you park once you're outside of town. We eventually came to a side road that led to a hiking trailhead, so we turned up there and found a place to park. We went for a short walk, but not on the trail. This trail leads to Teetering Rock, which I'm sure would be an interesting hike, but it's 24 kms (15 miles) roundtrip and they say to allow 8 hours to do the hike. Besides which, the trail has not been well maintained and looks like there is probably two years worth of growth and broken trees (I'm guessing this has to do with the priorities of recent British Columbia governments) and it could easily have taken longer than 8 hours.

Do bears poop in the woods? Apparently this one poops at the side of the road. Ruth caught him at an awkward moment, and I don't think he was very impressed.

 Yet another bear. 

We saw 4 bears and 1 moose during our 200 km (124 mile) drive yesterday.

Mrs. Moose.

This will do for the night!

A ruffed grouse.

A section of the old Alaska Highway.

Nice view from our short hike.

A trail marker, but not much of a trail.

Our overnight spot.

GPS 58.67278, -123.914849

Yep, we do take the time to relax sometimes!

So, we sat in the evening glancing out the window looking for a moose or a bear to pass by. But it never happened.

Today, we'll put on a few more miles, and hoping to go for a nice hike in the mountains.

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