If they call it the Balancing Rock Trail, there must be a balancing rock somewhere!

Another beautiful day, and again with much less forest fire smoke. Unfortunately, the fires are still burning here in much of British Columbia, but I guess the winds have shifted enough that the smoke is not bothering us in this area.

We like to take advantage of the perfect hiking weather, so that's exactly what we did!

Looks like we're taking a little detour into the U.S. next week...

We had a nice day yesterday! The weather was perfect, and there wasn't very much smoke in the air. We had parked overnight at the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area, right at their info center. So when it opened, we went in to see what trails were the best.

It's mostly a wetlands area, but there is some forest as well. We decided on a one hour hike to get the blood flowing. It's only 4 kms (2.5 miles), but we wanted to do a bike ride afterwards as well.

No schedule for the next four weeks!

We were in Creston, British Columbia with the motorhome back in November of 2007, and my comment on the blog at the time was ...it's a really nice town. Seemed like a place we could live, actually.

And we still like it! In fact, we might hang out here for a couple of days. We have no schedule between now and September 25th when we have to be at Abbotsford (a suburb of Vancouver) to fly back to Ontario for Ruth's nephew's wedding.

Not a very smooth day, but we did get a couple of things accomplished

Well, lots to talk about today!

From the Wasa Provincial Park, I called the Kal Tire store in Cranbrook, only about 35 kms (22 miles) south of the park. Fortunately, Sherman's two front tires had arrived! They said they weren't very busy, and should be able to install them without much of a wait.

Lindsey and Justin followed along to see if we could figure out how long it would take to do the job, but by the time we got there it was almost 11:00am. I sort of figured they would end up carrying on on their own towards Kelowna because they fly out of there on Wednesday morning.

A nice hike, a beach, and some rain!

We said goodbye to the relatives, and got Sherman packed up to hit the road. Not going far though, only to Wasa Provincial Park between Fairmont and Cranbrook.

First stop though, was just outside of Fairmont at the Hoodoo Trail. Only a short 3 kms (1.8 mile) hike, which is enough when you've got a 5 year old with you! Cameron (age 7) is pretty good, but Sadie isn't quite into hiking just yet!

They finally arrived!

So yesterday morning we were waiting for our daughter Lindsey, son in law Justin, and grandkids Cameron and Sadie to arrive. They had been stopped by a highway accident that closed the road and they ended up having to get a motel room for the night.

Then, they got on the road at 5:45am to do the final part of the drive here. They still had another two and a half hours or so two go when I got message from our daughter... the road was closed again due to another accident!

It didn't take long to remember why we don't use RV parks

Woke up Friday morning to a few drops of rain on the roof. We decided to get up and drive down the hill we were parked on and into the town of Invermere about 25 kms (15 miles) away. Good thing we did, because on the way it actually rained fairly steadily for about 45 minutes, so we didn't have to deal with the wet gravel road.

Found the visitors info place in Invermere and they had a good size parking lot and fast free wifi. Had breakfast there and then went to stock up on some groceries because our daughter Lindsey and her family were scheduled to arrive yesterday evening.

We didn't play tourist for very long!

We got up at 6:00am yesterday morning and started driving right away. We were only about 100 kms (62 miles) from Lake Louise, and we figured we would get there before the crowds.

Wrong!

Jasper, Lake Louise, and Banff are beautiful, however...

They are not so beautiful during busy tourist season! What a circus!

We never "planned" on being in this area at all. And certainly not at this time of year. But when I checked the map to figure out our route down to Fairmont Hot Springs, coming down the Icefields Parkway was the only route that made sense. To go any other way would have added at least 250 kms (155 miles). Although, it might have been worth it!

Shattered into a thousand pieces...

The day started off fairly clear, but as we made our way to the town of McBride, it got smokier. Which is a real shame, because that area is beautiful with the mountains on either side of the Robson Valley.

We were wanting to do a hike, but there was really no point. Not good to be breathing in the smoky air, and we wouldn't get much of a view anyhow.

Another great free campsite!

Said goodbye to my Uncle Dave and Aunt Melissa, and hope to see them again somewhere in the world! They were talking about going to Newfoundland and renting an RV, so maybe they'll do that while we are there next summer. That would be fun.

We took off on the Yellowhead Highway #16, heading southeast towards Jasper National Park.

A nice day around Prince George, British Columbia

We had a really nice day yesterday. Uncle Dave and Aunt Melissa planned a three hour hike for us all, and we were going to do it in the morning, but as 10 o'clock rolled around we decided to go out for lunch first and then do the hike afterwards.

They took us out to the Northern Lights Estate Winery. We didn't go for the wine... but we had a really good meal!

Seems there is no escaping it

We were laughing the other day about how long it takes us to get anywhere. Our regular readers know that when we're traveling in the motorhome, 200 kms (124 miles) a day is a long driving day. But that's because there is too much to see along the way!

And every little town has an interesting story to tell. Yesterday was a good example.

An interesting day... a bear scare, forest fires, and helicopters

We had delicious bacon and egg breakfast with my cousin Calvin and his wife Brenda, but being a work day they were soon off to the daily grind, leaving us to depart whenever we were ready.

I decided this was a good opportunity to change Sherman's engine oil, so I got everything out and crawled underneath Sherman to drain the oil and change the filter. I was about to screw on the new filter when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and had to do a double take!

Well, four new tires are better than none

We went back over to the Kal Tire store first thing Thursday morning to get Sherman's new tires installed. But unfortunately, the two tires we were waiting for didn't show up! When I had ordered them, we were told they would be in "Wednesday at the latest"... but it didn't happen.

So, there were four tires there. The other two they were now told would show up Monday, which is too late for us!

Out with the old, and in with the new...

We knew that Sherman's new tires wouldn't all be delivered to the tire shop until close to noon, so we headed out early to the Twin Falls Recreation area near Smithers. We had read that it was just a short hike to the falls, but we wanted to do a little more than that so we parked where the paved road ended and walked the 2 kms (1.3 miles) each way on the gravel road to the trailhead.

Well, we spent a chunk of money yesterday.

And the spending is not over yet!

It used to be, during our full time working days that when we spent a bunch of money, the attitude was "oh well, we'll make some more tomorrow!" But it's not so easy any more with our sporadic income.

Let me tell you how we spent $776 CAD ($600 USD)...

A bit of frustration, but it ended up better than expected

Yesterday's first stop was back at the visitors center in Hazelton to use their free wifi. They also have a free RV dump station there, so we took advantage of that by using Sherman's shower and dumping the grey tank and filling the fresh water tank.

Hazelton is what we would call an RVFT. What's an RVFT, you ask...?

We can't believe there are empty campsites at this beautiful place

And last night, we were the only ones there!

Like I said yesterday, Anderson Flats is a kind of an odd Provincial park. We found out a little more about it when a couple of conservation officers stopped by to warn us about the current fire ban. The area has only been a provincial park since 2007. Apparently somebody (with the last name Anderson) died and left the land to the province.

We think we'll stay here another day!

Another beautiful day. Clear blue skies and high of 28C (83F).That doesn't help the forest fire situation southeast of here, but it sure is nice for us travelers!

We had originally thought about making it to Smithers yesterday because it's not that far. But we're in no rush, and we got sidetracked to a beautiful campsite!

Totem poles near Kitwanga, British Columbia

We had a nice drive yesterday from Stewart to Kitwanga, British Columbia. And the weather was perfect. We didn't leave Stewart until almost noon. I tried cleaning the idle air control valve on the throttle body to fix Sherman's high idle problem, but as I expected it didn't change anything.

It may need a new one, or it could be something else entirely. We'll get it checked when we get to Smithers.

Sherman is getting old

Just like the rest of us!

We woke up yesterday morning and drove the short distance back across the Canadian border from Hyder, Alaska to Stewart, British Columbia. It was just starting to spit with rain as we pulled up to the border station. The Canadian guard asked a couple of questions, and scanned our passports and we were back in Canada... almost as if we never left.

We heard a commotion with lots of splashing water!

It's an interesting situation here at the border of British Columbia and Alaska.

The town of Stewart, British Columbia (pop 500) is located right on the border with Alaska. And the town of Hyder, Alaska (pop 84) is located right at the same border. There is a Canadian border station here, but there is no U.S. border station. It's probably the only place in North America where you can legally cross in to the United States and not be interrogated by the border patrol people!

This has to be one of the best drives in Canada...

We've done a lot of driving the past four days! That's actually a good thing though, it gives us the opportunity to take a couple of rest days as we want to if we're at a place that we think warrants more time.

And we think we're at one of those places now. The scenery around Stewart, British Columbia at the border with Hyder, Alaska is amazing!

Forest Fire!

Yesterday, we planned on driving as far as the town of Dease Lake. But at our first stop of the day at Boya Lake Provincial Park, we spoke to the park operator and she said "oh, you won't want to stay in Dease Lake, it will be a zoo". Apparently there was a bad forest fire burning at the nearby community of Telegraph Creek, and that area is under a full evactuation order.

We had all day that we could drive, so we weren't that worried. We stayed at Boya Lake and had breakfast and went for a 3 km (1.9 mile) hike to get the blood flowing.

Goodbye Yukon!

Wow... that was a great trip to Canada's north, wasn't it?

It was on June 5th that we arrived in the Yukon, and we crossed the border heading south into British Columbia yesterday, on August 5th. So while we figured we would be approximately two months in the north, we didn't plan it to be exactly two months!

Fantastic views above Carcross, Yukon

We wanted to get our hike in early, and we had overnighted at the trailhead, so we were on the trail at 8:15am.

We've been using a great website called Yukon Hiking and they listed this trail as "moderate". Well, maybe it's moderate to a 25 year old, but for us we would have rated it "difficult". We sure wouldn't want to do a hike any more difficult than this one!

Good thing we didn't meet any oncoming traffic!

We went into downtown Whitehorse on Friday morning, filled up the fuel tank, and emptied the holding tanks. Also did some stocking up at both the grocery store and the liquor store, There aren't many services along the Cassiar Highway so we wanted to be prepared.

Then, we headed back down the highway that takes you to Skagway, Alaska. Only as far as Carcross though! I had read about a fantastic hike in the area, and we wanted to have a better look at the town as well.

Ready to hit the road!

We've been parked up at our friends Art and Jean's place in Whitehorse, Yukon for the past 4 nights. They've let us use their water hose to give Sherman a much needed clean up!

Even though we had used a pressure washer when we were up in Tok, Alaska to get rid of some of the Dempster Highway mud off Sherman's underside, there was still a lot of it that I didn't get at the time.

Day trip to Skagway, Alaska

I can understand why people choose to live in Whitehorse. Especially in the summertime, when you've got so many daylight hours! There is just soooo much to see and do within a two hour drive.

Yesterday, our friends Jean and Art took us in their truck for a day trip down to Skagway, Alaska... only a 160 km (100 mile) drive each way.

July Expenses

Well, not a bad month considering we spent almost a thousand dollars on fuel! We knew that was going to be our major expense up here in the north, so it's not that much of a shock.

We spent a total of $2,069 CAD ($1,600 USD) for the month.

Here's how it all broke down...