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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Cache Creek to Prince George and the weather wasn’t bad at all!

 

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                   This is a long enough drive for us….275 miles.

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A little bit rainy and cloudy this morning but not cold. 

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The creek between us and the highway.  Rushing and dirty.

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When we were here a couple of years ago in the spring the creek was threatening to overflow it’s banks and we left and went up to Clinton where it snowed!  It had snowed in Williams Lake and we were laying over a couple of days until things calmed down.  It was the beginning of May, just like now.

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We’ll get into Prince George mid afternoon.

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Between Cache Creek and Clinton it rained and all the traffic splashed the windshield.  So…my pictures will contain the leftover Mexico sticker, a bicycle and road grime….great!

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The Clinton Emporium and….junk shop.

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Neat old church in Clinton. 

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Not very green here either.

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The cattle are still in close eating hay. 

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Dull today but still pretty.

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Coming down the long, long, long hill into 100 mile House.  This is a horrible climb coming south. 

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100 mile house.

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See what I mean about windshield grime.  I zoom, I crop and still this is what I get.

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Lovely little farms along the way.  They don’t need that irrigation line yet.

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Eric spied this train which turned out to be a passenger train which you rarely ever see.

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Just south of Williams Lake there is huge construction.  The plan is to make the highway 4 lanes from 100 mile House to Prince George and they are working here right now.  The sign said it should take about 10 years to complete the whole project. 

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Huge equipment working here.

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Ladies…one of the drivers was a woman.  Aren’t you impressed!

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Coming into Williams Lake.

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We have friends in Alexis Creek (head out towards Bella Coola) that we haven’t seen in years.  We turn right for Prince George.

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Fraser River, railway bridge and huge hay fields as we head towards Quesnel.

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A derelict building called the Anders Roadhouse which now serves chiefly as a billboard structure for the Ford dealership in Quesnel. It's a classic "saltbox" with a straight front facade, two storeys of windows on the front, and a collapsed dormer on the rear roof pitch. It stands by the side of the highway about 5 km. north of the Fort Alexandria historic cairn.

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South of Quesnel and we stopped at the Australian Rest Stop for lunch. Its name is derived from that of the Australian Ranch, one of British Columbia's first ranching operations and also an important and popular roadhouse on the Cariboo Road during the Cariboo Gold Rush and afterwards. The Canadian National Railway point at this location is named Australian Wye.

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Cattle grazing here.

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Coming into Quesnel.

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Bridge over Quesnel River.  

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As we waited to turn north on 97 in Quesnel I saw this War Memorial dedicated to the memory of the men of the Cariboo who gave their lives in the 1st, 2nd and Korean War. 

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When summer comes Quesnel does a great job with beautification.   Lots of hanging baskets and flowers everywhere.  It is always a bit warmer in Quesnel than either Williams Lake or Prince George when we come through. 

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Down this long, long hill and the logging truck is coming up.  Lots and lots of truck carrying logs today.

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All that wood turns into sawdust here for Pinnacle woodstove pellets. 

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Hay trucks on the road too.

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And…more logs.  Spruce, pine….you name it.

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Before Hixon and more huge construction.

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More highway widening I guess.

So…we are parked in the Bon Voyage Motel/RV hook-ups at the northwest end of Prince George where we usually stop heading south and north.    The water isn’t on because it’s still been freezing which is no problem and we only have 15amp power but we only need a little bit of heat as it’s not cold so that’s no problem either.  We can have a continental breakfast in the morning as part of the RV fee and then ….on the road again in the morning. 

I will take pictures tomorrow but I can’t guarantee that I will get another posting done soon.   We don’t have a hard wired internet connection at home because we are rural and Telus has not made it  available to us or many of the other people who live out our way.    We had dial-up internet which Telus abandoned just before we left last fall as they said it was too expensive to maintain but since I couldn’t post with it anyway because it was too slow it didn’t really matter.  We will get some sort of cell based internet but I doubt you will see much in the way of posts over the next few months.  I always promise to do the odd post and then it just falls by the wayside….sorry.  In the end this is a travel blog so I guess that’s just they way it is! 

As ever…..Kathy

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Kelowna to Cache Creek (Brookside RV Park)

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Only 162 miles to go today so we weren’t in a hurry.  We awoke to sunny skies but it was still pretty chilly.  Packed up and on the road by 9:30.

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Kalamalka Lake.

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Getting closer to Vernon.

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A lot nicer day than last Thursday when we came up this way. 

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Vernon, like the rest of Okanagan is now hugely busy.

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Highway 97 heading up towards Falkland and then on to Kamloops.

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Pretty farming area with lots of old buildings.

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There was a huge fire in this area a number of years ago and they are still cutting the wood.

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Not spring here either.  When we pass this way most years it is all nice and green.

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This old barn would have a lot of memories and it’s on it’s last legs.

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To the right you see water but it is not a lake.  This is a huge hay field that is still under spring run off.  In other years there has been a little water but now it looks like a huge lake.  Not good news for this year’s hay crop.

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We’ve come by Kamloops and up over the big hill out of town.  It’s always amazing to us that our truck can pull the big beast attatched to it’s rear up these huge hills!  Good truck.   Turn right for Cache Creek.

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Only 71 km’s to go and it’s time to stop for lunch.

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Pretty through here and mostly hay land.  If you have water…you can grow hay because it hardly ever rains here.

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Nice and green here.  Must be alfalfa to be that bright.

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We stop at the look out on Kamloops lake for lunch.

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Pretty spot and today it’s not even freezing cold. 

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Heading down towards Savona.

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Lots of stuff to look at here.  All very neat and organized.  Eric always says he’d like to stop but….never seems to be time.

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Spring run off and this creek is really muddy.

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Beautiful craggy mountains.

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Coming into Cache Creek.

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We pulled into the Brookside RV park around 2:30 and were soon parked.  Picked our own spot and will go up to pay later.  The creek isn’t as high as it was the last time we were here.  That time we thought we’d get trapped in the park and moved to higher ground in Clinton.

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Beautiful, sunny and 18C.  We haven’t been this warm since we left Alamo, Nevada. 

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Some full timers at one end of the park but not many others. 

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Hooked up and ready for a nice afternoon.  It will soon cloud over and we are expecting a rainy drive to Prince George tomorrow.