After saying long goodbyes, and making promises to visit and stay in touch, we departed heading east on HWY 2 to Delta Junction where we stopped and ate with another dear friend. We let our dog run around and our tortoise sun bathe.
Octavious the Tortoise spent the trip under my seat in a sock. He completely destroyed the sock and didn't seem to overall enjoy the trip.
Sitka the dog spent the trip trying to watch for moose and occasionally lightly napping. His favorite part was the new smells when we stopped. He didn't particularity like the driving part. His new thunder shirt really helped calm him down.
We crossed into the Canada boarder that evening. It was the most casual/weirdest boarder crossing I've ever done.
There was a good 3 miles between leaving the united states and the Canada check point. There was even a cabin between the sides. Like I'm fairly sure he lived on the Canada side, but if he wanted to go into the rest of Canada, he'd hafta go through the check point.
The check point it'self was simple. handed over passports and pet papers, and told them our intentions. No line. Super simple.
On the other side we had to stop for a GIANT grizzly crossing the road. It stopped in the middle of the road and stared us down. I felt very vulnerable and didn't dare move to grab my camera.
We camped that first night in beaver creek. Appropriately there was a beaver in the creek.
Day 2: We had a Milepost and were thoroughly reading it an enjoying the stories of all the things we saw. It kept me entertained.
We stopped at Destruction Bay where we saw a coyote and a juvenile bald eagle. We enjoyed a good leg stretch.
I should mention that I was collecting sapling aspen leaves a couple times every day for my boss's latitudinal study. The ants were terrible. At one point Sitka and I were collecting some leaves in an grassy area and the ant's started swarming on us and biting us. We ran, of course, but they clung on and I would find them biting me for DAYS in the car. Like just chilling in the car, and look down to an ant biting my jeans. I would kill it. And then a few hours later ANOTHER would be biting my ankle, or shirt, or where ever. Sitka wouldn't go on anymore Aspen Expeditions with me.
We got gas, and some more aspen leaves (ant free luckily) in Nugget City and turned onto HWY 37 also known as the Cassiar Highway. We crossed into British Columbia and found a place to camp.
Also it was noticeably darker sooner. This was August in Alaska, so we were used to late sunset, as we traveled south, the sun set sooner and sooner. It was weird. Also we could drive less and less as we didn't like setting up camp in the dark.
Day 3: The Cassiar Highway is beautiful. There was this huge burn area from 2011 that had fields of pink fire-weed and the swampier area had fields of cotton grass.
We saw a baby black bear. We saw some motorcyclists in front of us stopped, one guy had dismounted and taking pictures of this baby black bear posing on the side of the road. I don't know what breed of idiot thinks it's ever a good idea to be on foot, approaching a baby bear. Luckily the momma bear didn't show, no body fled for their lives, and I got a couple pictures of the little dude (from the safety of our car).
Also around this time we started running into construction. Because the road was a simple 2-laner usually without any need for lines, we had to wait for pilot cars. And because the construction would be for many miles, we would wait for a long while. We would pull up to sometimes a few cars. Turn our car off, get out and chat with fellow waiters. The bicyclists would put their bikes in the back of the pilot truck and ride with him to the other side. It was good and was exactly the sorta of spirit of the area. Every one was relaxed with out rush.
We stopped for the night at another camp along the Cassiar. It smelled like bear in the morning. Quite a refreshing smell when walking Sitka for his morning constitutional.
Day 4: We stopped at the jade store and bought a few trinkets. The Cassiar mountains are mined for their jade. We saw huge boulders of jade. It was really cool. The sink for the bathroom was jade.
We tried to save a small dog running down the road. There was an RV camp nearby we assumed it belonged too. The dog just kept running. It was quite scared. Unfortunately it ran into the woods and we lost it. I hope someone found it before a coyote did. Poor thing.
With more construction the rest of the day was unexciting. We thought a "real meal" would be good so we stopped in the first town with a restaurant that we saw. Before this there wasn't much by the way of towns. There was an occasional gas station with snacks and some cabins, but no restaurants. So we thought we'd camp at a town with food. This first town was Kitwanga. It had a really cool national historic site called Gitwangak Battle Hill. It was literally this HUGE hill surrounded on two sides by a bend in the river. The people who lived there used it as a fort with storage and buildings on top and pointy spears keeping people from climbing up and huge spiky logs that they would release which would roll on top of an enemy army climbing up. There was this warrior who came up with the whole thing. He was practically invincible with a bone breastplate and bear cloak. His mother had been captured by an enemy tribe and escaped and return with him. So he had the added advantage of knowing his enemy's battle strategy. Super cool story.
We ate a huge warm meaty meal at the restaurant in town and it tasted like the best food we'd ever eaten. Also this is where we discovered huckleberry ginger ale soda. AMAZING!!!
So that night was an adventure all by it'self. We had seen a momma black bear when were on the battle hill down by the river. And the locals had told us there was a momma and baby enjoying the protection of town, but they hadn't caused any real mischief yet. Anyways, we were a tad concerned, but set up camp anyways. However neither Sitka nor Gordon could sleep, so around midnight we packed up to try and find a place where we could sleep more comfortably without Sitka waking us up with his warning growls.
Day 5: We hopped in the car with poorly packed bags and drove onto Yellowhead Highway heading east. We stopped at the first motel around 1 am. We showered, oh it was so joyous to shower. We hadn't showered on this trip yet. And we slept like a rock. When we finally woke up (some time after dawn, unlike usual) we stopped at the small grocery and restocked on snacks and Canada Dry huckleberry ginger Ale soda :). We continued on our way getting deeper and deeper into civilization as we went.
There started to be signs and advertisements everywhere, then there were so many cars, and then multiple lanes on the highway, and then we started seeing chain stores we were familiar with. We got to Prince George and headed south of HWY 97. We camped that night at a park by a lake. I don't remember where. We got in after dark and left at dawn, so we unfortunately didn't get a chance to enjoy the area.
Day 6: We were fairly anxious to get done with our trip at this point. There highway was multiple lanes and we couldn't just pull over and enjoy a view anymore. We had made plans to stay with a friend in the Seattle area that evening so we just drove.
This is the day we started having car problems. We had never known our car had an overheating problem, because in the 2 + years we had it, the weather had never been hot enough to be a concern. Anyways, our car starts to overheat as we get to the U. S. boarder. The lanes were long. the road was hot. And it was August. Our car was taking in very hot air, and without the ability to cool it, the engine was beginning to overheat. And this begins the unexpected second half of the adventure.
We took the drive to Seattle nice and slow, watching our engine temperature. When it started to go up, we would pull over and let it calm down. We made it to Seattle and didn't know what to do. We showered, ate, went to an amazing dog park, and a beach on Lake Washington. We also picked up some coolant as we had been using water to cool down the radiator as it boiled dry.
Day 7: We departed our friends and headed east to Idaho on HWY 90. And from there to HWY 82. where we had to take some heat breaks. We started thinking about a camping place, when we ran into a rather large brush fire from Baker City, Oregon to Nampa, Idaho. HWY 84 was closed. We found a very packed KOA next to a nice dude who Gordon got a long well with. The dude was also delayed by the fire so he had to fly to his destination, he left us his camping chairs. Which we still have, with some fixed joints.
Day 8: Information was given to us about an alternate route through Malheur National Forest. It took us on back roads through the forest and to Nampa, Idaho. It took longer, but the fire wasn't giving us many options. It was also an extremely beautiful place.
We didn't have too many over heating problems on the back roads, luckily, but once we hit Boise, our car started having difficulties again. We stopped in Mountain Home, Idaho to give our car a break, and it wouldn't start when we wanted to go. So we waited a bit longer. With a few prayers and pleas the car did start and we drove the Walmart there. The sun had set, and we were not sure if we should find a place to camp or what. Gordon was convinced we needed to buy a new car at that very moment. He even went to a used car sales man there in town. Even the used car salesman thought it was a bad idea.
We were supposed to meet with some relations that evening a few hours away, when we called them to tell them of our situation, they grabbed their flat bed trailer and came to us. We finally got to their place in the wee hours of the morning, where we all slept heavily and awoke to a delicious breakfast.
Day 9: We were going to have a local mechanic look over our car, so we spent the day looking for new apartments around Idaho State University, where Gordon wanted to go to school. We were rather disappointed and didn't find anywhere good that day. We returned to our relation's home to figure out how we were going to get farther south to our final destination (another relation we were going stay with for a week or two while we moved into our new apartment, and where all our stuff was).
Day 10: Our generous parentals drove up, picked us up, and our car, which had fairly well recovered and we drove slowly, in the cool of the day, to our new short-term home. We were all exhausted. This is Sitka nodding off in his seat on our final leg.
10 days, 2,977 miles, ~ 53 driving hours. 1 car break down, 3 friends, 2 relations, and too many bears.
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