Prince Rupert, BC to Seattle, WA

We left Prince Rupert on Sunday, Sept. 2 to head south for the U. S. border. It was a nicely paved road through rolling mountains, lakes and streams. We were able to make good time. If we had to drive instead of taking the ferry, this was nice country to be driving through. We even saw a black bear on the side of the road.

We stopped for the night at Dave’s RV Park in Vanderhoof, BC. It was a private RV park off the road that was very nice. We’ve decided to drive fairly long distances and make it easy on ourselves by staying at private RV parks with full hookups.

Labor Day we were up and off early again. The RV (and occupants) is eager to get home. It’s been a long trip.

Canada also celebrates Labor Day and we saw a fair amount of traffic on the road. This was unusual for Canadian roads, in our experience. We were traveling on roads that we had previously traveled on our trip up to Alaska. It took us, again, through the “Arizona of Canada”. It was warm and dry countryside.

We were tired, didn’t like the traffic, so we consulted our Trailer Life and decided to stay in Cache Creek at the Brookside Campsite Park. It was off the main road and situated under trees. We rested up for our push the next day across the border and our destination of Seattle.

Tues, Sept 4 we were off and running again retracing our tracks to the border crossing at Sumas, WA. Our liquor was depleted and we had little food in the refrig, so we had nothing to declare. This was the longest wait that we had at any border crossing. We waited approximately 30 minutes to cross. We heard that the border crossing further west, near Vancouver, have long waits. They are closing many of the lanes as they upgrade security for the up coming winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC.

It was a short drive to Seattle. We wanted to visit John’s cousin Robert and Donna S., a former colleagues at JPL.

The weather couldn’t have been better. (what rain?) There were clear, blue skies with the temperature in the mid 70’s. It was glorious.

We enjoyed a long catch up visit and dinner with John’s cousin Robert and his wife Rachael. We’ve decided not to let the time go so long between visits next time.

The next night we met Donna S. for dinner. John and Donna had lots of catching up to do about their former days at JPL.

After leaving JPL, Donna spent time as an assistant Dean of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. She still helps teach a systems engineering course on campus and was off to Norman the following Fri. She’s also an avid Sooners football fan. Donna moved to Seattle to become director of the Science Fiction Museum.

It was great to spend time with Robert, Rachael and Donna, but the time was too short.