North to Alaska: Day 41

Welcome! Day 41/42/43 (Sept 18/19/20) of North to Alaska

Quote: “We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lost sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.”

Day 41: Today we travelled to Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert is the western end to the Canadian Rail system. It is also a port city on the south end of the Inland Passage. The highway from Terrance was completed during WW II by US Troops giving Prince Rupert access by road, rail, air, and sea. Prince Rupert the 30^th largest city in BC, is about half the size of Whitehorse the largest city in the Yukon. Prince Rupert has several fast food places. It has a Walmart and several financial institutions.

We left Bell 2 and stayed on Highway 37 until it ended into Highway 16 going toward Prince Rupert. We stopped in Terrance for lunch. Terrance is a nice size town of just over 11,000. We then continued on to Prince Rupert. The scenery was still good. Mostly mountains. We did see a bear in one of the rest areas just walking around like he owned the place, I guess as far as I was concerned he did. We stayed on the harbor but not near the marina. The view from our room was great. The motel provided some very good binoculars. Cassie spent several hours just looking out to the Inland Passage and the activity of the boats.

Day 42: We travelled back along Highway 16 until we passed the Alaska Stewart Highway and then continued on to Houston BC. On the way back we did see many many waterfalls. It was raining and had rained most of the night, the mountains looked great with the water flowing down to the edge of the highway. We stopped for a rest room break where Highway 37 ended into Highway 16. Cassie noticed that the café connected to the convenience store which was connected to the gas pumps had beef stew as the special for the day. So we took time to have some lunch before heading on toward Houston.

In Houston we had reservations at what I thought was a B&B and it almost was. We had to drive around town, Houston is not too big, until I could locate the street. Our GPS found Houston but did not provide any turn by turn directions. Most of the small towns in Canada operated this way but most of the small towns only had one street with any activity. We did find it after about 20 minutes. It was a large new house with some rooms in the back. Our room turned out to be a two bedroom suite with a large living room. The breakfast was “a make your own” continental style breakfast. They provided the ingredients and we put it together when we wanted. It actually worked well for us. Cassie had her coffee and pastries with some fruit. I had cereal with a banana.

Day 43: Today we are in Williams Lake BC. We were on the road about 9 AM and arrive in Williams Lake just before 4 PM. One of our longer driving days. Most of the mountains have disappeared. The land is more rolling hills. We had more traffic today than we have had since leaving Alaska. But still not much. The road was good and had passing lanes fairly often. We stopped in Prince George at a Dairy Queen for lunch. No steak fingers, I miss our DQ in Euless.

Driving wise it was a mostly uneventful day. I expect tomorrow to be more of the same as we head toward the lower 48.

BTW today starts our 7^th week on the road. As of now we still plan to be home by October 15^th. As to where we are heading after Seattle is still up in the air. I am still concerned about the fires in California.

We will see where the road takes us.