Daily Didactic
Our day started very early, with a cup of coffee and conversation with Chris and Susan. A little after Chris headed to work, with some much appreciated fresh veggies and a jar of Susan's homemade jam, we hit I-5 north for the Canadian border. Blaine is only 20 miles or so north of Bellingham and we had a relatively painless crossing into Canada. We typically don't cross at Blaine, instead we usually use the far less busy crossing slightly east in Sumas, but we were heading for a stretch of scenic byway that we've heard of for a few years. Taking Canadian Highway 99 through the very nice looking large city of Vancouver, we headed up the incredibly blue waters of Horseshoe Bay and eventually wound inland for the climb over the Lillooet Range and past the resort area of Whistler. It was a beautiful drive, the scenery was great, and as soon as we crested the pass of the range we could feel the heat of the Fraser Valley to the east. Having risen too early and faced with heat in the low 90's we did the only thing we could do. We found a small shaded campground next to a small river and took a nap.

Waking a bit later, we continued on eastward through an amazingly pretty chunk of Canada and a lot of smoke from summer forest fires. We headed north on Highway 97 at Cache Creek, and drove into the evening through a series of smaller towns, then Quesnel, and eventually Prince George. We had hoped to get a little further, but as night was settling in we hit an old standby, the Blue Spruce Campground. We spent a week at the Blue Spruce the better part of ten years ago waiting for a new engine for the bus to come from Nova Scotia. While it's not the ritziest place we've slept, it's comfortable, the price is right, and we always leave happy. After the longest day of driving we've had in almost two months, we called it our first day on the road back home.

Daily Pictures (Slide Show)

Morning, in the garden area		A little early morning cat toture
Chris and Susan, our gracious hosts		Crossing into Canada
Those wacky BCers and their supernatural stuff		Crossing the river into Vancouver
Vancouver is full of nice old buildings		A cool bridge over another river we can't remember the name of...
Looking back at Vancouver		B.C. signs and warning are very excitable
Just before leaving Horshoe Bay up to Whistler		A beautiful lake past Whistler, toward Cache Creek
A beautiful valley past Whistler, toward Cache Creek		Stopped for a nap, in an unbelievable free B.C. maintained campground
Ditto		Well, Brian drove it, but Theresa will remind all that it's no 14%er
The windy road back down the pass to the bottom		There were a lot of one lane bridges today
Cool old barn		Cool old sunset

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