2014 Rudy & Beth Summer Road Trip Day 7 & 8

Prince George to Sunwapta Falls & A Day Around Jasper

Ok so I've been derelict in my updates and I'm going the cheap route by doing two days at once.  Well they are kind of the same area. I wanted to post some videos I did with my GoPro camera but I'm working on a satellite internet connection and just one video would have taken 7 hours to upload.  So I'll edit this page when I get home after I do the uploading there.  The ride from Prince George to Jasper was very scenic and it culminated with a view of Mount Robson and then the Rockies around Jasper.  Pretend like you see a video of Robson Below.

Here it where it will be!

We found a great Italian food place right in middle of Jasper.  It's a busy place but this terrace is hidden away with a ton of hanging baskets.  The pizza and Greek (yes Greek not Italian) salad was great the merlot came out of a really good box I'm guessing.

Above is a photo looking down at a Fiat 600 car driven by two guys who have driven from Argentina and are on their way to Alaska.  A 600 was a pretty special model in it's day, it must have about 18 horsepower or so.  We passed them later on the highway and they were up to about 45 MPH, not bad.  Notice the rear engine compartment is propped open with a stick for added cooling on a hot day going up mountain passes.  We used to do that with our 1200 VW Bug, it was a screamer.  My apologies for the hog next to this cool old vehicle, you can't always pick your parking neighbors.

Above is a picture of our ride "MUNICH" the K1300 GT right next to a hog.  The store below was offering Harley Davidson rentals.  They also advertised chauffeured side car rides, which seems like a really fun thing, if you like that sort of thing.  Getting in a side hack with a stranger driving isn't my idea of fun but that's just me.

The sign above speaks for itself, no Bullwinkle was sighted, darn.

We saw no moose but we did see this little guy, I put it in my saddle bag and am taking it home to a friend.   We also saw a mom bear with a cub but didn't linger to take pictures from a motorcycle, the bear spray was buried in a side bag somewhere.  

Well tomorrow we are off to Waterton Lake just north of Glacier, basically it's an extension of Glacier in Canada.  We've been to all these places before but we love them a lot and like to revisit them.  What is really scary though is that we can see how noticeably the glaciers have receded in our life time.   Never mind there is no global warming.

2014 Rudy & Beth Summer Road Trip Day 6

Smithers to Prince George

Railroad & Logging Museum

The trip here today was pleasant and uneventful.  The road is way to straight and the scenery is nice but doesn't change much and doesn't really have any big dramatic elements. Last night, after I posted to the blog, I lost all my videos and pictures of the Northern British Columbia Museum.  I'm really major bummed out!

This is a wooden snow plow with sheets of steel over it.  The guys who worked inside of it had a 25 % chance of buying the farm due to derailment, so they say.

Beth said she acutally worked on a switch board at Puget Sound hospital when she was in college.  What was really scary is that many of the phones they had behind glass we both used when we were kids.

I won't tell you what this is but I will tell you that it was part of the logging industry.  Let me know what you think it is.

This is a beautiful wood cook stove that was inside a little train station that was moved to this site. 

See you tomorrow we are heading for Jasper

2014 Rudy & Beth Summer Road Trip Day 5

Prince Rupert to Smithers

A Visit to the 

Museum of Northern British Columbia

 I have to stop uploading photos of this place, I went wild and took over 100 along with videos.  When I first saw the artifacts and the structure of the Museum of History and Anthropology at the University of  British Columbia in Vancouver, I thought I'd seen the definitive museum housing first nations artifacts, now I'm not so sure anymore.  While Erickson's architecture is still sublime, the artifacts housed in the museum of Northern British Columbia, while not as plentiful, are beyond beautiful.  

The museum also houses artifacts of early settlers.  These items pale, incomparison to the first nations items.  Western culture seems  baren and barbarian compared to the exquisite nature, and artful design of everyday objects used by the first nations people.  

2014 Rudy & Beth Summer Road Trip Day 4

Port Hardy to Prince Rupert

via

Inland Passage

Well we had to get up at 4:30 to be at the ferry dock at 5:30 to depart at 7:30 only to arrive at Prince Rupert at 12:30 AM the next day.  The ferry isn't that old and it was built in Germany.  It's all 220 volt so it was good we brought the converter to plug in our electro junk.  No internet and no cell signal, ya gotta love it.  This is why this post is a day later than normal.  The passage did not disappoint with over 300 miles of wilderness so close it felt like you could touch it.  Lots of critters: eagles, orcas, porpoises, an grey whales.

The bike got parked and strapped down, good thing too, we had some pretty good wave action at the beginning.  Beth is ready to head upstairs to explore the ferry.

A rainbow made our departure a hopeful occasion after some pretty good rain to start the day.

Beth decided to lay back and do some reading after she almost skunked me in a crib game.

We saw plenty of light houses and navigational buoys on the way.  They did announcements on the ferry to explain a bit of the history of the areas we were passing.  All in all it was a marvelous day, soggy as it was.  We arrived at about 12:30 and scooted off to our hotel for a late night stay.

2014 Rudy & Beth Summer Road Trip Day 3

Gold Creek to Port Hardy

Here is a video of some of the ride from Gold River to Campbell River

Port Hardy has many totem poles and sculptures.  This area is home to the: Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Haida, Nisga'a and Heiltsuk.  We are looking forward to visiting the Museum of Northern British Columbia in Prince Rupert to get a close look at their artwork.  The inland passage ferry ride tomorrow is going to be amazing, we can't wait.   Had a good dinner here....lamb shank, yum.  We need to get up at 4:30 AM to be at the ferry dock at 5:30 to start loading for a 7:30 departure.  Sleep it's highly over rated!

2014 Beth & Rudy Summer Road Trip Day 2

Port Angeles to Gold River BC via Victoria BC

We sailed over to Victoria on the Black Ball Ferry out of Port Angeles and road up to a place called Gold River which is close to the east end of Nootka Sound.  Really a dead place, there is hardly anyone here, must not be fishing season.  Had a nice leisurely ride here, we only went about 250 miles and took our time.  We did lots of looky looing on the way.  We had lunch at this town called Chemanius which apparently was a place where a lot of Chinese folks labored as early loggers.  Tomorrow we head for Port Hardy and stay overnight to catch the ferry to Prince Rupert the next day.

2014 Summer Road Trip

 

Beth & Rudy

 

Vancouver Island - BC Ferry to Prince Rupert - Canadian Rockies -Glacier - Home

 

 

We are looking forward to getting away for a while.  Beth is leaving her bike at home, we are going two up on "Munich".  We are going to explore the northern part of Vancouver Island and then take a 18 hour ferry ride to Prince Rupert just south of Ketchikan.  From there off to the Canadian Rockies (Jasper, Lake Louis, Yoho, Banff), then off to Waterton on the Canadian side of Glacier National Park, then we'll work our way home via the "Road to the Sun" then northern Idaho and Washington back home.

WE ARE OUT OF HERE!