South to Washington State

Traveling south on the Alcan various wildlife including deer with fawns, black bear, wood bison, snowshoe hare and stone sheep were seen. Although the road had been closed for a couple weeks due to a major forest fire near Fort Nelson we saw little to no smoke. Evidence of the fire with one smoldering part was along the highway just north of the town. The damage to both the forest and many buildings was obvious. The fire was halted only a mile or so north of the town. If it had not been halted there, much of the town would not have survived.

The Culture Visitor Center in Fort Nelson had maybe the nicest RV sanitary dump station I have ever seen. If you are not an RV’er it’s not important, yet to those that are take note. Potable water is available there as well.

We continued south and camped at the same campground we stayed at a year ago, Buckinghorse River Wayside Campsite where we met a new friend that we still stay in touch with, Sebastian. Last year he was desperately trying to get his Starlink to work to watch an important Football (Soccer) game. He had no luck since the trees blocked his antenna from receiving signal. We went deeper into the campground and camped at a spot were his Starlink would have worked. However, if he had found this location a year ago, we would not have met him. The twists and turns of life.

The next couple of days we continue south through British Columbia with the goal of visiting an old friend living just north of Seattle. The border crossing in Washington was uneventful other than having to surrender a whole package of chicken thighs. They would have been okay if they were cooked, but they were not. Bird flu prevention was the reason chicken thighs were not allowed into the country.

We found a “resort” RV park 20 miles north of Seattle where we stayed two nights. That way we could leave the trailer and drive to Lydia and Bob’s place. Their driveway is almost impossible to navigate in our truck and our trailer would never fit. Lydia was Marsha’s Maid of Honor more than forty years ago and we don’t get to see them often at all. On a side note Lydia was with Marsha when I first met her.

The next day was Sunday which was great for me. It was the day to drive through Seattle with the trailer dealing with all the traffic. It was not terrible, but certainly not a fun road trip. It was a relatively short trip to the Olympia area where we met up with another old friend from the Albany, NY area. Angelina, formally aka Sharon, move out west 30 plus years ago. Great to see her. We also squeezed in our second oil change of the trip.

Out of the blue I received an email asking if we were passing through Port Angeles on the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula. It was from a Facebook friend, Kirsten, who I thought was still living in Charlottesville, VA. Turns out she is in Port Angeles now helping to get “Gentle House” fully operational. There is more information on this beautiful gift by a poet in support of poets. https://tupelogentlehouse.org/the-gift/