Chetwynd - where White Birches grow like grass OR Where are James VanderBeek, Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson?

As we stated in our last post, WiFi is spotty at best here in the Canadian hinterlands.  So, this is the first opportunity we've had to write a blog post in a while.  We are going to give it a go.

We last wrote you from Kamloops in lower British Columbia, Canada.  This posting finds us at Muncho Lake, in UPPER British Columbia.  We will be putting our first foot, wheel, etc. into the Yukon Territories tomorrow, Lord Willing.

We've taken a TON of pictures while on the trip and that's just SO FAR!  The scenery here is beautiful.  One of the main reasons Irene and I love to travel is to see what God put "THERE and nowhere else." (For those of you that are non-believers - what the BIG bang, quantum physics, gravity, blind chance, happenstance, and serendipity put "THERE and nowhere else.")  But one thing we can all agree on is that beauty is beauty and we've dun seen some beauty on this here trip! (I know "dun" is spelled "done" in reality).

From Kamloops we headed toward Dawson Creek and the beginning of the Alaska Highway.  One thing that is tough to get used to is that there isn't 22 different routes to take to get from the lower 48 to Alaska by car or RV - There is ONE route (Well, technically two - the road or the ferry, but that would kinda be dumb - Taking your RV on a ferry?  Why didn't you just take a cruise to Alaska???? 

We are limiting ourselves to about 150-200 miles per day (for our Canuckian Readers that is 240-320 Kilometers per day).  So, on the way to Dawson Creek we had to stop for numerous nights along the way: Williams Lake, Prince George and Chetwynd.

In Williams Lake (4/29/2016) we stayed at the Walmart overnight.  It let us do some needed shopping.  We also had to go to the Freightliner dealer there to get some maintenance done - Oil Change; Radiator Coolant Changed; Oil, Water Separator and Fuel Filters Changed.  The next day we stopped in Prince George (4/30) for the night.  We had to go to the Freightliner dealer again because the one in Williams Lake didn't have our Air Filter and their dealer in Prince George did.  We also had to go to the Walmart again.  To be truthful, the shelves in the Walmart stores in Canada that we have been to is only slightly better than the store shelves in Communist Russia!! (An slight over exaggeration to drive home a point).  Large areas of the shelves have no stock on them at all and it isn't uncommon to have a single item of what is in stock.

Since May 2nd was Sunday, another reason we stopped in Prince George was we found out there was a congregation of the Lord's church there.  It ended up being 3 widows.  So, I was a "one-man-band" (without the instruments of course) there and led the singing, prayers and taught a lesson on "Becoming a Servant Like Jesus."

We set off for Dawson Creek and the Alaskan Highway again.  This time we made it as far as Chetwynd "where the birch trees grow like grass on the mountainsides."

I've never seen almost pure stands of White Birches before.  They are lovely.  Here's one from today on the way to Muncho Lake North Rockies Lodge:

Chetwynd is where the inevitable occurred.  I KNEW it would, I just wasn't sure WHERE it would occur.  My DirecTV satellite dish is now no more than a mechanical beanie cap on the trekker.  We were too far north to be able to pick up DirecTV.

The satellites that DirecTV ties into are in "Geosynchronous Orbit" with the United States.  That means they orbit the earth at the same speed as the earth so they are always in the same position RELATIVE to the USA.  That's how your DirecTV or Dish TV work.  They know EXACTLY where the satellites they get their signals from are at all times because they are always in the exact same place all the time relative to the USA as the earth spins one time on its axis every 23 hours 58 something minutes and itself hurtles around the sun and does that once every 365 1/4 days.  So, the satellite is now too far south for us to pick up its signals.  Canada has another company (Rodgers I believe) that has satellites over Canada in Geosynchronous Orbit for their satellite subscribers.  So, not only lousy WiFi and Internet, now NOWTV either!!  YIKES, I am in withdrawal.

So after Chetwynd we headed to Dawson Creek and the Alaska Highway, Mile 0.  For those of you who are in your early 40's or late 30's, I want you to notice that the name of the town in British Columbia, Canada is DAWSON (singular) CREEK, not "Dawson's Creek" like the TV show on the CW network in the early to mid-90s that made Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson breakout stars.  So, NO! I didn't see them.

We stopped for a couple of hours in Dawson Creek to get my Enalapril blood pressure prescription fulfilled.  Who would have thought that in a country with which we have signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with that you couldn't have them fulfill a prescription from a US doctor.  I mean, my doctor IS in North America;  we sure have enough Canuckian doctors who have escaped Canada so they can practice medicine and we let them come in FREE.  I get ads all the time on email pushing CHEAP, CANADIAN drugs. But, NOOOOOO, NOOOOO, NOOOOO a US prescription can NOT be filled in Canada.   I was willing to barter.  I'd have given them my money FREE, if they'd have given me the Enalapril FREE.  But, NOPE, you've got to go to a Canadian doctor (though technically the doctor I saw wasn't Canadian, he was from South Africa so we had a great talk about his hometown (Somerset West) and the difference between Medical Education there and in the US).  So, I pay C$100 ($75) to see this guy and he hands me the prescription I need to get another ACE inhibitor (Ramapril) drug and OFF WE GO.  Onto mile ZERO of the Alaskan Highway.

From Dawson Creek (good-bye Katie) you head NNW toward Fort Nelson.  This is named after the Field Marshall that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.  So, much for today's English History lesson.  Somewhere between Chetwynd and Dawson Creek we went from Pacific Time to Mountain Time.  But that's alright because somewhere between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson we went back to Pacific Time.  Thank goodness we have all of these self updating devices or I'd be totally lost as to what time it is/was and when and where.

Obeying our 200 mile/day (320 Km/day) rule we stopped for the night about 1/2 way to Fort Nelson at a wide spot in the road named Pink Mountain (No mountain, and No Pink).  Time to play scrabble and download our pictures and sort through them and then play scrabble again.

The next morning (5/3) it was off to Fort Nelson and the turn back toward the west.  More pictures to sort through, more scrabble.

This morning we set off from Fort Nelson.  We had our first "bad weather" of the trip.  It rained for about the first 50 miles of our 155 mile trip.  As you leave Fort Nelson you are heading essentially west and then start heading south through a "pass" into the Northern Canadian Rockies area.  Then you head south to head into another pass which enters the Muncho Lake watershed area.  There you turn north again to shoot toward the Yukon Territories.  We will be in Watson Lake and the Yukon Territory for the first time tomorrow.

Well, I'm going to shut up now and put some pictures on here.  I know that most of you only care about them anyway and not my trivial drip and endless blathering.

Below: Picture of an area on the way from Pink Mountain 

to Fort Nelson that had a forest fire last year.

Below: Some pictures of some of the beautiful valleys we've driven through along the way.

Below: An Interesting area of Buttes

Below: A picture that shows how thin the topsoil is in the Rockies - about 6 inches (20 cm). You can see where the sandstone under it is undercutting the roots of the trees as it erodes away.

Below: Some Pictures taken in the Canadian Northern Rockies

Below: A Couple of interesting rock formations.

Below: Two "Waterfalls" that are frozen in place right now

Below: 3 pictures of Summit Lake still almost frozen over

Below: A Picture of Muncho Lake in front of our RV this afternoon.  

It still had a lot of ice around its edges also.  The water is green in the picture above and the picture below because it has come off of a glacier or ice pack.  The weight of the snow presses all of the oxygen AROUND the water molecules OUT.  (This is what happens when 10" of snow in one day keeps decreasing in depth - even when it is too cold to melt).  As the water goes down the river and is stirred through rapids and by surface area contact with the atmosphere it re-oxygenates and turns bluer.

Below: It flurried on us today as we were driving through both passes

Below: A map showing the 2 passes we went through today.  

One on the lower right and the other just below Muncho Lake 

Odds and Ends before we are "Lost in Space"

We need to tell you that we are now in Canuckia.  Tonight we are in McLure at Pinegrove Campground.  McLure is about 25 miles north of Kamloops.  Whenever we travel we try to put big cities in our "rearview" mirror - Get through them so the next morning we don't start the day facing a traffic jam.  Now, you'd think that Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada CAN NOT have traffic jams, right?  You'd be wrong.  We just came back from town and faced a 3/4 mile wait for a traffic signal.  Thank goodness we weren't turning that direction.

We left Cascade Locks/Portland East KOA Monday morning.  On the way out we had a confrontation with a stump that they hadn't ground down. "WHAT WAS THAT!!," as I slammed on the brakes.

OUCH!!

So, that will be repaired at Red Bay in Nov/Dec.

Odds and Ends #1:

We traveled California from South to North to East to West.  We entered Cali on I-8 and could LITERALLY see the fence along the border with Mexico about 1/4 mile from the Interstate - That's both about as far SOUTH as you can go in California AND as far EAST as you can go in the state of California.  We drove around looking at our previous residences and drove on the Pacific Coast Highway - right against the Pacific Ocean.  Also, we drove right along the Pacific Ocean in Eureka, California.  That's almost as far WEST as you can go in California.  Then, after visiting and having a Sojourn at Yosemite Bible Camp (which is in the Sierra Nevadas which are on the border with Nevada), we drove out the NORTHERN border of California on US Highway 97.

Odds and Ends #2:

We drove through the Imperial Valley to see the Salton Sea and the San Andreas fault that ends along its eastern shore.  Going through the Imperial Valley and were amazed to see all the farming that is done in that area - Date Palms, Almonds, Fruit and Vegetable fields.  But that was N-O-T-H-I-N-G compared to the farming that is done in the Central Valley of California that we drove through from Grapevine, CA to Stockton, CA going to and leaving the sojourn at Yosemite Bible Camp.

The Central Valley of California.  The central valley comprises LESS THAN 1% of the land area in the United States.  Now, look below at the percentage of TOTAL % of crops produced in this small amount of land (relative to the total area of the USA):

Odds and Ends #3:

The central entry point to the Alaskan Highway is Ellensburg, WA. This happens to be the city that I went to college in.  It was a college that began in 1891 as "Washington State Normal School."  It was a teacher training college.  In 1937 it became Central Washington College of Education.  By the time I attended - 1970-72 it had been renamed "Central Washington State College" (That happened in 1961).  In 1979 it was redubbed for fourth time - this time as Central Washington University.  So, I showed Irene around the campus.  The dorm I was in was still there - Munson Hall.  It's an original building of the campus, so it's on the National Historic Registry.

Odds and Ends #4:

We crossed the border at the Oroville (US)/Osoyoos (Canada) Border Crossing.  It went pretty quickly:

Final Note:

Going through the rest of British Columbia and into the Yukon Territory and Alaska.  I can't promise how many posts we will be able to have over the next 2-3 weeks.

One Hood Beats Three Sisters and a Jefferson

So, today children we will be studying Volcanology.  Volcanology is the study of Volcanoes.

There are 2 basic types of Volcanoes - Stratovolcanoes and Shield volcanoes.  Technically, there is a third.  It is a hybrid of these 2 - a Composite Volcano.

Stratovolcanoes have the classic "volcano look" - kind of like a cone with the top cut off of it.  This is because the lava (it's called "magma" while still in the volcano and "lava" once it comes out) is thick, so it runs down the sides of the volcano more slowly and has time to cool and begin to harden on the way down.  It's kind of like a candle in a way.  The wax keeps building up and up on and around the candle as it cools.

A Shield volcano doesn't typically get as high as a stratovolcano because the lava is thinner and "runnier."  It tends to flow more quickly and not build up as much because it just keeps moving.  It more easily obeys the law of fluid dynamics - "Liquids seek to find their own level."

Composite Volcanoes result when the magma inside the volcano's cauldron changes chemically and is thicker at times (tending toward stratovolcano magma) and thinner at other times (tending toward shield volcano magma).  

The Cascade range of Northwestern America is part of the Pacific Ocean "Ring of Fire."  This ring of fire is caused by the fact that the "Tectonic Plates" which float upon the liquid core of the earth are moving.  This causes them to collide and crash.  Some of the plates are pushed UNDER other plates.  This is called a "Subduction Zone." HEY! YOU IN BACK - WAKE UP! THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST!! 

Anyway, you know how your hands get warm when you rub them together?  This is because of friction.  Friction generates heat. Now, take something as large as the floor of MOST of the pacific ocean and SHOVE it underneath of the state of Washington, Oregon and Northern California.  What happens - The land that is Western Washington, Western Oregon and Western Northern California gets pushed up.  This PUSHED UP part is called the Cascade Mountains.  Also, LOTS AND LOTS of heat is generated by the friction caused by all those plates of earth rubbing against one another.  It gets so hot that the actual rock itself begins to melt.  This melted rock collects in fissures in the ground and causes pools of melted rock (magma).  Eventually this pool grows and just like that ZIT you had at the end of your nose at 16 it POPS! VIOLA - a volcano is formed as this magma under pressure erupts out onto the land as lava around the crack.  If it is thick lava it begins to build a stratovolcano.  If the magma is thin it begins to spread out on the land and forms a shield volcano.

We drove Thursday from Weed, California (where Mount Shasta is) to Portland, Oregon.  During this trip we saw numerous volcanoes. I wanted to share some of those pictures with you in this blog post.

First another picture of Mount Shasta:

Next Mount McLoughlin:

Next is the BACKSIDE of Crater Lake (that a one time was Mount Manama).  This is called "Mount Scott":

Next was "Three Sisters."  This is three volcano "vents" probably from a very large magma chamber.  Two of them are stratovolcanoes and the third is a composite:

Unfortunately, we couldn't get a really great shot of these three beauties.  They are behind a lot of trees as you travel on US Hwy 97 north, through Oregon.  Since we were towing our car behind the Trekker, we couldn't just pull off on any road we wanted to go get a great pic.  It's tough to turn around a 64 foot vehicle.

Next up was Mount Jefferson:

Next is Mount Hood the highest of all of Oregon's Volcanoes:

Finally as we approached I-84 at the North of Oregon along the Columbia River we could see Mount Adams ACROSS the river in Washington State:

A couple of more pictures from a volcanology perspective.  Coming toward the north of Oregon from the south out of Madras you come through the most beautiful Basaltic Lava flows.  They are hundreds of feet thick and look like the Badlands of North and South Dakota.  Mesas rise from the floor of the landscape.  Butte sink down INTO the landscape.  These were buttes.

Each"Layer" is represented by a separate dark set of cliffs.  In the second from the bottom you can see a single flow on top that is probably 100 feet thick and a darker color than the ground under it. In the bottom picture I can count at LEAST 7 separate flows of lava indicated by the different dark bands with an angle and grass marking the boundary.

Three Musketeers?

We took a trip from Mt. Shasta, California up to Crater Lake in Southern Oregon today.  During our trip we saw three volcanoes.  This post will be a series of pictures about those volcanoes.

The first is Mount McLoughlin.  It is a composite volcano.  It is 9,495 feet in elevation.

If you'd like to know more about Mount McGloughlin, click here.

Crater Lake was formed by a volcano (the Indians called it Mount Mazama) that exploded and collapsed in on itself about 7500 years ago.  Below are the photos we took of it and the boards that explain the events surrounding its implosion.

If you want more information about Crater Lake - Click here and here is the National Park Service Page about it.

The third volcano we saw is Mount Shasta.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Mount Shasta is the 2nd highest Volcano in the Cascade Range.  Here's a bunch of the pictures we took beginning with board to explain some about Mount Shasta:

Obviously beautiful beyond description.  Click here for the wikipedia article on Mount Shasta.  Click here for the National Park Service page on Mount Shasta.

Bye Bye Big Boys OR Holy Moley, What's THAT?

We left Eureka and the land of Giant Redwoods yesterday to head toward Oregon via Mount Shasta.  We came over on California Highway 299.  It follows the Mad River out of the California Coastal Range and then on the other side follows the Trinity River.  It was really nice.  The road was MUCH nicer than I thought it might be.  They are doing a fair amount of work on it, so in a couple places we got held up for 10 minutes or so ... one time for 19 minutes.

As  you know if your keep up with our blog, I was a geology minor in college.  So, all things geologic fascinate me.  Mount Shasta (elevation 14179) is the southern Cascades and 2nd highest volcano in the Cascade Range (Mount Ranier in Washington at 14,411 feet is the biggest boy on the block).  It is an active volcano, though it hasn't erupted in recorded history - so it's called "potentially active."  I had to see it and get pictures.

Today we head for Crater Lake - an "Extinct" volcano in Southern Oregon.