After our former hosting company lost our data I got kind of discouraged from continuing to update the blog.  We visited our families in the Sacramento and San Jose areas and our old home in the Salinas area before continuing to Pismo Beach and then on to Palm Desert.

We arrived in Palm Desert on Sept. 25th and had a week to prepare for our GMC Western States (GMCWS) rally to be held from October 1 to 6.  The week of the rally was very busy for me because I am the president of the club, I had to get our karaoke software running and get our song directories printed, and I ended up being responsible for our audio and video equipment because our primary person couldn’t get here due to illness.  If you want to see what a rally looks like – at least with this club – go to gmcws.org and look for ‘rally reports’ on the menu tabs or on the left side of the screen.

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Since the hosting company lost my data I decided to just repost the photos for now. We will try to reconstruct as we can and make notes about the photos.  For now the photos are here by date and we’ll add text as we can.

Sept 6th

On September 6th, we left Aberdeen, Washington and drove to Astoria, Oregon.  We stayed at Fort Stevens, another military base  like Fort Worden in Washington, that’s been turned into a public park with tent and RV camp sites.  Here are a couple photos of the beautiful bridge in Astoria.

Sept 7th

We spent two nights at Fort Stevens.  It’s a great place with clean, spacious sites and over 9 miles of bike paths.  We biked over to the ocean and then did some local sight seeing.  One of the fun sights was the Astoria Column which was built in 1926 with financing by the Great Northern Railway and Vincent Astor, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, in commemoration of the city’s role in the family’s business history. The 125-foot tall column stands atop 600-foot tall Coxcomb Hill and includes an interior spiral staircase that leads to an observation deck at the top.  We didn’t make the climb but the view was still great.

We also went to Fort Clatsop, which was the fort where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805.  They named the fort for the friendly local Indian tribe, the Clatsops.  There is a full replica of the fort and it’s in a quiet, beautiful wooded area on the Columbia river.

We drove to Cannon Beach for exploring and, even though it was foggy, saw a lot of beautiful coast line.  The little town of Cannon Beach is charming, kind of like Carmel, and we had a nice cup of coffee and some chocolate at the Chocolate Cafe.

The picture of the big buck was taken on our second try to find some elk – the ranger told us she had seen them recently in a certain area.  We drove out there twice but didn’t see anything but fog, ocean, fields, and one lone buck.

Sept 8th

Today we traveled to Lincoln City and camped at Devil’s Lake State Park.  The drive was a foggy one (big surprise) but included a stop at the Tillamook cheese factory (where we ate ice cream for lunch) and the Air Museum.  Armand visited the museum and thought it was pretty interesting (and Carol was glad she skipped it).

We realized we might have trouble getting into State Parks on the weekend so were lucky enough to get to spend the weekend at Devil’s Lake – thanks to someone else who canceled Saturday morning.  We took advantage of our time there to drive to some of the scenic places in the area.  Also tried some local fish and chips  at “J’s” but still nothing can compare to our favorite place in Pismo Beach – which we plan to visit soon.

Sept 9th

Sept 10th

Sept 11th

Sept 12th

Sept 13th

Sept 14th

Sept 16th

Sept 17th

Sept 18th

Sept 21st

Sept 22nd

Sept 23rd

Sept 24th

Sept 25th

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In spite of their assurances that they would back up my blog data every day, Network Solutions, a company that I used to recommend, has not run backups for over a week and has lost all of my data.  They are “sorry for the inconvenience” which is particularly irritating when spoken with an East Indian accent.  I will be switching to a new provider very soon.

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After we crossed into the US on September 3rd we stayed at the WalMart in Oak Harbor – very quiet and nice.

On Sunday, Sept. 4th, we took the ferry over to Port Townsend ($58) and  just drove a couple of miles to Fort Worden State Park right next to Port Townsend.  The Fort was interesting –  an old Army artillery post.  For some reason there were men dressed in WWII period military fatigues driving antique army jeeps and motorcycles around.  We could not get photos because they were just passing by – fast.  The state park was expensive – $47 with only electricity and water – but pleasant.

On Monday, Sept. 5th (Labor Day) we drove to Aberdeen, Washington and stayed at another WalMart – not as nice.  We drove around a little to see the area but nothing to write about.  When we settled in for the night we got a little surprise when a very long train loaded with lumber passed about 50 feet by us.  We were watching a Redbox movie with headphones on and had to pause it because we couldn’t hear it the train was so loud.

Here are some photos of the ferry and a typical lavender farm – there are lots of them in this area.

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Sharon, Armand, Carol, Dwayne

On Saturday, September 3rd, Labor Day weekend we traveled from Burnaby to Oak Harbor, Washington via a visit to Dwayne Jacobson’s restaurant in South Surrey, BC.  Dwayne and Sharon are fellow GMCers – they have two of them – and we wanted to meet and compare notes.  I have included photos of Carol and myself with Sharon and Dwayne and a photo of one of their coaches in front of their businesses.

After breakfast we crossed the border – 30 minutes to cross followed by 30 minutes of hassle over some tomatoes – and had our cell services back.  Hooray!

Jacobson's GMC - only second we've seen on the trip

Tomorrow we will cross over to Port Townsend on the ferry and start heading south to the Oregon Coast.

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Yesterday, we drove our own car into the city with little or no idea of where we were going.  Our only clue to our destination was Bill’s suggestion that “gastown” was one of the attractions in the city, and a tourist map that showed several neighborhoods.

Today, I have a new ‘favorite city’.  We took a tour of Vancouver and a stop at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park on a bus with 16 other people from England, Australia, Alberta, and Brazil.  Our driver’s name was Don and he was very nice – entertaining but very laid back.  He was full of interesting tidbits about the city and what has happened there in the past – old and recent history.

There were two long stops, one of an hour and a half at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park (we loved it) and another of an hour and a quarter at Granville Island shopping area – an amazing place that I would put in the same category as Boston’s Quincy Market or San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf but much better than either of those.  It is not ‘touristy’, it is a place where everyone goes shopping for fruits and veggies and artsy junk – lots of fun.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is a great place for kids of all ages.  The bridge itself is a suspension bridge across the Capilano River.  The bridge is 450 feet long and 230 feet above the river.  It is very – considering the size of the cables – wobbly and shaky but also very strong.  The 2 cables are each strong enough to hold up a fully loaded 747 airplane.  A huge tree fell on the bridge during a storm in 2006 and the tree snapped where it hit the cables and they held the rest of the tree up until it could be removed.  It is very safe.

The bridge leads across the river to a walkway that is made up of short suspension bridges connecting platforms that surround these giant Douglas Fir trees that are about 3 or 4 feet in diameter and hundreds of feet tall.  The walkway is far above the forest floor and a real adventure- just like in “The Swiss Family Robinson” story.  They call it ‘Treetops Adventure”.

After you cross the bridge back to the entry gate and shops there is a new adventure, called ‘Cliffwalk’ which is a walkway along the face of a sheer cliff.  It has very solid wooden, glass, and steel pathways suspended with steel components anchored to the rock in the face of the cliff.  It has a section that gets 10 or 15 feet away from the cliff and seems to be suspended in mid-air.  All of this is pretty high – maybe 100 feet and a thrill if heights frighten you.

The Granville Island shopping center is actually a peninsula that was created by filling an area (I forget that part of the history) of the bay.  The city owns it I think and blah, blah, blah – CRS!!  The area has lots of shops.  They are mostly food oriented and very nice.  The prices seemed pretty good even by our US standards (“everything costs more in Canada”).  The fresh produce at the every-day farmers’ market looked wonderful.  If we lived here we would be there all the time.

The photos are of Vancouver, the Capilano bridge area, and us.  The may seem out of order because we went through Vancouver to Stanley Park, the Capilano area and then Stanley Park and Vancouver again.  

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The 'Hollow Tree' in Stanley Park in Vacouver

We know we don’t like big cities but I had to see and experience a little of Vancouver.  We got our our maps and drove towards downtown.  Like other older cities the city is a mass of odd angles and curves.  We found our way downtown and, unlike Banff National Park, Vancouver has no free parking.  Every space in every part of the city requires payment – on-street parking and parking in city parks like Stanley Park are all controlled with a computerized system of parking meters and ticket dispensers.  Stanley Park is beautiful though and has lots of city views – only one photo though (at right).

Many of the main streets in the city turn from two-lanes with parking on either side to 4-lane expressways during rush hour.  A little after two o’clock we decided to stop for lunch in the West End District at Vera’s which claims to have the best burgers in town by popular vote.  The burger was good but the fries were not – lots of small crispy pieces instead of real fries.  Because the street was scheduled to turn into a 4-lane road at 3 o’clock we only had 40 minutes to park, order and eat our burgers, and move on before we would be towed away.  At least the $3 per hour parking meter pro-rated our fee automatically.

We have decided that three nights here is a little much for us so we cancelled our third night – will cross over to Washington on Saturday instead of Sunday – but we did schedule a Gray Line tour of the city and some local stuff for tomorrow.  They will pick us up at 9am here at the RV park and take us downtown to the hotel where the tour starts.  We will have time on our own before, during and after the tour to shop, sight-see and eat.  That is the best way to see a city in comfort and without stress.

The Port Mann Bridge under construction

Maybe you have heard of Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ where they were building road, tunnels and bridges for what seemed like forever?  Well, I think that Vancouver is on that same program.  Maybe the project is not as big but it is everywhere around the Trans-Canada route through the East or Southeast side of the city.    The project is called the ‘Port Mann Bridge’ and it will be awesome compared to the little bridge that crosses the Fraser River now.   A quickie photo taken at highway speed is at left.

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Like driving in a movie

We drove from 9am to 4pm today, including stops, and there were absolutely no problems of any kind to report.  It never hesitated all day.  I think I am making progress on solving these problems.

Yesterday Neil and Brenda took me to the Lordco auto parts store in Vernon – a great store.  After our less than pleasant arrival in Vernon (more fuel problems) Jim Kanomata of Applied GMC suggested installing a Felpro 60482 carburetor gasket so Neil and Brenda took me into town to buy it – Lordco actually had the gasket in stock.  This gasket is really thick and it insulates the carburetor from the hot intake manifold which causes vaporizing of the gasoline in the carburetor – a possible cause of our current problems.

The hottest temperature all day today was 10 degrees cooler than the 88 degrees when we arrived in Vernon – the cool air  probably helped.  I know that the gasket was insulating the carburetor because the engine restarted easily after every stop.  Usually it is hard to restart when hot so the gasket is having some effect which probably also helped.

One of the denizens of Hope, BC, Canada

There are other things that I can do to improve the current situation and I plan to do them.  We want the coach to be reliable and there is no reason that it shouldn’t be.

So, along with no problems, the scenery for much of the way was awesome again/still.  Yesterday Neil worked at helping me decide on going back north for a while on BC-97 to connect with the The Trans-Canada highway or going on the Coquiholla highway, a two-hour quicker trip but with at least two climbs that everyone agreed were steep and long.  Based on Neil’s and his brother-in-law’s advice, we took the long but scenic route.  It was not great everywhere but when it was great it was really great.  Carol took some photos out the window and the one at the top is an example of what it was like.

At Dwayne Jacobson’s (a Canadian and fellow GMCer) suggestion we took a break at Hope, BC.  The town is where the Coquihalla River joins the Fraser.  It has a long history with the Hudson Bay Company and claims to be the Chainsaw art capital of at least Canada, the art is all over the town

We arrived in Chilliwack, BC safe and sound.  We are in the parking lot near the Safeway grocery store just off exit 119 of the Trans-Canada.  Using our spiffy external WiFi amplifiers we can use their internet – we did buy more than $30 worth of groceries there tonight so we are not feeling guilty.  We plan to spend the night here before heading into Vancouver (Burnaby) for three nights.  The Safeway people said there are always RVers here and no one cares because the mall is under reconstruction.

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The Okanagan is a beautiful and very large lake in British Columbia.  Our friends Neil and Brenda have a ‘cabin’ on the water in Vernon – the city right next to the lake.  They took us for a boat ride – Neil did a little surfing behind the boat, a new way of using boats – and gave us a tour around the lake (photos below).  It was great to see them and we had a fun visit.

The good news is we are here and enjoying ourselves.  The bad news is the fuel starvation thing came back just as we were arriving in Vernon.  We are still trying to figure out what is going on – possibilities are heat – it got to 88 degrees as we arrived, a higher ethanol content in gas here, and more that I won’t bore you with.  I put a new thicker gasket under the carburetor to help insulate it from the engine heat.  Getting pretty tired of this but we have to solve it.

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We got an early start since all the housekeeping tasks were taken care of last evening.  The only thing we had to do before we got on the highway was get some gas – no small feat with an RV in Banff.  After filling up we got on the highway toward Lake Louise, about 30 miles away.

Lake Louise is a fairly small lake that is surrounded, right down to the water, by huge mountains on three sides and a luxury hotel on the fourth.

Canada’s Highway 1, the Trans-Canada Highway is a really nice road.  From Banff to Lake Louise it runs North and South following the Bow River Valley.  After Lake Louise it continues North for a while and then heads South, going around the mountains.  There are some climbs and descents but nothing worse than you’d find on the U.S. Interstate Highways.  Many miles of the road are two lanes while many more have been ‘twinned’ to 4 lanes.  The scenery continues to be awesome.

Revelstoke is a town and a National Park.  We decided to stay at the KOA just East of Revelstoke town and visited the National Park which is basically a mountain.  There is a road -26km long – up the side of the mountain with a short hiking trail and some meadows full of wildflowers at the top.  We really enjoyed it..

It looks like our “fuel starvation” issues are now fixed – no issues today.  The trouble with replacing things in a ‘shotgun’ manner is that you don’t know what fixed it – the good thing is that it is fixed.

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