Upon leaving Alaska, we drove some of the same stretch south along the Alaska Highway through Yukon. We stayed at a couple of provincial campgrounds near beautiful lakes and hiked a few hikes. Yukon is a pretty wild province, and there is a ruggedness to it… as well as a propensity towards mosquitos.
Once we got as far south as British Columbia, we decided to take the Stewart – Cassier highway, which is a little less traveled and equally beautiful as the Alaska Highway. In one small village, Kitwanga, we stayed in a free municipal campground. At the end of the Stewart Cassier highway, in Stewart, we found that the road dead ends at a small ghost town called Hyder which is actually in America. We crossed over a nonexistent border between Canada and the United States and spent one night in Hyder. Some locals told us about a gravel road that we could take for about 25 miles up into the hills and at the top we discovered the Salmon Glacier- about 60 miles long and is the worlds largest glacier that is accessible by car. What a really beautiful site!
Heading further south in BC, we stopped for two nights at Whistler, the site of the 2010 winter Olympics. It was BC Day and there was a yoga festival going on in Whistler so it was very crowded and had a fun festival atmosphere. We met two of Chris’s friends from Burning Man for some beers and had a nice chat with them. It was a hot day, so we hiked around a small lake and took a dip in the alpine water. We do a lot of driving, so we try to work in short hikes each day that we’re on the road so we can get our steps in!
Our next stop was the city of Vancouver, where we enjoyed visiting the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, Stanley Park, and the UBC Museum of Anthropology. We did a free walking tour of the city and explored downtown and Gastown, visiting several bars along the way home.
We took a ferry over to Vancouver Island, where we spent the next three days camping with some old friends of ours, Tom and Sue, who I taught with in Haiti. We swam, explored the island, and watched the Pleiades meteor shower. It was a lot of fun catching up with my former housemates.
We drove to Victoria and got in line for the ferry and were able to spend a few hours exploring the capital city of BC. We watched Dragonboat racing and caught the tail end of an Indian Mela festival, and did a short self-guided walking tour to see their government buildings and the Empress Hotel.
Arriving back in the United States by ferry at Port Angeles, we explored the Olympic National Park in the state of Washington for the next couple of days. It feels like a lost Jurassic world in there! We saw towering redwoods and old growth cedar trees, as well as dense rain forests, misty coastlines and imposing mountains.
Further south into Washington state we visited Mount Saint Helens and its very informative visitors center. Unfortunately, due to smoke from fires further south and east, visibility was quite low. We had an impromptu lunch with our friend Rob, who used to work with us when we lived in Chad, and then continued south.
Arriving in Vancouver Washington, we spent several days with fellow travel enthusiasts Shyla and Dan. They own a travel business (Wild Spirit Travel) and we had met them last year while we were all visiting El Salvador. What a fun few days we spent with them! For Dan’s birthday we hiked around the Columbia Gorge, seeing the waterfalls and Beacon Rock. They took us to several McMenamin’s pubs and breweries- so wild! We explored some of downtown Portland, sampled food trucks and went to Powell’s Bookstore, and visited drafthouses on Main Street in Vancouver. I discovered I’m a big fan of sour beers (its like a margarita mixed with a beer kind of taste). We all spent the night at historic Fort Vancouver for a stargazing event- we could see four planets and the moon through a dozen high-powered telescopes. On our last day, they took us to visit some friends who live on the Washougal River for a day of floating down the river and travel talk that evening- their friends are outfitting a bus to drive from Alaska to Argentina. What an adventure!
After a night sleeping outside next to the river at Andi and Kevin’s AirBnB, we left Washington and headed south. We stopped for coffee with a friend of mine from junior high, and we visited Bend and Crater Lake. We couldn’t see across the lake because of the smoke from several nearby fires, but we could see down to the crystal clear waters in some parts. Five trillion gallons of water! It’s hard to imagine.
We’ve just passed 10,000 miles on our road trip, and we are heading into Reno, where we will shop and pack for our Burning Man experience. We’ll be back online after September 4th so look for an update then!
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