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20050726 Iskut BC Mostly cloudy to cloudy, cool. 51/71. Picture Link
I got up, made coffee, and went to the grocery store across the street to get two raspberry-filled donuts. We had breakfast and hit the road, down the Cassiar Highway toward Stewart.
The Cassiar is a more lumpy highway. It has seen many upgrades since its completion in 1972, but there are still numerous small gravel sections and one long one - several miles.
BC Highway crews have this thing about watering gravel sections when they're working on them to hold down the dust. Watering dirt makes mud. RV's and trucks and any thing else that travels at speed going through these sections splashes the mud all over itself. It doesn't take too much of this running to make the rig look like some prehistoric beast rising out of the ooze.
We topped off the fuel tank at Dease Lake. The store was also the liquor store, so I bought a couple of bottles of Canadian wine.
Then we went 50 more miles and pulled into Mountain Shadow RV Park, where we've camped before. We made up an early dinner of turkey slices, noodles and salad, and did a vertical tasting of a Viognier (2001 and 2002) by EXP (California). The 2001 was more tart and appley; the 2002 less tart and more mellow. Both are good.
We took it easy and read books (there's no TV or radio out here). I'd noticed a truck camper next to us with some curiosity and had a chance to meet its owner - Bruce, a retired Navy surface sailor. He told me about his 2003 Dodge/Cummins with 1995 Lance 11'3" camper unit. He's modified both to meet what he desires; a rear sway bar on the truck and several mods on the camper including a propane generator.
We chatted and played with his dog, Chico, while we talked trucks and trips. Nice guy. Lives just outside Carson City, NV, off route 431, the road to the north end of Lake Tahoe.
We walked to the lake below the campsites to see if there were any wildlife - nope. We tested the bug zapper that looks like a miniature tennis racket; it has a battery in the handle and a power supply that puts alternate + and - on a series of wires across the "racket". If you swing the "racket" properly and contact the bug, the high-voltage zaps it and kills it. It works just fine except the little tiny things can slip between the wires and escape.
Then we went back to the little house to play computer games and read and do these notes. Nice to be in a totally quiet place for a change.
Tomorrow we run to Stewart BC/Hyder AK to (try to) see bears at the Forest Service viewing place north of Hyder.
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