|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
20050607 Fort Langley BC 41/67Cloudy, light rain.
We ate breakfast in the Buzz Inn in Ellensburg WA, then headed northwest on I90. One hundred miles later we turned north on I-405 in the Seattle area and the traffic increased exponentially. When I-405 merged back into I-5 well north of Seattle, things calmed down a bit. As we approached the Canadian border, it calmed down to normal. We sure wish there were a better way around Seattle, Redmond, et. al.
The weather was just cloudy until we went over the Snoqualmie Pass into the Puget Sound basin. Then it turned to mist, fog, light rain, muck, and fast-growing mildew. The trees changed to firs and lots of them.
We started to wait in the truck line at the WA-543/BC-15 border, but it wasn't moving. So, we went up the car/pickup lane and found we were supposed to be in that line. Unclear marking, again. The young female customs/immigration person asked the usual questions and let us go on.
Back in Canada. Back in BC. Yeay!
The architecture changed immediately to Canadian. The traffic picked up quickly and the lanes narrowed perceptibly. Very obvious we'd entered a large community. We went up BC15 to BC10 to the Fort Langley campground on the Fraser River.
Fort Langley was a Hudson's Bay outpost in the early 1800's, moved to this location in 1839 and burned down, then was rebuilt here in 1840. It pioneered salmon packing on the west coast for the Hawaii and Alaska markets when the fur trading tapered off. The colony of British Columbia was proclaimed here in 1858, so this is the birthplace of BC. There are buildings (reproductions) to show where things were.
After setting up the trailer, we drove to the truck place (PDR) I'll go to tomorrow for work on the truck (nothing wrong, just preventive maintenance). They're all set up for me to arrive at 8:30am.
Then we went to Fort Langley again and stopped in little stores to get essentials like fudge, salad makings, red wine, bakery goods and beer. We took them to the little house by the river.
We walked back through the campground to the bridge to Fort Langley village. In the process, we scared some some geese with their young, who hopped into the river. We walked across the bridge and hiked the town for a few minutes. Then we became the first guests of the night in the Riverside Restaurant. Dolores had salmon, I had chicken and chorizo sausage with penne pasta and other things.
We can tell we're back in BC. Rather than all the squash-type vegetables, we're served root vegetables here.
We walked back to the trailer and settled in. The mist turned to light rain and pattered on the roof of the trailer. Good sleeping weather.
Dolores is doing battle with the cable TV - she has to get used to a whole new broadcasting system and the Celcius scale of temperatures used in their weather forecasting.
More tomorrow.
|
|
|
|
20050608 Fort Langley BC 52/56Cloudy, light rain.
I got up early (Dolores slept in), and headed for PDR to get the truck work done. Got there early and waited.
Met Piers Harry as he came into work, then Mark Wilson. Bob Coe was out today due to sickness so I didn't get a chance to meet him. Piers assigned a guy to my truck (Mark Lancaster), but Mark had to finish up another truck so he couldn't begin work on mine until 9:15 or so.
I wandered around for a while, then went to the customer lounge on the second floor. It overlooks the work bays, so you can see what's happening down there without intruding. I started a book (and finished it) while curled up on a couch up there.
At lunchtime, I walked a mile to a lunchroom and had soup & sandwich, then returned by another route. The heavy mist or light rain made things pretty soggy.
In the afternoon I read a bit, then wandered around downstairs asking questions about the truck. At one point, a guy came in who had twin turbos under the hood of a truck like mine. When I asked Piers how many HP he did with that setup, he answered "502 at the wheels" (I did 191 last I tried). Hmm...
About 3:30 Mark L (Little Mark to them) finished everything and wanted to do a test drive preceeding final adjustments. I drove and returned and he did some tweaking, then he took off by himself, returned and tweaked.
The place turned into a telephone madhouse about then, so it took a while to get the bill and pay it. Piers threw in a couple of tee-shirts and a cap "N/C", which was nice. The bill was lower than I expected, always a nice surprise.
When I returned to the campground, Dolores was walking to the office to begin looking for me. We returned to the trailer, where she had been doing various forms of loafing all day (the rain kept her in). D stole the PDR cap.
Then we hiked across the bridge to the village again, did some shopping for breakfast, and ultimately did dinner at the Riverside Inn again. We celebrated having no more fixed appointments or "must-do" dates with martini and wine, then ate another nice dinner.
Now we'll laze about the trailer and get ready to go tomorrow to Revelstoke BC.
|
|
