2010 - July 22 (Day 37) Hyder, AK to Vanderhoof, BC

We left the Run-A-Muck RV Park in Hyder, AK this morning about 8:00. The car and camper were absolutely filthy, so I wanted to stop in Stewart, BC, three miles from Hyder, to use the carwash. Carwash had a sign that said change was available at the hardware store down the street. Went to the hardware store. It was closed. Went to the gas station where Jim had filled up with "marked" gas before finding out that marked gas is only for farm machinery. No wonder it was cheaper. There is some huge fine if you're caught with it in your road vehicle. No problem, though. The kid at the station said I should have gone to the hardware store owner's house to get change for the carwash, like I should have known that!

Anyway, we headed down the road. I was still following Jim in case he blew another tire. He still didn't have a spare. During the day, we saw a young black bear, a black bear sow and her three cubs, a coyote, and another black bear. When we got to Smithers, BC, he went to the Canadian Tire store and I went to the carwash. $25.00 later, the car and camper were pretty much clean. First carwash I've seen where you can use a credit card and the dollars just keep charging up until you push the "STOP" button.

Jim found out that the tire store in Smithers didn't have the correct tire for him, but they called the store in Prince George and had them put one on hold. On the way to Prince George, I noticed that the right-side tire on Jim's trailer looked funny. That's the spare he mounted when his other tire shredded itself. So this tire has a broken belt or something. These are Goodyear tires! We decided to camp at Dave's RV Park in Vanderhoof, because we couldn't make it to the tire store in Prince George before the service dept. closed. Jim called them and told them we'd be there in the morning. So here we are in Vanderhoof, BC, the geographic center of the province.

In the morning, we'll follow Jim to Prince George and then split off on route 16 to follow the mountains southward as far as we can. We had our last supper with Jim & Bonnie tonight. Brats, rice, corn, salad at the campsite.Also had various home made desert goodies from the restaurant where we ate lunch. Good stuff!

We drove 380 miles today.