6/20/14

Yesterday, we drove from Coeur d'Alene, ID to Radium Hot Springs, BC Canada.  It is 250 miles, a US/Canada border crossing, another time change (back to Mountain time) and 6 hours of beauty.  Northern Idaho is as picturesque as anywhere else in the US and we are sorry to see it go.  We spent 20 days in Idaho & western Washington this time around and are planning more when we get back from Alaska...it is that pretty.  But we are moving on for now, north to Alaska.

Most of our trek yesterday retraced part of our route from June 6, so the pictures there are mostly the same scenery as we saw yesterday, while very pretty, I won't get redundant.  I think the view of Columbia Lake, which is the headwaters of the Columbia River, is one of the most spectacular ones we saw again yesterday.

There are 24 rigs in our group, so there is a good chance that some crazy things will happen.  Yesterday was no exception.  One of the rigs close to us in Coeur d'Alene had a problem with the stabilizing jacks that wouldn't retract when they got ready to break camp.  We checked all the fuses, no luck.  Tried a lot of stuff before calling a mechanic.  The mechanic finally found a loose connection after an hour & 1/2 and got them moving. Then, on the border crossing, the rig that decided to wait with the disabled rig, was chosen as a random search at the border.  The Mounties spent 1.5 hours searching that motor home from front to back and found nothing.  But 2 of our couples missed the spaghetti dinner we all had last night at Radium Hot Springs.  So we are all together again in Canada after some interesting developments...on the road again.

We are all staying here again until tomorrow morning, when we will all move 82 miles into Alberta & Banff National Park for 2 days.  Most of the group is staying here today, Barb & I are going to drive to Banff in the car.  We are at a really pretty camp ground in Radium Hot Springs.  We visited with some of the other participants last night after dinner and told about our experiences.  After 30+ years of motor homing, we have a lot of crazy stories to add, so it is a lot of fun.  Stay tuned.

Steve & Barb Larson

Views from the road to Radium Hot Springs

Our spot in the camp ground in Radium Hot Springs

Our view from the camp ground