Today will be our last day in Canada. We really have enjoyed visiting our "Neighbor to the North". It is really quite beautiful up there. The air and environment is so clean. The Canadians really do cherish what they have. There are recycling bins everywhere you go - ones for plastics, one for redeemable, organic compost, recyclables, and the smaller bin is always for garbage. This is quite an investment when you consider that each of these bins have to be heavily armored and made of a special "bear-proof" design. The other thing I noticed about Canada, is that it is actually very desolate. Their main route that crosses the country from east to west, often has long stretches where there are no towns, facilities, gas stations, restaurants, etc. There are lots of rest stops with restroom facilities, but you had better keep an eye on you gas gauge. We are fortunate, with the motorhome, because we have the rolling kitchen and restroom and finding a place to pull over isn't that tough to do. But those folks traveling on motorcycle - they really need to plan ahead. Another thing I noticed - is that it is a very safe country. We only saw law enforcement a couple of times and seldom on the roadways. The Canadians typically travel at 10 - 15 kph over the speed limit but we didn't see any crazy reckless driving. People don't lock their cars and stow and lock up all their stuff when they turn in for the night at the campgrounds. Who knows, the Canadians might build a wall to keep jealous Americans out of their country.
We spent the evening in Fort Steele by taking a walk around our campground. There is a large fenced pasture area where we saw 2 mules, a pony and a couple horses grazing. We named the donkeys "Donnie & Marie". When we walked over to the fence rail, Donnie came right over to get his nose rubbed and look for a handout. I picked some of the lush grass on our side of the fence and he eagerly wolfed it down. When Marie saw that, she ambled on over to get her nose rubbed and munch on some of the tasty grass on our side of the fence. I guess, the grass really is greener on the other side - when your a donkey and all you eat is grass. We walked a little further on down the fence rail and we waved at the pony. She was really in luck, because someone had left a bag of apples on the ground. We gave her a couple of them and she was thrilled. She would take the apple from my hand and only bite a bit off, drop the rest to the ground and munch on what she had in her mouth. Then she would go for the rest and carefully end up leaving the core on the ground. We took a couple of apples over to Donnie and Marie. Marie took one from my hand and munched the whole thing down - stem and all. Donnie was a little less adept, he ended up knocking the apple out of my hand just beyond my reach. Try as we might to direct him to the apple on the ground, he couldn't find it. He ambled off, I'm sure a little miffed he didn't get an apple. Too bad for Donnie, because Marie had no problem finding the apple on the ground and munching it up.
After that, we walked over to the store where they had sundries, souvenirs, tee shirts, and lots of other knick-knacks. The store was decorated with a lot of antiques. They had several old wood and gas fired stoves that I'm sure were used in homes up here. They had old cash registers and some baby buggies. It was a quaint little store.
In the morning, we both got up early and had a quick breakfast. We were on the road by 8:00 AM. That is a record for us. Fort Steele is about 50 miles north of the USA border. The roads were very uncrowded when we rolled through the larger town of Cranbrook with its seemingly endless line of strip-malls. Once we were through there, Canada Route 95 south was pretty wide open 4 lane, divided highway. We were cruising up and down hills at 65mph making great time. Eventually, we begin to see signs indicating that the USA Border is up ahead. I see a sign indicating the last Canada exit before the Border. As we cross a bridge, we are approaching the Idaho town of Eastport, which is where the Border crossing is.
Elisa and I carefully inspect the signs as we approach the border control. I see one sign with a pictograph of a semi sized truck pointing to the right and one with a pictograph of a car and truck with a camper on it pointing to the left. So we head to the left side. Then as we get closer to the actual inspection point, I see a sign that says "High Clearance Vehicles" and it's pointing to the right. Our RV is about 13' tall - I'm thinking it may be a "High Clearance Vehicle". I start to head to the right, but then I notice that there is plenty of clearance in the lane to the left. Fortunately, there is no one behind us and only one car in front of us, so I cut back to the left lane. As I finally pull up to the border inspector - he immediately says how much he appreciates that I picked the right lane. We hand him our passports and he clicks on his computer and seems satisfied we aren't on any "most wanted" lists. He asks us about fruits and seeds. They are especially interested in apples - he says if the apples are from New Zealand or Chile - they will have to confiscate them. He also asks if the seeds have the special seal placed on them by the store where we bought them. He asks us to produce the apple and the seeds for his inspection. Elisa traipses to the fridge to retrieve the apple, he takes a look and doesn't see any sticker on them at all and he declares it safe to enter. But he would like to see the seeds, so Elisa starts heading back to the bedroom where the seeds are stowed. While she is looking for the seeds, I notice that they have a VACIS machine that they are using to inspect a large truck that has pulled up in that right hand lane. I tell him that I used to work of the company that built the machines, SAIC, and that I was instrumental in helping the inventors of the technology target it toward these types of inspections. He starts chatting back to me that he used to work for General Dynamics that was a subcontractor to SAIC and they would mount the equipment onto the trucks. While we are chatting away, Elisa is still back there looking for the seeds. In the mean time, several cars were now lined up behind me. The inspector says he doesn't need to see the seeds. He is satisfied that because I mentioned that we had the seeds, that he is confident it has the necessary documentation on it. He then waves us on through.
Once we get into Idaho, US Route 95, is no longer the smoothly paved 4 lanes of divided highway. Instead, it is 2 lanes and torn up and in the process of being re-paved. We have to take turns in sections because they are down to one lane. After about 20 miles of that, things begin to open up. Unfortunately, I'm behind the same car that was in front of us at the border crossing. It has Canadian plates on it and given the way the woman at the wheel was driving, I'm pretty sure she interpreted the US speed limit sign of 55 mph as 55 kilometers per hour - so we were moving pretty slow. We finally got to a passing lane and I was able to get around her. We didn't have any cell phone coverage until we got about 20 miles across the Idaho border, but then again, we didn't see any evidence (other than the construction crews) that there was any civilization in the northern most panhandle of the state. We cruised down the hill at Bonner's Ferry and that's where we finally had US cell phone coverage. After we got past Sandpoint, Idaho we picked up 4 lane divided road. There wasn't a lot to Sandpoint and when Elisa mentioned that a friend of her old boss left San Diego and retired in Sandpoint, Idaho we kind of scratched out heads as to why someone would make that trade. It's beautiful and all up here but here it is, still technically Summer and it's already cold and going to get a lot colder.
As we got closer to Coeur d'Alene we picked up Interstate 90 and were on our way to Spokane, Wa. We stopped in Spokane, and had a quick lunch at Frankie Doodle's restaurant. It was conveniently just off the freeway, but finding a place to park Bertha was a little tough. We finally found a long enough stretch of curb that didn't have "No Parking" signs on it where we could berth our baby. It was a short walk to the restaurant. We both opted for soup and a salad. After that we were back on the road again. From Spokane to Pasco, Wa, it was about 2 hours drive. We made great time. When we left Fort Steele, the GPS said it would be 6 hours and 17 minutes to get to Pasco. If you set aside the stop for lunch, we were pretty much right on the money. This is one of the few times, where we made the time. Usually, either traffic, construction delays or other delays would slow us down.
We are staying at the Pasco KoA park and it is conveniently located and a nicely laid out park. It isn't as lushly landscaped or spacious as some of the places we had in Canada, but it will certainly do.
Tomorrow, we will visit with some family here in the Pasco/Tri-Cities area before we head off to Boise, Idaho on Tuesday.
More later.