June 6-8, 2016 North to Alaska Day 1 & 2

 The night before our scheduled departure, Ken and Jackie hosted the group for a farewell dinner.  It gave us a chance to firm up the route for day 1. Changes were made, and we were all excited to leave in the morning.

 We met at Ken and Jackie's for a 8 am departure, and we were only 5 minutes late. Not bad, getting 7 people mounted and ready to leave.  Ken led the way on back roads going north on the east side of Lake Stevens, taking us on Jordan Rd, a great  curvy back road that I've never been on. From there we went to Arlington and joined SR 9.  We followed this through fields and woods, along the lakes and finally arrived in Sumas, at the boarder crossing.

 After an uneventful crossing we went into Abbottsford for lunch and a much needed opportunity to change our Yankee money for that colorful funny money they use up here.

 From there we took Canada 1 west through Vancouver until we joined BC 99. This is a beautiful route north to Whistler.  Along the way we stopped to see Shannon Falls. Spectacular!

 We try to stop every 1.5-2 hours to stretch  our legs and hopefully take some pictures. This was the last stop of the day, until we made camp.

 We found the small BC Rec site campground.  We took 3 of the 5 sites! We shared this one with Ken.

 Bob and Cindy's new tent, the Taj Mahal. I think we would all fit!

 This was the loudest creek I have ever camped next to. But it was a great camp for the group.

 In the morning we got up on the road by 7:45. We continued on BC 99 until it T'd into the Caribou Highway (BC 97). We headed north, stopping to Williams Lake for lunch.

Earlier this morning we got a few rain drops, but now once we turned left in Prince George it poured on us almost the full way to Vanderhoof.  Here we played the "no setting up tents in the rain" card and got a room for the night. With 286 miles on day 1 and 397 on day 2 it has been a couple of long riding days for this group that usually goes about 200 a day.  Next major stop is Hyder AK/Stewart BC. Not sure if it will be one day or two... check back and find out!