Bell II

Saturday,  April 27, 2013

We are parked in the front of a gas station/lodge/café?/rv park called Bell II.  Pronounce it Bell two. We are pleased that the gas station is open because we were down to about 5 gallons of fuel.  We did not pass any open stations. It is just that far. The rv park is NOT open because it is still under 3 feet of snow. The café? has hot split pea soup in a large crock pot, most certainly from a can. There are premade, wrapped sandwiches in the soda cooler,  individually saran wrapped cookies and muffins in a basket on the counter. The coffee is fresh and complimentary. The lone employee is friendly enough to answer questions, but doesn’t volunteer anything.

Did I mention snow? It is snowing right now. Big soft flakes. Visibility is 200 yards, maybe a little more. Can’t wait to see what we wake up to.

We drove to Prince Rupert this morning and think it is a quaint little seaport town.  We treated ourselves to fresh seafood for lunch. The drive in was beautiful, eventhough we had rain off and on all the way.  The snow level was about 3000 feet, except we got hail and snow mixture at sea level in town.  But it was sticking to trees at 3000 feet.  Less rain on the return to Terrace and the sun came out on the snow covered mountains. We gassed up, connected the trailer and headed back to catch the Cassiar/Stewart Hwy, number 37.

We saw three bears on the road between Kitwanga and here.  And Peggie, the new guide of the party, spotted all three of them without any help from me.  All three of them were small black, black bears and all looked healthy.  We spoke with some fellow travelers fueling up here and they said they saw a bear running with one front paw held up like it was injured.

We will go to bed early and get up early because the bridge here is being repaired and closes for a couple of hours several times a day. We need to cross before the first closing.