Day 60: Prince George to Clinton

After reading more about the wildfire in British Columbia (China Nose fire) , we are feeling fortunate that we were able to get through yesterday on the detour around Houston, which is on evacuation alert.  Route 16 was closed---still is, as far as I know---and if we hadn’t gotten through on the dusty, gravelly back roads to Prince George, we might have been stuck west of the fire for as many days as it would take to contain it.  Our only other choice would have been to drive all the way up the Cassiar Highway, 450 miles, then to Dawson Creek, another 600 miles, then down to Prince George.  British Columbia does not have many major (paved) roads!

We awoke about ten miles south of Prince George with the smell of smoke in the air.  The day was gray and dismal, but we couldn’t figure whether it was just the weather or the fire or both combined.  The  drive down Route 97 was not terribly interesting: lots of farmland, hayfields, some woods, mostly flat.   The overcast skies gave way to steady rain.  At lunchtime we pulled off at Lac La Hache Provincial Park to eat, but it seemed too early in the day to stop there to camp.  There was a nice break in the rain by then, however,  to allow Ranger a short walk. 

So we went on, figuring on staying at Green Lake Provisional Park for the night.  That park turned out to be about 15 miles off the main road, and when we got to the campground, every site was taken.  The campground host said that we could set up in the overflow parking area for the night, but even that was filled with people and we would have had campers close to both sides of the RV.  So we drove on.

We ended up in the town of Clinton at a quirky RV park right along the highway, so I’m sure we’ll hear the traffic all night long.  The proprietor, in addition to running the park, sells vegetables from his garden and runs a restaurant, the Roadkill Grill.  When we asked about a site, he directed us to  set up between two other RV’s, said he takes cash only, and didn’t take down any information from us---just took the cash.  I did go up to buy some tomatoes and lettuce later and the lettuce was literally right out of the garden, and it made a nice salad with our cheeseburgers for dinner.

The skies have cleared for the evening. We walked Ranger down the main drag of town, and almost everything was closed up at 7:00 on a Saturday night.  Tomorrow we head for Whistler.