{"id":1865,"date":"2018-08-17T06:24:08","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T05:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2018-08-18T03:18:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T02:18:35","slug":"across-canada-and-into-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/2018\/08\/17\/across-canada-and-into-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Across Canada and into the USA."},"content":{"rendered":"

I was aiming to cross the border further East but hoping to not cross too many mountain ranges in doing so. So the first part of our route brought back memories of our RV trip in 2013, when we did the huge loop around British Columbia in a Canadream\u00a0hire RV, as we were following the same route but in reverse. Up\u00a0BC 1 to just above Hope and then\u00a0BC 3 (known as the Crowsnest Highway) to Princeton.<\/p>\n

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Taking a rest on the Crowsnest Highway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Built by the Royal Engineers in the 1860’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived in Princeton and stayed overnight at a small site called River’s Edge RV & Camping.<\/p>\n

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View down the river we were on the edge of!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View back from the river bank to the RV in the middle of the picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next morning we were off again after dumping the tanks (getting rid of excess water etc. this site just had 30amp electricity and water connections), and on to BC 3 to the bottom of\u00a0Christina Lake. Here we stayed in our last campsite in Canada called Cascade Cove RV Park. Purpose of the stop here was twofold. One to get ourselves ready\u00a0to cross back into the USA by reading what we\u00a0were allowed to take back in , and two to have a last look around Canada.<\/p>\n

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Parked up at Cascade Cove (well not quite the slide is on its way out).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our site was just above the border crossing at Laurier.<\/p>\n

Just back along BC 3 from where we parked was the town of Grand Forks which had a fascinating little museum called the Boundary Museum. It contained a lot of very interesting exhibits from a whole room devoted to the Doukhobors, to a whole store and an exhibit of a copper mine that grew to be huge in 10 years and 10 years later nothing of it existed. Boom to bust in 20 years!!<\/p>\n

The Doukhobors were a Russian religious sect that believed in\u00a0hard work and rejected the use of any technology. A bit like the Amish they built a community in the\u00a0area that farmed thousands of acres and built schools and towns devoted to their way of life. Unfortunately they were distrusted by the local population and by federal government, which gradually split the communities, firstly by making all schools abandon Russian as a language, and then by forcibly taking children and putting them in residential schools stopping them learning about their culture and breaking the link between generations. Because of this the community farms no longer exist and the Doukhobors were assimilated into the general population of Canada.<\/p>\n

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The Doukhobor exhibition. Over 7,500 emigrated from Russia to Canada.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A Doukhobor classroom. In case you cannot read it across the top it reads “I will not speak Russian in class”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A Canadian General Store.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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First Nation exibits.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The complete site of the Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grand Forks was an interesting little town but unfortunately a lot of it was closed up due to the Fraser river flooding it in the early spring.<\/p>\n

We also had a look around Christina Lake which is a huge lake with homes right on the edge with boat docks, beaches (can never get used the idea of a beach on a lake) and lots of little inlets and parks all around it.<\/p>\n

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Christina Lake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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One of the many houses with boat dock lake access.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Boat docks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The beach and if you didn’t know it was a lake you would think you were at the seaside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Lots of boats all over the lake. Also lots of water skiing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also took a hike up to Cascade falls just up the Kettle river from Cascade Cove RV Park.<\/p>\n

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Cascade Falls, not the most impressive but the water falls!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Looking from the Falls to the BC 395 bridge. Becomes RT 395 on the other side of the border.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Falls from the bridge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And the private cove on the Kettle River attached to Cascade Cove RV Park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having got rid of all the foodstuffs we thought would get confiscated at the US\/Canada border on the Monday 23rd we crossed back into the USA at the Laurier border crossing.<\/p>\n

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US Immigration and Customs post at Laurier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And despite our best efforts our tomatoes and peppers were confiscated by the guard who searched the RV. Didn’t read they were banned anywhere until he showed us another list. But\u00a0he let us back in and stamped our passports until January 2019.<\/p>\n

So we set off to Spokane\u00a0RV Resort in Deer Park just about 15 miles north of Spokane, Washington. This was a lovely site right next to a golf course.<\/p>\n

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Sunset at Spokane RV Resort<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Huge concrete pads and flowers and manicured lawns. Must be paradise!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To be honest we were treating this site as a rest stop as we thought there wasn’t much to see around the area and we needed a rest. The facilities were great, lovely sites, great swimming pool and we found that our next door neighbours were from Edmonton in Canada and we got on very well with them and enjoyed their company.<\/p>\n

We were told we ought to go and see Coeur d’Alene which was a very pretty lake and there was quite a lot to see in the town. Well it turned out to be a nice lake but the town was one of those American tourist traps.<\/p>\n

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View across the Lake from the Park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Purpose built apartments all around the lake each of which comes with a boat dock (they are the blue canvas structures to the left and beyond the tour boats).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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View across the lake, with boat area in the foreground, photographed from a restaurant we ate in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Strolled around the town and lots of tourist shops etc. but a nice Harley!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can probably guess we were not too impressed, but I guess it must appeal to someone as it was doing a roaring trade.<\/p>\n

Next stop was Spokane itself. There was supposed to be some impressive falls here. But two problems arose. Firstly the park (Riverfront Park) where the falls were, had been part of the 1974 World Fair and lots of the structures were being updated as they had obviously got a bit old and tatty. So about 60% of the park was closed and it made it a lot harder to walk around. I will give it its due when it is finished it will look quite spectacular if the plans are to be believed, but in 2018 it is a building site!!<\/p>\n

And secondly the Falls we were told are spectacular when the river is in full flow. Only when we arrived there was not much water going over them.<\/p>\n

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The clock tower was the only part of the park open.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The falls with a lack of water.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We were told this was about a tenth of the normal flow, so this would be quite spectacular with more water going over it. Indeed if you look closely at the rocks you can see where the normal water level is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the Saturday we had to move sites right next to the golf course.<\/p>\n

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The front windows were facing right over the golf course. Got to see some interesting golf swings. Site rules said if a golf ball hit us nobody was liable except us. Luckily no balls came anywhere close!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then Deer Park held Settlers Day which apparently is the oldest continuous community celebration in the State of Washington, running over 100 years. And I have to say that Anne and I really enjoyed it. We walked around here for hours, meeting various people, and listening to the music that was being played by various groups.<\/p>\n

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Deer Parks Fire truck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And their off road truck for fighting forest fires.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The mayor’s car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Beautiful blue Pontiac Le Mans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A few big block Chevrolets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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An entire park taken over with all sots of stands.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This was interesting, they had an entire area set aside for reunions of years of the local High School. Here is 2008.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Some very good local groups played all sorts of music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then we moved on into Montana after crossing a little bit of Idaho.<\/p>\n

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Back on the Lewis and Clarke trail. They got everywhere!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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First Rest Area in Montana, the land of Big Sky!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have also updated the RV Map<\/a>\u00a0but as is usual it is ahead of where we really are.<\/p>\n

But more of that in my next post as Montana is another story.<\/p>\n

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I was aiming to cross the border further East but hoping to not cross too many mountain ranges in doing so. So the first part of our route brought back memories of our RV trip in 2013, when we did the huge loop around British Columbia in a Canadream\u00a0hire RV, as we were following the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Across Canada and into the USA.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1927,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmjsystems.co.uk\/rvblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}