NV-UT-HOME

From Reno to Cedar Crest, we had a choice to make.  We could drive down to Las Vegas, then on down to I-40 and home.  This would give us a chance for a short visit with Heidi.  But, Heidi and Joey are coming to see us in just a week, and there is a steep climb from Bullhead City to Kingman, in summer's heat, so that's the down side.  The alternative was to drive across Nevada on US 50, The Loneliest Road in America, then across Utah to Moab, then home.  I've been intrigued by the Loneliest Road, so wanted to see that, but it was not a place to risk a break-down.  I chose the Loneliest Road, Susie said OK by her, so away we went.

Thursday we drove across NV, stopping for the night in Ely.  The road didn't seem too lonely; there was a bicycle tour group out there and quite a few cars.  Also, some old mining towns that looked interesting.  I read an article recently in Motor Home magazine by a couple who had spent a week or two along this route.  Lots of interesting terrain.  This is basin and range country, so you hop-scotch from range to range, zig-zagging around the end of a range or over a pass, so it keeps you interested.  Some pictures.

At the KOA in Ely they were selling t-shirts: Ely, Nevada: 394 round-trip miles from the nearest Wal-Mart.  It's true.  I've thought about defining the most remote point in the country as the point farthest from the nearest interstate highway.  Maximum distance to Wal-Mart might be a better metric.

The first 150 miles of the next day's drive,  from Ely to Delta, UT, seemed more barren and lonely to us.

That's a dry lake bed out there.  Incidentally, our GPS and our atlas show some lakes in SE Oregon, but when we drove by them, we didn't see a drop of water. 

In UT we connected with I-70 in Salina, then continued across to Moab for the night.  That stretch of I-70 is spectacular.  Soaring red cliffs, multi-colored mounds and mesas, weird hoodoos, etc. 

Moab sunset and sunrise:

Book Report.  We often listen to recorded books while we drive.  Because Cracker Barrel has not penetrated the NW we didn't have our usual resource.  However, when we were with Melinda in Boise, she loaned us some of her recorded books.  Turned the rest of our trip into a Women's Studies seminar.  We had memoirs by Laura Bush, Jenny Sanford, and Sarah Palin and a historical novel, The 19th Wife, that intertwined Mormon history, particularly that of Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's 19th, with a modern-day murder mystery, the man murdered being a polygamist in a present-day sect. Ann Eliza Young managed to divorce Brigham, escape Utah, and become a leading voice in ultimately getting the LDS church to ban polygamy.  It was a long book, 19 hours, and it kept us enthralled the whole time, particularly as we were driving through the part of the country in which the book happens.

Drove home from Moab on Saturday.  Here's our welcome to New Mexico shot.  Oh, look!  It's Shiprock!

And here's our returning shot of the Sandia Mountains.

These road shots were taken by Susie, not by the driver.

Statistical Trip Summary: 38 days, 4325 miles on Tuzigoot.


What's next?  Well, I should have mentioned that on the day we left Reno we got a call from Jeff saying we want you to go to China with us.  We're leaving September 1 or 2.  So, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks.  Granddaughter Kaci is returning to school at Baldwin-Wallace.  Grandson Tony departs for Iraq.  Son Jeff Hinkle is coming for a family celebration of his 50th birthday - all four of Susie's kids will be here for that.  Then, it's pack and fly to China, probably Beijing.  We're excited.

Stay tuned.

Cheers,


Susie and Rob

Reno

When we got to Reno we parked in a large, mostly unoccupied KOA behind a casino west of town, then called Freightliner and were fortunately able to get an appointment to bring in Tuzi Wednesday morning.  Next we called Ann and Ed Burgess, Highlands University classmates of Susie.  They retired in Sparks, a town adjoining Reno on the NE.  We went to their house, then to an Olive Garden for dinner and had a great visit recalling the many and varied classmates they knew.  Ed was a football player recruited from West Virginia as was Susie's late husband, Manny.  Most of his career was as superintendent of a boys' reform school in Elko, NV.  He developed and ran a very progressive program before people even knew what progressive was.  Ann was from Deming, a good friend of Susie and was in her wedding.  So, 52 years later, there was a lot of: Do you remember old Sanky (I kid you not)?  He married Gloria and the last I heard they were living in Sun City.  (I'm making up the details, but you know the sort of conversation I'm talking about.)

Jumping ahead, we got together again Wednesday evening, after we had picked up Tuzi and parked her at the Sparks Marina RV park (had the cleanest and best restrooms I've ever seen in a RV park) and had dinner at their house..  Here's a picture of the three Highlands Cowboys grouped around their iconic symbol.

Tuesday we circumnavigated, by car, Lake Tahoe.  Beautiful place.  Known for the clarity of its water and its awesome surroundings.  Mark Twain, then Samuel Clemens, was here in the early days of the Nevada Territory and had this to say:

"So singularly clear was the water that when it was only twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was so perfectly distinct that the boat seemed floating in air!  Yes, where it was even eighty feet."

Here's a small sampling of the pictures we took.

Susie liked this large pine cone.

Add boats.

I used my camera timer. Now you see him.

Now you don't.

"Talking to you is like talking to a post!"

A lot of the lake is lined by private property, much of it pretty grand.  But, there are also state parks and undeveloped shoreline, too.  We started at the north end of the lake, went down the east side, had lunch on the south end and ice cream back at the north end - about a 70 mile, all-day trip.

There was one white-knuckle stretch of about 100 yards where the road went along a high ridge that separated Tahoe from another lake.  Two lanes only, no shoulders, no guard rails.  I think it was straight down, way down, on either side, but didn't/couldn't look to see.  Susie may have had her eyes closed.  There was no warning that I saw.  Just suddenly you were on this automotive tightrope.  Whew!

 

Wednesday we dropped Tuzi off at 7am, found a place in Sparks for some breakfast, then drove to the old mining town of Virginia City.

 We took a short train ride to and from Gold Hill while the conductor told us some of the area's history.

We walked the main street shops and I toured the museum in the old newspaper basement room where Samuel Clemens worked as a reporter and editor.  Here's his actual desk.

It was a race with the clock whether Tuzi would be ready Wed. pm.  We made tentative plans to stay the night with Ann and Ed, with whom we were to have dinner.  Fortunately, Freighliner stayed open until seven and about 6:30 we got the call that we were ready to go.  We picked Tuzi up, parked her at the nearby RV park, and had a great dinner that the Burgesses had graciously delayed for us.

 So, we ended up with two fine days of sightseeing and visiting in the Reno area and with a motor home ready to cross the mountains and deserts back to Cedar Crest.  Did we make it?  Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

OR-CA

Continuing our trip south:  Into Oregon, we stopped for lunch at this small-town cafe. This many bikers couldn't be wrong.

A little later we crossed the Crooked River and stopped to check out the gorge and the old bridge.  Just left of center you can see a girder that supports the new bridge. 

We stopped Saturday night at an "RV resort" in Bend, OR.  This one really merited the name.  A couple of pictures.

Spacious, level, brick paver pads.  Convenient connections.  Well shaded.  Good wi-fi.  Contrast this to the cramped scene earlier at our Vancouver RV park.  And this one cost less. 

Here's the premium site.  It includes a patio gas grill, refrigerator, and sink.  Its cost matched the Vancouver park.

Sunday. Some of our "friends" get a perverse kick out of hearing about the occasional problems we encounter in our travels -- such as getting into dead-ends and having to work ourselves out, such as mechanical problems.  So far this trip had been mostly trouble-free. Had a laptop computer crash that led to getting Windows re-installed at a shop in Vancouver, but that wasn't too bad because we have a back-up netbook computer with us that generally suffices. (Update.  The netbook became virus-infected two days before we got home.)  This happy state of things changed Sunday afternoon.  But first ...

Sunday morning started out great.  We attended the contemporary service at the Bend First United Methodist Church.  The musical guests were a men's quartet.  As we walked in they were doing a sound check and we knew we were in the right place.  They did some traditional songs: Just a Little Talk With Jesus, Swing Down Chariot, but the emotional highlight was "The Prayer of the Children."  This was new to us.  One of the quartet told us the background.  The songwriter, Kurt Bestor, was a Mormon missionary, working in a children's hospital in Bosnia in the 1970s.  One day, while he was away gathering supplies, the hospital was bombed.  Everyone there was killed.  Out of this heart-wrenching tragedy came this song:

Can you hear the prayer of the children
on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?  
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry  
turning heavenward toward the light.  
Crying," Jesus, help me  
to see the morning light of one more day,  
but if I should die before I wake,  
I pray my soul to take."

Can you feel the hearts of the children  
aching for home, for something of their very own.  
Reaching hands with nothing to hold onto  
but hope for a better day, a better day.  
Crying," Jesus, help me
to feel the love again in my own land,  
but if unknown roads lead away from home,  
give me loving arms, 'way from harm."  
(oooooo la la la la etc etc.)

Can you hear the voice of the children  
softly pleading for silence in their shattered world?  
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,  
blood of the innocent on their hands.  
Crying," Jesus, help me
to feel the sun again upon my face?  
For when darkness clears, I know you're near,  
bringing peace again."

Dali čujete sve dječje molitve?

Can you hear the prayer of the children?

The melody is haunting.  Bestor said the melody came first to him, then he gradually added words.  Listen to it here.  Or at our Tuziblog playlist (if it's not already playing as you read this), or other youtube versions.  The first line has been looping through my mind ever since.


Here's a scene west of Bend, one of the Three Sisters peaks. 

Right after church we closed up, hooked up, and left Bend, bound for Reno - a two-day jaunt. There was a lot of construction around the RV resort. Coming in we had gotten excellent directions when we called in a reservation. When we checked in they gave us written instructions for getting out. Nevertheless, we made a wrong turn (I'll spare you the details).  I followed GPS instructions and found a way to return, but turned too soon – right into a  cul-de-sac. Thought maybe I could make it in one tight turn but couldn’t. At that point, the hitch is too cramped to disconnect. I had Susie start the Explorer and asked her to turn the steering wheel to make it easier for me to do a little backandforth to get us turned around, which I did. But, I hadn’t said, Put it in neutral, so consequently we scraped a little rubber off the rear tires.

Disconnecting, when in doubt, is very easy to do, so I don’t know why I try to avoid it - it ain’t rational. It got worse.


A half-hour down the highway, we stopped for lunch. I parked behind the restaurant. I had room to circle the restaurant and get back on the highway, but Miss GPS said the road along the back of the restaurant would connect with the highway just three miles along. This seemed reasonable and simpler, so I followed that road. About a mile and a half down the road A SIGN: Pavement ending. There was some turning room there, but it would require disconnecting. The dirt road didn’t look too bad.  I took it.  Then, it turned bad, worse than it looked.  But, at least it was flat and not rocky.

There were ruts that caused Tuzi to rock violently side to side.  The dishes crashed out of the cabinet.  After we put them back, Susie stood in the aisle holding the cabinet doors shut.  We could have disconnected and backed out, a quarter mile or so, but NOoo.  No sense being rational at this point.  We continued and eventually emerged on the highway.  I suspect the motorists who saw us waiting to drive on to the highway wondered, What?!

I had had occasional problems with rough shifting.  The transmission would try to shift down, then quickly shift back up, leading to a bucking motion.  I could control it, though, by manually shifting when needed.  The problem was worse after this escapade.  I had this problem a couple years ago.  The Allison transmission rep said it's a power problem, not a transmission problem.  At that time, as I remembered it, an oil change was part of the solution (I know, doesn't make sense to me, either.  More likely an air filter full of dust, which it was, but I was focused on the road, not the dust we were stirring up). 

SE Oregon is very sparsely populated.  Not a place you're going to get an oil change on Sunday afternoon.  We pressed on to Susanville, CA.  The last of the day's indignities: getting on the street for the RV park there required a sharp U-turn.  I missed it and ended up in the entrance to a trailer park.  Sign said, no turnaround in here, buddy (words to that effect), so I disconnected and Susie coached me through a turnaround, and we slunk into the RV park -- a very nice one, it turned out.  Sidebar: Walking around park the next morning I saw a motor home that had been given the name: Cramalot Inn.  Clever.

Monday morning I took Tuzi in to a nearby multi-purpose shop (diesel repair, towing, car rentals, ... ) and got an oil change.  The mechanic said, You've got another problem.  A leaking pinion seal.  I had to replace a lot of fluid (in a differential, I think).  The leak is not bad, but you shouldn't drive to NM with it.  Also, your air filter gauge says it needs to be replaced soon (Oh, really).  This is a custom air filter assembly, not readily available. Neither job could be done in Susanville, so we hooked up and headed for Reno (just 85 miles away).

At a rest stop I called Tiffin.  They said, We don't have dealer in Reno.  But, you should call the chassis-maker, Freightliner.  I called them and found out they had a shop in Sparks, a town on the NE side of Reno.   Great!

Just out of the rest stop we were meeting an oncoming line of traffic.  Suddenly, there was smoke, and tire fragments coming from a motor home in that line.  Blowout!  (Very) fortunately, the driver was able to keep it in his lane as we met and passed and we avoided the tire pieces on the highway.  We breathed another heavy sigh of relief and nursed Tuzi along to Reno.

That's enough excitement for now.  Next report from Reno/Sparks.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Washington

When we left home we had planned to spend three weeks or so meandering home.  Some family and friends happenings back in Albq, though, led us to decide on a more direct trip home, arriving by Aug. 15.  We're planning two nights in the Reno/Tahoe area, but otherwise, just keep moving. 

Stopped for the first night, Friday, after leaving Vancouver at a KOA on the banks of the Yakima River near Ellensburg in south-central WA.  Kind of stumbled in to a nice evening, there.  Took a drive through town, including a stop for groceries, and picked a downtown soup and sandwich place to eat, getting there just before it closed.  While waiting for our meals I picked up a local guide on things to do in the Ellensburg area (E-burg, for one thing, is home of Central Washington U).  Noticed a picture of an unusual, to some, controversial, it said, sculpture - a bull sitting on a park bench: sitting bull?  Asked the cafe-lady where the bull was sitting.  Just a block over, she said.  And by the way, our monthly First Friday art gallery open houses are happening right now.  You might enjoy that, too.

So, we walked over to see the bull.

Then, we spied some artsy activity across the street.  It was the Clymer Museum - a tribute to western artist, John Clymer, an E-burg native.  Among the Clymer art displayed there were several Saturday Evening Post covers - that's his era.  Here's an example of his art that I found on the internet.

In addition to art, the museum had a folk/bluegrass group entertaining and chips and dip to graze on.  My kind of art gallery!

We strolled through a couple of other galleries, one of them really grotesque, then, culturally saturated and a bit enchanted by what we found in Ellensburg, headed for Tuzigoot for the night.  Here's one of the nicely apppointed downtown buildings.

  

Next morning I got a couple of barn pictures in the area.

We got some locally-grown cherries that were really good.

Saturday we drove on south, headed for Bend, in central Oregon.  Had hoped to stop at the Columbia River crossing, but didn't see, or saw too late, a good opportunity.  Anyhow, we (all) gave a nod to Lewis and Clark one more time as we crossed the river.

I'm finishing this Washington posting several days later.  We've had some motor home problems and are now in Sparks, NV.  The problems were nothing serious, just annoying.  Also I made a couple of goofs on routes where I should have disconnected, turned around, and re-traced our path, but didn't.  I'll post that ugly story later when I have more computer-time.  We spent yesterday driving around Lake Tahoe.  Spectacular!  Pictures to come.  Planning to get home Sunday.

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

Vancouver

Greetings, Faithful Readers.  Sorry we haven't posted anything for a while, but our RV park in Vancouver had woefully weak wi-fi, so we didn't get much air time.  Plus, I was terribly busy going to statistical meetings Sunday through Thursday (which is why we went to Vancouver), then reflecting and ruminating on the scintillating ideas I had heard, so I didn't have much time or energy to type up the highlights for your edification and entertainment, or anything else.  Stay tuned.

Thursday, on the way from Hope to Vancouver, we got a call from son, Jeff E.  They, Jeff and Valerie, had recently made a match with a Chinese baby girl and had been asked by the adoption agency to provide the paperwork for going to China, soon, for themselves and those traveling with them.  Son Mike, and Karen and maybe their son, Jason, had been considering making the trip, but decided they just couldn't do it. Jeff asked, Could we possibly go and at least take the first step of submitting our travel papers?  They are taking granddaughter Malia with them and we could help take care of her along with the new granddaughter, Macy.  J and V haven't yet made the final decision that they want/need someone to accompany them, but we'll do it if needed, won't feel bad if we aren't needed.  Whichever.  We know from our Malia trip that both China and the adoption experience are exciting, but also know it's not your typical tourist trip.  (I kept encouraging Jeff to choose a different continent this time, but no.)

Macy has a cleft lip and cleft palate condition that is going to require surgery.  By a great coincidence, channel-surfing that evening or the next I came across an infomercial about a charitable organization that provides surgical repairs in poor countries for children who would otherwise have to live as an outcast with that condition forever.  Really sad.  Really great that Jeff and Valerie are going to give little Macy the chance at such a better life.

So, Jeff faxed the forms to us and Friday morning we went looking for an actuary.  Wasn't easy, even though the GPS found a couple offices not far from our RV park, but thanks to Susie's persistence - she said, Stop at that bank.  I'll go ask them - we found a nice and helpful guy, still in his office on a Friday afternoon and we got the stuff notarized and in the mail.  That plus laundry and some Tuzigoot clean-up occupied our first day in the exciting city of Vancouver.

Saturday we played tourist - rode the SkyTrain  (world's longest automated light rapid transit system) to down town, then hopped on a hop on, hop off tour bus.  Some city scenes:

The last shot is from Granville Island, one of our hop-off sites because of its shops and market.  Found some excellent fish and chips there and some nice souvenirs, too.  Spent a lot of time watching a street entertainer, Brian from England.  He did juggling and an escape from a straitjacket, but mostly he kept up a steady line of chatter aimed at skewering most everyone.  For example, If you folks from America like my tricks, just shoot your guns in the air. 

Our trip took us through Stanley Park.  We didn't get off the bus, but here are a couple of passing shots of the gardens in the park.

Our RV park was about 10 miles from the downtown convention center where the American Statistical Association was holding its annual meeting.  I rode the SkyTrain to and from.  The nearest station was just a 15 minute walk from Tuzigoot. 

The SkyTrain system is interesting, there are no turnstiles.  There are kiosks for buying tickets, but no machine or person collecting them.  After a couple of days I asked someone in the RV park office if I was missing something. Is there someplace I'm supposed to show or submit my ticket?  No, he said.  Occasionally, a security officer checks for tickets, but that's it.  Every once in a while the government has a discussion about installing turnstiles, but so far it hasn't seemed to be worth the trouble.  Anyway, I kept faithfully buying a ticket for each trip (tax-deductible, you know).  It wasn't until Thursday afternoon, my last trip of the week, that a security lady came walking through my car.  My ticket wasn't right.  I had boarded at a different station down town from my usual boarding place and bought a ticket from a different line.  When I realized I wasn't in the right place, I had to exit and then enter the correct station, which I did but assumed the ticket would serve there, too.  Apparently not, but, she let me get by with it. 

The guy next to me was frantically searching through his backpack - a professional looking guy, not a student or other suspicious type.  He kept searching, she kept waiting.  We came into the next station.  She said, you need to get off and buy a ticket.  He kept searching and ignored her.  The train signaled it wanted to leave.  Rather than hold up the train, she got off (she had a bicycle-transporting passenger to talk to) and we left, the guy still searching through his backpack.  I never made eye contact and I didn't ask him if he really had a ticket or not.  But, shoot, if the only penalty is having to get off and buy a ticket, oh, the shame, I suspect there's a lot of free-riding going on.  Not that I would think of it.

I took Wednesday afternoon off from my grueling schedule of meetings and we drove over to North Vancouver and then on up the coast for 40-50 miles.  The North V attraction was the Capilano suspension bridge.  The first bridge at this location was built in the early 1900s by the owner whose son liked to hunt on the side of the gorge opposite their house.  Subsequent owners turned the bridge into a tourist attraction.  The bridge is 450 ft. long and it's about 230 ft. above the river below.  And it's very flexible and bouncy, without trying to make it bounce, which you're told not to do. It also twists side to side which makes it difficult to walk. Some people were creeping along, white knuckles tightly grasping the side rail.  Here are a couple of my pictures:

Then, we drove west to the coast.  I had in mind catching a ferry to one of the islands that dot the passage between the coast and Vancouver Island, but the cost and the timing weren't right for the late-in-the-day time we arrived at the ferry terminal, so we drove on up the coast. 

We (the GPS) found a nice, informal, local pub with outside dining and fish and chips on the menu, so we stopped there.  A couple came in with two pre-school children.  The waiter brought them some Dr. Seuss books for entertainment.  Mom started reading real loud, with added commentary, the better to educate the young 'uns.  SEE THE FUNNY HAT!  We kind of rolled our eyes and said, Why do parents think they have to do that?  Several minutes later, Mom realized there were other people in the area and turned around and said I hope we're no bothering you.  Oh, no.  Not at all, we said.

Later, as we were leaving we stopped and I told Mom, Actually we don't mind hearing Dr. Seuss stories.  Reminds us of our grandkids.  We had a nice chat.  Dad, it turned out, was just back in town after a couple of weeks fighting forest fires.  They were celebrating his safe return.  The air in Vancouver had gotten progressively hazier as our week there went along and the paper said it was due to hundreds of forest fires burning throughout British Columbia.  Dad said many of the fires are being allowed to burn in a managed way.

Our return coincided with sunset and you can see the smoke in these pictures.

What, you may be asking, did Susie do while you were busy doing statistics?  Well, we had two nice dinners out with friends and she drove to a nearby shopping center a few times to make her contribution to the economy.  She was also working on a special project that I cannot divulge.

Here's a picture of our RV park, taken from the second-floor deck over the office, which was one place I could connect to wi-fi and sometimes use it if not too many other people were online.

Fairly dense, as you can see, but there were nice hedges separating all of the sites.  We're in the far row, backed up against those trees.  It was not easy backing into our site.  Right behind those trees, and I mean right behind, is a very busy train track.  A busy highway ran along another side of the park, so we were right at RV park home.

Conference ended Thursday noon and we headed south Friday morning.  We had heard stories about long delays in border crossing, some times due to motor homes being given a complete search, so I had planned to avoid the crossing that connects to Interstate 5 and cross elsewhere.  The GPS had picked a route Thursday evening.  Somehow, she changed her mind overnight and before I realized it we were in the queue for the I-5 crossing.  Just took us about an hour and a quarter, though, and only a few questions to answer.  Construction was the main hang-up.

Here's a peace arch at the border, then a very welcome sign.

 Cheers,

Susie and Rob

O Canada

From Coeur d'Alene we drove west to Spokane, then north to Canada via US 395.  Border crossing was easy.  Just had to tell the agent our license plate number and to state that we were carrying no weapons.  Stayed at a campground just a few miles from the border at the south end of Lake Christina.  RV park was next to river that had a nice swimming hole that I tried out. 

Next day we headed west on Canada Highway 3.  Long day, about 250 miles, up and over several mountain ranges, dramatic changes in terrain.  Had lunch in resort town of Osoyoos which is in Canada's desert -- actually an extension of the Sonoran desert.

 

Our destination was Hope.  Found our RV park in a grove of tall trees tucked, naturally, between a freeway and a RR track.  Susie said she got no sleep the first night because of the train traffic.  Second night OK, though. 

The spot we were assigned was next to the playground near the campground entrance.  Park map showed lots of sites back among the trees.  I asked: Any of these sites available and large enough that we could fit into?  One was and the person on desk said you can drive back there and check it out.  She said I could do it without unhooking.  Well, that was almost a very big mistake.  With tight corners, low overhanging branches, and lots of brush we managed to circle through the park, rubbing up against some small branches, but fortunately no scratches that I didn't think were already there.  Our potential site in the trees would have been impossible to get into so we settled for the slot up front.

Later in Vancouver I talked to a guy who had led an RV group on a trip that included a stop at Hope.  He said they picked another RV park in the area because of the problems in ours.

We spent two nights in Hope and had a day to look around the area.  Hope is surrounded by tall, steep, forested mountains and is located on the Fraser River, named for Simon Fraser, who, in 1808, worked his way down this river headed for the Pacific Ocean, thinking he was on the Columbia River (upon which Lewis and Clark had traveled a couple of years earlier).  Wikipedia says Fraser's exploration of this area was one reason that after the war of 1812 the U.S./Canadian border was set at just south of the mouth of the Fraser River, which is where Vancouver is located.

Fraser had a lot of difficulty getting down the river - steep canyon walls, raging rapids.  He characterized one area as the gates of Hell, now a tourist attraction called Hell's Gate where you can take a tram down to and over this site, which I did. 

The river is not particularly wide at this point - in fact its narrowness was what made it hell to get through -
but it's very deep: 150 ft., I believe.  That means that the volume of water flowing through it is twice that of Niagara Falls!

There are two railroads running through Fraser Canyon: the Canadian Northern and the Canadian Pacific, one on each side of the river.  I hung around at the bottom long enough to catch this train going through. 

The work and engineering skill to build RR tracks and roads through this country are awesome.  There were five or six tunnnels in a 10-mile stretch of the highway through here.

Hope is known as a center for wood carvers and many works adorn the streets and parks.  Here's a sampling.

Portrait of a tourist.

Then there was this pole dancer in downtown Hope.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob