Greetings! We arrived in Ft. Nelson, British Columbia, Canada last evening, about 5:00 after driving about 6 hours, and traveling about 300 miles. We will be here until Monday morning (today is Saturday, July 1). So, since we have some down time, and I have an internet connection (weak and need to reconnect sometimes), I thought it was a good time to give an update.
We ran into some of the same folks who we met down in Dawson Creek while we were walking around the campground last evening. I have a feeling this will happen more and more as we travel up the Alcan…there are only a few routes to travel to Alaska, and not all that many campgrounds along the way, especially if you are traveling in a beastly sized RV like we are :). It’s kind of nice seeing someone familiar and trading stories of the day’s drive. We learned that many folks saw bears (black and grizzly, including one with cubs) and a moose yesterday on their drive….we saw none! And I was watching for animal activity, that is I was when I wasn’t turned around talking to Gerry in the back. He continues to do great on the drives, sleeping much of the time and making efficient use of potty breaks when we take them.
We are at Triple G campground in Ft. Nelson. Very nice, they have a restaraunt on site with a patio, and they allow dogs to sit with diners on the patio – a real bonus. So we had dinner there last night which was a nice change of pace. I haven’t taken any photos of the campground, but will try to and post next time. We decided to spend 3 nights here, which will give us 2 full days of non-driving which will be a good break. I have a photo below of the lilac bush we saw last evening full of butterflies – the photo doesn’t do it justice, the bush was quivering with butterflies. Lilacs, peonies and other spring flowers are in full bloom up here, several weeks after the ones back home finished.
It’s a rainy day today, gray and drizzling. I made pancakes this morning along with a quick syrup I made out of some homemade huckleberry jam we had purchased in Montana – yum! Gerry’s first pancakes, and I can report he likes them and they will be added to his list of favorites! We use our fireplace every morning, it is cozy and warms things up nicely on cool mornings. Great to have tea and coffee in front of the fire and Gerry gets in my lap every morning to nap. Speaking of naps, Steve is enjoying one right now also! I have a pot of soup (vegetable beef) simmering on the stove now, and am doing laundry.
I also tried to hook up a coax cable this morning, but failed. The campground has cable at each site (many do, I have found). Since our DirectTV install failed miserably back when we were in Montana, I thought we’d try to hook up to the cable. Maybe watch an old movie or something on this nice rainy, relaxing day. So we bought a coax cable in the office here and I hooked it up this morning. Our TVs are supposed to be already set up for cable, just plug in the coax from the campground and go. Nope. No go. I give up.
I will spare you all the gory details of the previous failed DirectTV attempt; here’s the cliff notes version: we had DirectTV satellite installed on the RV when we purchased it; we purchased 2 DirectTV receiver boxes from an RV supply place; I spent 4 hours on the phone with DirectTV one day when we were in Montana to install the receiver boxes (1 for TV in living room and 1 for TV in bedroom); after repeatedly explaining to the young lady on the phone that we do NOT live at the house we used to live in and had a DirectTV account for, and we do NOT have those same receivers any longer since we do NOT live in a house, rather in an RV and have purchased NEW receivers; and she activated the OLD, previous, from our house and already returned via mail back to DirectTV receivers and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working! and I finally got transferred to a “level 2 technician” who straightened that mess out but couldn’t figure out why our NEW receivers in our new RV, connected to our new DirectTV satellite would not work. I then spoke to a local RV repair guy who said he quit doing any work on DirectTV set ups because it was impossibly complicated and usually ended with him spending 8 or 10 hours on the project with no favorable outcome. And we have learned from other campers that even if you do get it installed (fat chance), you then have to call DirectTV each time you move locations to have them reset the location/set up. Who wants to do that?! This is why, I’m sure, that when we mentioned we were having DirectTV satellite installed to the nice neighbors Ray and Cindy at the RV factory in Indiana (remember them?) they looked at us funny and said, “we would never do that, it’s way too complicated”. The wisdom you gain from experience…..
So no TV, which is not a big deal. We have managed to watch 2 movies in the month we have been on the road, using Netflix. That is until I learned our Verizon mobile wifi (JetPack) UNLIMITED wifi is only unlimited til you hit the limit. Yup. Spent another 2 hours with Verizon support to figure that out. While in the US, you get up to 10 MG per month of 4G (fast) internet. When you use up your 10 MG you get “prioritized” – the word they actually used – to 3G. Not fast enough to run Netflix or Amazon movies. AND then, when you arrive in Canada, even though you have been assured by the nice Verizon sales person when you purchased your new Verizon JetPack that it works in Canada “just the same as in the US”, you only get 1/2 of 1 MG of 4G internet per day, then you are “prioritized” to 2G. With 2G you can’t even get Google to come up, and certainly can’t watch Netflix. They assure me that when we arrive in Alaska, we will go back to the US system which will work as described above. I will belive that when I see it, I’m guessing Alaska will be more of an “extended network” scenario with limited access.
All of this technology stuff is a huge stretch for me, and I don’t enjoy spending time on it at all. I would like to find a technology guru for hire, who understands RVs and how to use mobile technology for RVs, and have them come install/set up and instruct me on how to operate. I am going to search for such a resource for when we arrive in Alaska, I’m thinking Anchorage may have some services, given the popularity of RV travel in Alaska. In the meantime, we will continue to not watch tv or movies, and will limp along with whatever internet we can get, which is okay with us. We have actually enjoyed not having TV most of the time, and are reading instead. Steve is reading a very large civil war book, “Battle Cry of Freedom” by James M McPherson, and I just finished George Orwell’s “1984”. It’s an older book (maybe a classic now?) but I had never read it…very good, a bit scary it is so insightful in how we live and may live in the future….and the role TVs (or telescreens as they are called in the book) play, it may be a good thing ours don’t work! I just started another book by Jan Karon, “Come Rain or Come Shine”, the very last book in the beloved Mitford series. Many of you have also read the Mitford series, and this is the last book, where Dooley and Lace get married. Completely relaxing and a peaceful book.
So there you have it, that’s what we are up to! A few pictures below of the inside of the RV. I’ve received requests for pictures of the inside, so I will start with these. Sometime later I’ll get pictures of the bedroom and main bathroom area. If you’re interested, our RV is a 2017 DRV Mobile Suites model 39DBR S3. You can find the floor plan online. I’ll share more about the RV in a future post. I discovered I can increase the size of the pictures attached to the blog posts – let me know what you think.
Today is Canada Day, and soon it will be 4th of July. Enjoy the holiday, we are fortunate to live in a beautiful country with freedoms and opportunity many can only dream of.
