TWO PEAS AND THE POD: CANADA: CARIBOO HIGHWAY (NORTHERN ½)

FRIDAY

WALMART SUPERCENTRE

STORE #1106 - WILLIAMS LAKE, BC

BRITISH COLUMBIA

DESTINATION: THE LOWER 48

73%	27%

COMPLETED - 985 miles=(1585 kilometers) ⟺ 364 miles=(586 kilometers) - STILL TO GO

Today we'll be traveling south on BC-97, nicknamed the Cariboo Highway, which runs from Prince George to Cache Creek in British Columbia.

We'll be covering the northern half of the Highway today and finishing it up tomorrow. Today's travels will find us passing through communities with names like Stoner, Woodpecker, Dragon and my favorite, Soda Creek.

This entire region is known as the Fraser Plateau.

While this region is pretty, it's just can't be compared with the scenery we've been traveling through for the last few months.

That's why you won't see any awesome pictures in this post, because nothing really inspired Tricia to raise her camera and "snap a photo" to save the memory.

Even as the driver, I usually spot something that grabs my attention, other than the road. That didn't happen too often today.

Only once did I pull off the road and suggest we take a photo of the scenery. That was in a small rest area overlooking McLeese Lake, close to the half way point of our drive today.

Besides, they had toilets there and I had to go.

McLeese Lake as seen from the Rest Area overlook.

Before we arrived at McLeese Lake however, we passed through what would prove to be the only city on our route today, Quesnel (pop. 23,146).

Quesnel was a major commercial centre of the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1850s.

Just like yesterday we saw more horses, cows and hay, but there were also two new sights to behold. The first being high voltage transmission lines delivering electricity to the entire region. They kept switching from the left side of the road to the right and managed to find their way into many of the pictures Tricia took today.

The second everpresent sight for the day was the BC Rail. That's short for British Columbia Railway and it managed to stealthily switch from one side of the road to the other many times. During the entire drive not once did ROVER and THE POD have to slow down to negotiate a railroad crossing.

Every time the railroad switched sides, the road either passed over the tracks or the tracks passed over the road. That bit of engineering was very much appreciated by us roadway travelers.

We saw many of these odd looking train cars. Any idea what they're used for?

We saw many trucks hauling exremely long logs all along the road. We also saw many large industrial plants with huge piles of these logs stacked outside as high as a three story building.

We never put two and two together until we saw one of these odd looking train cars filled with lumber from the several saw mills we had passed along the way.

We arrived in Williams Lake, BC right around noontime and refilled ROVER's gas tank before quickly getting set up along the outer edge of the Walmart parking lot. We weren't the only RV in the parking lot!

This Walmart Supercentre is perched high up on a hill overlooking the city of Williams Lake, BC (pop. 10,947). We have a pretty decent view outside our rear dinette window of the city down below. I'll bet it gets even prettier when all the city lights come on after the sun goes down and it gets dark.

That's right I said dark! We are far enough into the season and far enough south that it actually starts to get dark at the very reasonable hour of 7:30PM. I think we can stay up that late to see the lights come on. Too bad we never got to see the Northern Lights show themselves though.