Route 97 South.

August 18, 2014 We were up at 7:30 AM after a terrific nights sleep! Bob walked over to McDonald's for 2 coffees to go with our cereal. After breakfast we did a quick trip through Safeway for a few items. Prices seemed high so we figured we would get most of what we needed at Walmart in Prince George. We headed out about 9:00 AM For most of the day, through late afternoon we were mostly traveling along rolling hills. Traffic was light. Just before we reached the outskirts of Fraser Lake I spotted a large black bear coming out of the forest into a well manicured residence. It was sniffing about and determining if it was safe to proceed. Unfortunately I was not able to get it's photo. The air was clear here but on the other side of Vanderhoof for about 200 miles we were traveling through a smokey area. Apparently there was a fairly large fire nearby. No sign of the fire except the smoke. On the radio there were announcements that the evacuation notice (in the area we were traveling) was just canceled. Hopefully the light rains during the night helped reduce the fire area. We stopped in Prince George at Walmart to stretch our legs and get supplies and lunch. We continued on hoping to reach Kamloops before stopping again. But hunger kicked in and there was a large sign, "HUNGRY ?" in Cache Creek, about 30 miles before Kamloops. We stopped there at Herbie's Hungry Diner for supper. A burger for Bob and an Alaskan Cod sandwich for me! Great fries and we shared a chocolate shake. We gassed up and were back on the road around 8:15 AM. (We changed time zones when we reached shore in Prince Rupert.)

The terrain had changed considerably. We dropped into a very dry valley. It looked like we could have been in Texas. By 8:30 PM the temperature was up to 82 degrees F. Hadn't seen that since we left Texas.

Kamloops turned out to be a large city. We found our route OK but missed the Provincial Campground. We pulled into a turnout about 20 miles south of Kamloops. We had traveled about 550 miles for the day. Getting to the US Border tomorrow should be no problem.