A murder?

posted June 30

We left Beaumont Campground and for 587 kilometers meandered along the Skeena river amidst the Canadian Cascade Mountains—the really tall ones still snow-streaked, possibly glacier-streaked but it was hard to tell. Drive-by pics out the window do not do it justice. We reconfigured our truck dashboard to metrics so we know when the posted speed limit is 100km it doesn’t mean 100 mph and we can just match the speed to the limit. It’s still shocking to say we’re going to drive 587 anything in one day, but it does go quicker than miles.

We had stopped at a Safeway along the way for re-supply so planned halibut and corn for dinner. Also using your ATM card at the Montreal Bank and a British Columbia State Liquor store costs you a 7am phone call from your Washington bank to confirm the card-user is intentionally shopping in Canada. 

We’re very happy with our little camper.  It takes us about 8 min to set up and the bed is already made with flannel sheets and our Pendleton wool blanket. If, in the morning, we want to travel somewhere to see a sight, i.e. cannery museum in Prince Edward or Cowpuccino in Prince Rupert, it takes us about 8 minutes to pop down. That evening, Judd was surprised that I would exit the camper calmly with two glasses of wine and tell him ”there’s an alarm going off in there.”  I guess I figured “the fridge is open” alarm isn’t as alarming as “the camper is on fire” alarm should be. At the new campground, Prudhomme Provincial Park, Sheldon was out front and made friends with the clan across the street.  It looked like an Erskine High School Drama club out for a good time. Sheldon went for a sleep over and everyone was thrilled, except Sheldon.

Thrice now, we’ve been awoken at 4am by highly annoying, cackling, cawing crows. They each have a different pitched irritating caw and it sounded like at least 8 of them but I’m sure I could hear the ring-leader who was right outside our window.  He would call and a couple others would echo and then they’d fly away still complaining and then fly back, again, right under our window.  I think I know why they’re called a “murder of crows.” I sure wanted to murder some. Mysteriously, they settle their fights about 5am and we all go back to sleep for a couple hours. I looked up what the sound of crows in French would be: Crôa Crôa – check www.fluentu.com/blog/french for what 20 other animals say in French.

We planned a few nights at this campground closest to Prince Rupert where, on Monday, we board our Alaskan ferry to Haines. Monday happens to also be Canada Day so we’ll see if there’s any parking left in town from 11:00 when we check out until midnight when the ferry departs. In PR this morning we walked around the quaint waterfront. Coffee at Cowpuccino’s was recommended and while we sat in the window front seat we noticed every other person in town, male or female, sporting a teal-colored jacket. Turns out the Seabourn Cruise Line had just docked and about 400 tourists had just hit town, the jacket must be their Heritage Tour-equivalent uniform to warn the townspeople. My down jacket happened to be about the same shade of teal. While walking along the waterfront some nice volunteers in red-and-white-Canadian-flag-T-Shirts asked if we’d like to complete a survey. I said sure.  After I started, I saw it was a related-to-the-cruise survey.  The nice woman said I could fill it out anyway.  She was jealous of our ferry to Alaska plan as she’d lived in BC all her life and never been yet. She happily gave me a Prince Rupert pin for completing the survey and Judd stood mortified that I’d actually puncture my down jacket with it. Maybe he’s worried that I’ll get a pin at every port we hit and end up looking like a Cheesecake Factory waitress with bedazzled suspenders.

At the campground, we wile away time reading books or combing maps, still playing cards or cribbage or backgammon after dinner. Some little people were cruising down the hill in front of us. The front runner yells back, “do we go left or right at the bottom?” The back-runner replies, “Left!”  The front runner yells back, “Which way is left?”  Dog-walkers and kids on bikes are still going by at 9 at night, annoyingly generators are still going at 10pm, and we remark we’re not even to the land of the midnight sun yet. We have to make ourselves don the facemasks and go to bed between 10 and 11:00 to be ready for the 4am crow murders.

Judd's massive spice rack improves our "beyond Burgers" (i.e. not meat)

Some little camper's tutu needed washing.