When we returned from Hyder, we had heard a bear had been frequenting the camp. Not long after we settled in, Katie came over and said she thought he was very near because she could hear him. Yep . . . right across the campground from us. A grizzly. He was so intent on eating he didn't care about us, but it certainly changed the way I dealt with Babs in the middle of the night.
Monday morning, which is also Labor Day for Canadians, before most of the park was awake, I saw some bushes moving near the stream below us. Hello Mr. Bear. He was back again.
He ate quite a bit more and then headed up into the hills. I am worried about him. So far he hasn't caused any trouble, but he is a little too familiar with people. I hope this winter he goes far away from the campground.
Monday was a long day. We knew we had nearly 300 miles to drive, some on the Cassiar, which is a difficult but beautiful drive. In several places, there were still one-lane bridges, and many of them were wood decked. Very quaint, but not exactly what we were expecting. We were able to go a little faster once we got to the Yellowhead Highway, but it was still a two lane road.
Then the unthinkable happened. We saw a flagman in the road, and he told us there had been a bad accident ahead of us and the road was closed. They had started a detour, but an RV had gone off the side and they didn't think it was safe for us to go. Since we couldn't turn around, we turned into a pull out and decided to wait.
We learned that the accident was between an RV and an SUV, and there was at least one fatality. That was sobering. They thought the road would be closed for up to 8 hours; the detour was so dusty they had to wait for a water truck; and there was a washout on the detour, so they were having to go across a hay field. Oh boy.
After about two hours, we were told to follow the pilot car on the detour. It was a one-lane road that they had been sending cars through . . . but they soon stopped that. A water truck had gone before us to calm down the dust, but we were behind a very timid driver, and soon, the pack was way ahead of us.
We caught up at the farmer's field. It was quite a bumpy mess, and at one point, we jiggled so much, a door above Don came open and dumped books on him. (But we did find the exercise band that I knew I had brought but couldn't remember where we put it. We are a little behind on the exercise part of this trip!)
Soon we passed the RV that had gone off the road. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of it. We had heard that the two women inside were clinging to the windows because they were afraid that if they went to the other side of the RV, it would tip over and roll. I think they had gotten out, but the road was so narrow, it is hard to believe more than one didn't go over the side somewhere along the line.
We saw some beautiful scenery while on the detour.
Then the timid driver got confused and couldn't figure out which way to go.
Don passed him, just in time to be met by the row of cars coming the other way. The pilot car driver didn't realize there was a whole string of cars still on the road behind the pokey guy! We soon got back on the road and headed to Prince George. Unfortunately, we still had a long ways to go, and we didn't arrive at our campground until 9:00 p.m. Much later than we like, but we are safe and sound.
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