Day 45

After giving my sunny weather report yesterday, we woke up to clouds and the threat of rain. But that didn’t dampen our spirits – onward to Stewart BC. We started out on a slightly bumpy road and it got a lot worse before it got better. There was a 20 mile construction zone that was gravel; it wouldn’t have been too bad except it was so dusty we could hardly see. We really felt sorry for a couple who was ahead of us on a motorcycle. With all the bumps and dust, it was difficult to feast our eyes on the beauty around us.

Once we were back on pavement we were able to enjoy the scenery. We were surrounded by thick foliage and trees with green mountains behind and even bigger mountains behind the green ones. We ate lunch at a rest stop on Bob Quinn Lake & Airport. An airplane actually landed while we were there. The runway was gravel and so short I didn’t see how a plane could land, but it did. A few miles down the road we came around a curve and there were 4 horses standing in the middle of the road. They weren’t the least bit concerned about us and just looked at us as we slowly made our way around them. Right after that it started raining.

The closer we got to Stewart the more beautiful the landscape became. British Columbia is so incredibly gorgeous. The road we’re on is known as the Glacier Highway and we saw a number of glaciers with tremendous waterfalls. As I’ve said before, there aren’t enough adjectives to describe it.

Stewart is a small mining community that sits on an inlet (Portland Canal) surrounded by tall mountains. I was surprised to learn that a number of movies have been filmed here: Bear Island, The Thing, Iceman, Leaving Normal, Insomnia, & Eight Below. We went for pizza with Jerry and Nancy and the waitress told us that when Insomnia was filmed, Robin Williams was very nice and interacted with the community but Al Pacino was kind of a jerk. He stayed on his yacht and had body guards.

After dinner, Jan & I did a load of laundry. Nothing says “party” like spending the evening in a laundromat. It was located in the King Edward Hotel – that makes doing the laundry sound kind of classy.