Shabbos was interesting at this latitude.  Shabbos started at 10:30pm on Friday, but because of the shallow angle of the Sun relative to the horizon at sunset, Shabbos didn’t end until 12:16am on Sunday.

Friday night we heard something moving around in the basement, and we were pretty sure we had a mouse in the RV.  In an RV with slides, there are gaps where the hydraulic pistons that actuate the slides enter the undercarriage of the RV.  There’s nothing that can be done about this, as the gap is needed to allow the piston to move freely.  In cold, wet places, I guess mice smell the food and get up into the RV to find food and somewhere warm and dry to hang out.

Saturday afternoon, around 9pm, we heard the mouse under the kitchen island.  Shortly thereafter, he went running across the floor.  By blocking off various doors and openings, we were able to get him to jump out of an open door.  After Shabbos was over, we set traps in case he came back.  This morning, we had caught him in one of our traps.  I guess he couldn’t resist coming back in again.

This morning, before we left Clements Lake, I built a cowling for the WiFi Antenna.  I had purchased the tub a week ago, but it took this long to find the time to get it installed.  This will protect the cell antenna and the WiFi antenna’s center column from being damaged by low hanging branches:

I also finished adding the gas plumbing that allows our catalytic heater to be used in the new RV:

I added a quick release inline with the gas supply under the stove top:

When the catalytic heater’s hose is attached, the hose runs out from under the stove top:

Heading West, we arrived after 10 miles at the town of Stewart, BC.  There’s no cell phone coverage anywhere in this area, but we did find WiFi at the local general store:

Continuing West, we crossed out of BC and into Alaska’s Southern panhandle at the three-block town of Hyder, Alaska.  We’ve made it to Alaska!

Following Fish Creek, we pulled off into an observation area for watching bears feeding on migrating salmon.  Unfortunately, the salmon won’t start running for another few weeks, which might explain why we seem to have beat the crowds here.  We didn’t see any bears, but we did see plenty of great views of the river and surrounding terrain:

We continued North onto Granduc Road, following the Salmon Glacier self guided auto tour.  The road was gravel and precipitous, but we could see the Salmon River far below as well as a glacial kettle, the blue-water pool seen here:

After 15 miles of driving North, we crossed back into Canada.  5 miles of further driving up to about 3,700 feet above sea level, we reached the Salmon Glacier, Canada’s 5th largest glacier:

On the way back down, we stopped to look at the part of the glacier that is lower down and not covered by snow.  The blue ice of the glacier is more evident here:

By now the truck has taken on its Alaska two-tone paint job:

Here’s the terminal end of the glacier:

Returning to Hyder, we crossed back into Canada.  The border guard gave us quite an interrogation, which was amusing since the only way into and out of Hyder is via this crossing, so obviously we’ve already been vetted the first time we came into Canada.

Hitching back up in Stewart, BC, we had dinner:

We tried to fill up at the one gas station in town, but it was closed for the night.  We have enough gas to get to the next gas station on the Cassiar, about 100 miles away, but not enough to get to the next one if that station is out of action, so we will return to Stewart tomorrow to fill up before heading back to the Cassiar highway. Since Stewart itself is posted as having no overnight parking, we left Stewart.  Driving out of town, we didn’t see any pullouts where we could park overnight until we reached Clements Lake, where we were last night.

As I was writing this post, I saw a mouse go running by.  I’m not sure if we just picked this one up since we’ve been parked here, or maybe he’s been with us since Shabbos.  I put out the traps again, and hopefully we will catch him overnight.

See the trip map for today’s drive and out current location.