The past 2 days have blended together…wake, eat, drive, take some photos and meet a few folks during charging.
Day 5:
At the mega campsite in Jasper we met 2 young men from Germany and Alex a 20 year old student on a gap year from high school. Alex is from western
Australia and seeking a way to use her skills and interests to make a difference for bettering our world.
Entering British Columbia we stopped at Mt Robson Provencial Park, a glorious mountain that was decimated by the “heat dome” in 2021 causing severe flooding and infrastructure damage. They are still not allowing climbers on this most popular climbing destination.
Our final stop of the day was at the Ancient Forest Park with an amazing boardwalk up the side of the mountain into a temperate rain forest with 1,000 year old cedar trees. there we met Miguel just heading down from Alaska and his info and photos of Denali and the oceans around Valdez were totally inspiring for us heading their soon. Thank people along our path have been so perfect and we are grateful and lucky.
– Paul
Day 6:
Started the day with bacon and eggs in Prince George.
Chainsaw carvings in Chetwynd were quite impressive – see photos. But more important was the great assistance we got from Paige and Tyria at the information center!
As we headed toward Fort St. John, we encountered the most wildfire smoke we have seen since leaving Minnesota. This has struck me as interesting that we’ve been closer to the fires in our travels, but keep hearing about the smoke at home while not seeing it here.
But we still had many stunning views by choosing the lower traffic route which also took us past the W. A. C. Bennett Dam and along a route that was getting many highway improvements some of which may be related to the new Site C dam. This all points to the many challenges we continue to have as a society to support our current and future electrical demands while addressing climate change and justly considering the impact on the local communities. Meeting people, having respectful and curious conversations and encouraging local dialog are all an important part of the process.
The smoke was thick enough when we arrived in Fort St. John that we decided we did not want to sleep in a tent for the night breathing all that smoke, so a hotel option was a better choice.
As it turned out the Tesla level 2 charger was at the Microtel and only available for registered guests. We got the last room they had available.
We’ve been very fortunate to have fast speed (Level 3) chargers all along the route so far. This time only Level 2 chargers were anywhere in town, so we needed a full 8 hours to charge the car to full. The best use of that time is to be sleeping, so we plugged in for the night and enjoyed another comfortable bed.
-Mindy
Mindy and Paul,
I am truly enjoying the virtual ride in your EV rumble seat. Your photos help us sense Mother Earth’s massive presence, and increase our appreciation and gratitude.
I don’t want to distract you from your vital journey to find those “Level 10” recharge ports we all need for survival.
Our son in Chicago has been relating his experiences with their recent incursion of Canadian smoke. Here’s a couple links you may wish to check out later, which I’ve shared with one of our Iowa Senators and some of our Iowa CCL’ers.
“Scorching heat and Canada wildfires could be tied to ‘wavy, blocky’ jet stream”, Evan Bush, NBC News Digital, June 28, 2023 (https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/scorching-heat-canada-wildfires-tied-wavy-blocky-jet-stream-rcna91409)
I also suggest that you try to imagine the massive loss of a quarter million square kilometers of planetary ice cover (compared to the 1991 – 2023 Mean) represented in the graphics based on current climatological research of the National Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, and the graphing skills in Prof. Eliot Jacobson’s “Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Anomaly: 1991 – 2023”, most recent update on June 26, 2023. (Image sent seperately to your CCL email address.)
Best, Rog