Month: September 2025

We plotted another 300 mile day, and the end of that was Hope British Columbia. The drive into that area was very tedious because traffic was heavy, fast, curvy, and filled with forest fire smoke. I imagine the views would be fantastic without the smoke. When we got to Hope that evening, I was looking for a free campsite, or at least a provincial park, but there’s not a lot of off road type of areas in a canyon with 2000 foot high mountains around it. The closest one we could find was a 40 minute drive 20 miles up the road. So we decide to pay for a site along the river. It turned out to be a pretty nice site, and the town was absolutely cute.

For those of you don’t know, and we certainly didn’t, this is where they filmed Rambow. We were browsing the downtown area and they were Rambo pictures, postcards, signs, statues, and Kathy asked what’s with all the Rambo stuff. The people are incredibly friendly there and we’re quick to give us the history of the movie, the local legend, and other need things about the town. We bought some stickers, some fudge, some postcards, and actually drove scenic places around the town where the movie was filmed.

We also learned that the local area is filled with wood carvings, including a legendary police dog that was killed in a line of duty. The humongous cedars, pines, and other trees in this town are absolutely beautiful.

We were able to get some laundry done in the morning, took some nice, hot showers, and completed the waste dump. It’s always nice to have those things taken care of.

this is the famous tree in the Chase scene in the Rambo movie.

interesting pine tree and cone.

We got up early today to get on the road. The distance between Grand Prairie and Vancouver is about 750 miles. After talking to Rick and Sandy, we got online and reserved a spot at the campground in Vancouver for September 2. We figured if we did two 300 mile days, then we can get to Vancouver early in the day on the second and have a chance to look around. I have been using OnX Maps to plan the route as well as the track where we were going, so I’m able to pick an area along the route near the 300 mile mark.

I was originally planning to route back up the Cariboo Highway, and continue down the Cassier Highway, but after driving that portion, it looked like heading back through Jasper National Park was a better route for seeing wildlife. And that did not disappoint.

Toward the end of the day we were approaching the Canoe River Campground at 300 miles

on the OnX maps, but once we arrive there, it was actually a pay campground for $45 CAD and the area did not look very interesting. This map tool is not so great at finding campsites, so I opened up iOverlander and found a spot about 6 km up the road at Upper Canoe River Rec site. There were some warnings that there was only one to two spots, and the site might be occupied. But it turned out to be one of the best camping spots. No one was there, there was a firing, two picnic tables, tons of firewood, and a drop toilet. And they were blueberries everywhere.

I trekked off into the woods to collect firewood while Kathy grabbed a container and started picking blueberries. They were tons of other berries in the area and she found a great app where you can take a picture and identify the plants, berries, etc. I think she found huckleberries, red huckleberries, more raspberries, and some poisonous ones. The application also identified mushrooms with huge warnings, don’t eat them.

We had a great evening and listened to the roaring river behind us and the crackling of the fire.