Travel to Dease Lake--Aug. 1

Up and ready to travel by 6:30 a.m. but went outside where others were gathered to learn that the forest service would have to do a fly over before they would open the road till about 7:30 so we would begin to pull out and get in line up by the road at 7 a.m. Bob was about the 2nd coach out. Our staging area was a very large parking lot at the top of the small hill. Just like the army--hurry up and wait. We waited until about 9 a.m and the line from the other way had come thru and now it was our turn. A few campers and fifth wheels were before us. When they were ready our tour master did not come up so Bob just went out and he led us most of the way thru the fire area. We caravaned thru this whole area for safety. We saw a couple of places where the fire was still burning slightly but mostly we were in smoke for a short distance and then that was all. When it was safe and we had a large turn out we pulled out and let our tour master go ahead and off we went. We were out of the smoke in about 6 miles.

Up here they usually clear back from the road a good ways and at one area it was all dirt beside the road and there was a black bear just walking along in the dirt. Later on we stopped at a jade store. They mine it, process it and have it made into things. This area mines 60 to 90 percent of the jade found in the world. They ship it all over the world. They had large hunks of it out in front and they would cut pieces off using diamond saw blades right in front of you.

After we arrived and set up at Dease Lake RV Park we had our briefing, fixed somores and doughboys again and had our white elephant exchange which was a lot of fun. We all had small paper bags with either the gift or a note and our leader read a story and we kept passing the bags to the left and right and across the circle. When finished everyone ended up with something. It was a lot of fun. Bob took our stuff and went back to the coach and then came back because he couldn't find our coach keys. After everyone fruitlessly scoured the area we had been standing in he remembered he had put them in the bag he had carried home. On to another day.