The Sky is the Limit

Except for the hot weather we have really been enjoying our time in Winthrop, Washington. Did I mention that it is hot???? Only 90 but it is pretty miserable in the sun during the heat of the day. That being said, it cools down into the low 50’s at night so we still get to use our fireplace in the morning. We have been getting up early, as is our usually habit, but even earlier than is typical because we are very light driven. Go to bed when it’s dark and get up when its light….that’s us. Unfortunately the further north we go the less sleep we’ve been getting. I may need to look into fabricating a temporary black out shade for our bedroom since we have traveled only about half of our northern trek so far. We are currently 1017 miles north of home with Stewart, British Columbia (our northern most stop) 1026 miles away. At least we are on the waning side of the Summer Solstice so the days are getting fractionally shorter each day. Today’s Times: Sunrise 5:14 AM, Sunset 10:09 PM. In Stewart, BC July 14th: Sunrise 5:14 AM, Sunset 10:16 PM. So you can see we are chasing the sun.
We have spent the past couple of days just enjoying this unique town and getting caught up on some chores in preparation for our transition to Canadian Currency. This includes laundry, lots of quarters, and fueling up the truck and three 5 gallon cans for extra diesel since we may be in areas with few gas stations. Also diesel here, $2.70 gal., Canada, 1.08 liter… Roughly $4.00.
Yesterday we went to experience the one thing we found out about that somehow eluded my copious amounts of research on this trip. There is a Smoke Jumper Base here. Not just a Base but the first ever one. These guys are the specialists that parachute into remote areas to handle small spot fires to keep them from turning into the huge out of control monsters that we are all familiar with. We were told in town that they do tours for the public every day on request (assuming they aren’t out on a fire.) We really weren’t sure what to expect but I can guarantee you we were both very surprised.

The tours are private and informal with visitors being assigned a “Jumper” to show them around the base and explain the equipment, training and tactics. It was very “behind the scenes” with us being allowed full access to the hangar where they pack the parachutes and store their “ready” equipment that they can don without assistance in 2 min. We also got to go in the plane and the warehouse where they keep readily prepared packages with food and water for the jumpers along with the extra equipment that they can call for to be cargo dropped to them after they parachute into a location. The extra surprise was that they were going to do a training jump right in the middle of our tour so we got to see our guide, along with 5 other jumpers, get into their gear, board the airplane and parachute out to a target less than 100 yard away from where we were standing. It was a great way to spend a couple of hours on a

Saturday morning. The most surprising thing we learned was what they consider the most used skill of these firefighters…the ability to sew. That’s right. They sew almost all of their own equipment, bags and even repair their parachutes. Who knew!!!???

After that treat the waterfall hike that we did in the afternoon was nice but nearly the highlight compared to the morning. It did feel good to get out and get some exercise despite the heat. It was mostly in the shade and waterfalls do have a way of providing nature’s air conditioning. Today Scott is golfing and I’m blogging. We’re making plans for an early departure tomorrow since a road closure will force us to backtrack 30 miles on our way to Kelowna, BC. It appears that the hot weather will be following us to the Okanogan Valley. Thank goodness for AC in the trailer and cool nights.
More adventures to come…stay tuned.