Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - We depart Clinton, BC for Okanagan, Washington State. The drive took us about six hours and we had some issues along the way.

First of all, when we arrived in Prince George, we decided to spend our last Canadian money on fuel for the truck. We did not want to take the Canadian money back to the states where it is very hard to convert to dollars. We pulled into a PetroCanada station that did not offer us a lot of room. I pulled up to the pump and began to fill the tank with the green pump handle. The fuel backed up in the filler tube because of a vapor lock. This happens occasionally since I added the Transfer Flow 100 gallon auxiliary tank in the bed of the truck. Since we were only getting $60 worth of fuel, I decided to put the $60 dollars worth of fuel into the Aux tank. I had pumped about three gallons into the tank when the lady running the station came up on the intercom and said that the diesel was on pump #7; we were on pump #5. a gasoline tank. I now had three gallons of gasoline in the Aux tank mixed in with about 70 gallons of diesel. What do we do now? You don't want to drive a diesel truck with gasoline in the lines; it will damage the fuel injectors. It then dawned on me that I could pull the power source from the Aux tank pump and disconnect the fuel line. I did this and now we could continue our driving on to Okanogan. The only problem now is that we have a fuel tank that had a diesel/gasoline mix and I needed to know if I could run that diluted fuel mix through the engine without damage. We contacted and drove to a recommended diesel shop in Prince George. The technician there said that he did not know if it would damage the engine. He thought that we could try it to see and he felt that it would likely be okay. That was not good enough for me. We planned to drive with the fuel in the tank and return to the states and get more recommendations from Ford dealers before we used the fuel or pumped it out of the tank.

Secondly, one of our tires on the trailer set off an alarm indicating that the pressure in the tire had dropped by 10 psi. I knew that this brand new tire that had just been mounted had a valve stem with a very small leak. The pressure held for most of the trip, but dropped by about 12 psi over the entire drive. Whenever it heated up and went about ten psi below the 80 psi preset, it sounded an alarm. This was a nuisance and another thing to think about.

Thirdly, we planned to enter the United States at a town called Osoyoos that is located right on the border. It is a fairly large entry point on Highway #3. As we approached the town, the GPS told us to turn and head towards a little town called "Nighthawk." Nighthawk is a ghost town. The road was very small and narrow. We immediately thought about trying to turn around. There was a small sign that said "U.S. Customs," so we turned towards Nighthawk. This was a booming mining town in the early 1900s, but now there are only five people living there. The customs facility does not take commercial vehicles and we are as big as they are. We did not see the town, but we did arrive at the entry point. First there was a height limitation of 13 feet, 6 inches to go under. We are 13' 5" high. We barely made it under. Then we had to go through their checkpoint and it, too, was pretty low, but looked okay to me based upon my experience in judging under-crossings. The lady customs agent was curt at first, but as we went through the process, she began to "lighten up" a little. Her "partner in crime,' a rather large guy was tasked to enter our RV and search for vegetables, meat, eggs, primarily. You cannot get to our refrigerator unless you climb over the sink like a gymnast and balance between two counters. I hope he used the small ladder in the trailer that I use to do this. He came back with some vegetables and meat. I was afraid to see what the inside of our rig looked like after his climbing. After this, they both watched as Lisa and I guided the RV through the checkpoint without a problem. We then had to drive for twelve miles on a very narrow winding road with no shoulders and no guard rails. It was another adventure for the day, but at least were were in the United States. Yea!! Better WiFi!!

Next, we drove into temperatures that we had not seen on the entire trip. The temps in Washington rose to 98 degrees. This caused the tire pressures to increase and after a 15 degree increase about the 80 psi preset, an alarm goes off. So, more alarms. The tires stayed at about 95 psi and we finished the trip with this pressure.

Lastly, the campsite that we were planning to occupy for two days, could only support one day since the county fair was about to begin and they needed the room for vendors. Not a big deal, but a deal. We decided to depart the next day for Cashmere near Wenachee.

Overall, we had some issues, but we were able to work through them all with little impact on our progress to Oktanogan. We were a little stressed though and decided to go to Dairy Queen for ice cream to "ease the stress." It was also very nice to be back in the U.S. It just feels good. No more metric speed limit conversions. No more diesel at over $6.50 a gallon. No more dealing with dollar conversions from Canadian to U.S. We will miss all of the very nice people we met in Canada and I must say that, overall, the roads were very good for the entire trip. We will miss the moderate temperatures that we experienced on the entire trip. We will also miss the beautiful scenery we found all along the way. Amazing!

Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - We plan to leave today for Cashmere, Washington. We do not have to be out of our site until midnight; meaning that we have all day to get things done before we make the one and a half hour drive to Cashmere. We decided to get some things done. After a light breakfast, we went to Omak to wash the truck. We then went to an O'Reilly's Auto Parts to buy new mats and tire black. We then went to the North 40 hardware store to buy an Igloo ice chest for our lunches. They only had Yeti coolers and the lowest cost was $250. No thanks. We then went to Safeway for a couple of food items and to check on ice chests. No ice chests there either. We then went to McDonald's for more breakfast for me; I was still hungry. We then drove back to the RV and prepared to leave. We then drove for an hour and a half to Cashmere.