A much anticipated trip finally happened at the end of May. Hot springs here we come ……YAY!
We’ve decided to sell our PleasureWay camper van and so rented a van from Fraserway RV in Delta – expensive yes ! but we didn’t want to chance something happening on the trip which could result in a huge deficit in selling price. To save a few bucks: We brought all our own gear (RV rental company’s charge for every little thing) and we have everything already. We also bought our own insurance through BCAA and saved a ton of money there, and I had mapped out the entire route to determine the total km. we would need to buy + a little extra – because unlimited km. are expensive.
Arriving at FraserWay we were surprised to see such a big operation. The waiting room was full of people, luggage everywhere waiting to be loaded onto a shuttle bus (which transports to hotels and airport) and a buzz of staff going in all directions. The check in process took about an hour – papers to be signed, copies of ID and Insurance, etc….. and then we were given a brief and ‘not so great’ tour of our rental van. Luckily we are savvy about van campers already, and had watched the video, and downloaded the manual. The van camper made by Thor industries was almost brand new and a great size for our needs.
After loading all our gear into the van, we handed over the keys for the truck which was going to stay safely monitored in their lot, and we were off to our first camp spot in Chilliwack at Vedder River Campground.
An hour or so later we had arrived. We were taken by Maps on a wonky route – probably to avoid traffic – and almost ended up going through a border crossing to the US (my bad navigating had us backing up at a border crossing -OOPSY). We were directed along a road hugging the US border which was interesting as we spied several US border patrol guards in fields and wooded areas doing surveillance.
The “border” is just a wire fence – but there are no roads connecting Canada and US except at the border crossings.
We chose to stay at Vedder River for two reasons. First , we know the area well because it was our go to place when looking after Nik’s dogs – so it was a good choice for Cedar, but also, it was for the proximity to Escape Trailers. We had put a deposit on a trailer and wanted to visit the factory and get a few questions answered.
Our site at Vedder was without hookups – I didn’t think it was needed for a first night out, BUT, we very quickly realized the camper van we rented is not meant for dry camping. Thankfully most of the camp spots on our tour were booked with hookups.
In the morning we got an early start, stopped at ‘Local Harvest Market’ for coffee and amazing breakfast scones (OMG Yum), then popped into Escape (ETI) where we toured several trailers and got answers to a couple questions for our build. Mission accomplished.