On our way towards Alaska, we entered Canada! Oh, so full of hope and plans for the next three months.

We drove our coach 238 miles / 383 km, about five hours of driving, from Lynden / Bellingham KOA in Lynden, Washington, USA to a boondocking spot in the parking lot of Mount Begbie Fire Lookout, 70 Mile House, British Columbia, Canada.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north:

An interactive map, with potential stops pinned:

Canadian Border Inspection:

Welcome to British Columbia, Canada:

Maximum 100 km/h:

Trans-Canada 1 East:

Circle Route British Columbia Heritage Discovery:

Welcome to Hope, BC:

Yale rest area:

Yale Tunnel:

Saddle Rock Tunnel:

Saskatchewan train:

Sailor Bar Tunnel:

Spuzzum Tunnel:

Two tunnels in quick succession:

China Bar Tunnel:

Wildlife Corridor:

Thompson River:

We attempted to fuel at a Esso card lock pump, using our Open Roads fuel card, but it didn’t work:

A little later, we had better success at a regular Wesco diesel pump, albeit having to do three separate $250 transactions (yes, our coach takes a lot of fuel); fueling our coach was an ongoing hassle in Canada:

Arriving at the boondocking spot:

Welcome to Mount Begbie Lookout:

Our boondocking spot, where we spent the night with no hookups:

After breakfast the next morning, we walked on the trail up the mountain:

View partway up:

Cell tower at the top:

Lake view:

Fire watch tower:

Back to our coach:

There’s a larger area below where we parked, but it wasn’t very level:

We drove our coach 113 miles, about two hours of driving, from Cummins Coach Care in Coburg, Oregon towards our our home base, but turned around in Salem when the Check Engine and MIL lights came back on with the same error code.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading north then back south:

An interactive map, with the rest area pinned:

Our coach backing into a Coach Care service bay:

We spent the day in the customer lounge:

Second breakfast at Chick-fil-A:

We parked our truck behind the lounge, and turned on our smaller Bluetti battery, so we could use our truck’s Starlink Wi-Fi (the Wi-Fi in the lounge was not very fast):

Our coach emerging:

Parked for the night:

Doing an engine regen:

Heading out again, full of hope:

We stopped at a rest area, to see if that triggers the issue, as it had before:

Alas, it did:

So we turned around at the next exit, and headed back to Cummins:

We stayed the night again, then had Dutch Bros Coffee for breakfast while they looked at the coach again:

And later, went to the cafe at the nearby truck stop to have breakfast for lunch:

That afternoon, we had more news: the engine’s turbocharger was damaged (which I had suspected based on Facebook posts). The tech showed a scope shot of the damaged turbo:

So, this repair just got way more expensive; about $11k to replace that and the actuator, including labor. Sigh. But at least they finally found the root issue!

We left our coach there, and drove our truck home, while they ordered in the part, and did the work.