Racing to Beat the Border Closure // EFRT S5 - Ep19

So more bad news to do with the virus. It seems like it's even more contagious than they thought. So we're gonna be keeping a low profile and just kind of working our way north. We'll try to go, we've got yeah 12 and a half hours to the border, we'll try to go half of that tonight if we can. Welcome to another episode of the Epic Family Road Trip. Hey guys, so this video was shot back in March. We had just finished a wonderful trip through the Lincoln National Forest with our friends from Lifestyle Overland, Kevin, Sarah and Caroline. And we had just got back to near Carlsbad and we had been in the wilderness for some time with them and we were camping well before that so we needed a bit of a break. So we pulled into a KOA and rented a little camp spot there. And so we started to listen to the news again. We've been off off grid, off out of touch with everything for some time and this whole COVID-19 thing was fairly new but it was really starting to become an issue. And so we thought to ourselves, I think we better get out of here. They were encouraging everyone to get home. Step number one is we headed to stock up with some groceries. We knew we were going to be traveling for at least three, four days to get up north of the border and so we needed enough groceries to get us up there. So step number one was get down to Carlsbad and get some groceries. Now the Walmart there was pretty much, a lot of the shelves were bare and so there was an Albertsons in town which had still, had just stocked all their shelves. So we got in and we got enough food for at least two weeks. Get everything you needed? A lot of fun putting that dirt on there, right? These things are handy for getting fresh water. It's really good spring water. And we just put those jugs up, three jugs up on the roof rack and we're good to go for a week. It's also, I mean, carrying water bottles is out of the question. We're always in the backcountry and the last thing we want to do is hike in trash if we can help it. Is there any spare space for hiking it out? So yeah, no water bottles this way. All right, so we just got this package from Northern Knives. We've been working with them for a bit to get our own knives developed with our logo and everything on it. And we got this sample package, probably a few knives in it for us to test out and use. And then I'll just show you guys what it all looks like. We haven't even seen it yet so we're all pretty excited. Oh wow, that's beauty. Three Dog Knives is the right. I like the OD green leather case. Oh beauty. That's actually much different than I thought. That's really cool. These knives are ones we picked out with them. Something to use every day. It's got our Epic Family Road Trip logo on it. Something I kind of have as an everyday carry. Small knife used around for bushcrafting, a little bit of whittling, and wood splitting for sure. It's got a nice hefty blade on there. Small and compact though. I really like it. Thanks guys. That's delicious. Good morning. It is St. Patrick's Day, March 17th and we are still in New Mexico. We're packing up as you can see in the background. We stopped in at a KOA just so that we could. We had been out in the wilderness for at least a week or two and more like two. And then we were kind of out of supplies so we had to come in to town and pick up a ton of supplies. And everybody's making a run on the grocery store so we got as much as we could and what we think we need for a little while. And we've changed our plans as so many people have and we're forced to change our plans and instead of continuing on through the southwest we are heading back to Canada. So today we'll start going north and we'll go probably take us three, four days at the outset to get up to BC, Canada. We have so many things to consider. One, they're talking about a possibility of shutting down the border now. I don't know if that would stop us from getting through or whatever but then there's probably a possibility of having to be quarantined or at least self-isolated which we are pretty good at doing that. The social distancing. These vehicles allow us to do that pretty effectively as long as we have supplies. So it doesn't matter where you are. You can be in the wilderness but then all it takes is coming back and having to go to the store and you could pick up the virus. So these are, you know, crazy times and I think we'll all get through it but the way we'll do that is by being vigilant. Very, very vigilant. Very careful. Taking the precautions that we are told to take and then not panicking. Not being overcome with fear so that we, you know, freeze or do crazy things. Just being smart. I think no matter whether you're in a house right now, kind of in self-isolation or if you're on the road, being smart is the key and being careful. I wish all of you the best during these difficult times. We'll get through it and yeah, we're heading north now. We'll see you down the road. Everybody's hungry. We've done about three and a half hours drive, maybe four and got a long ways to go. We're gonna get on down the highway. We're getting up into northern New Mexico now. I already feel the temperature drop. We've been spoiled with warm weather for the last couple months so it's gonna be different but we have some clothing we can put on and we'll be good to go. Nice quick meal, huh? So we found this little forest road on okay on iOverlander and it looks pretty good. I'll make sure I'm recording the coordinates on Gaia so you can download them on Patreon but um it's right in the forest here. There's a few little camp spots, some fire pits and firewood so this should be a nice place to spend the night. It's in northern um New Mexico just outside of a town called Cuba. And then the boys can collect some lemon rocks. Is that his lingo? Oh man, loving that fire shield. Now that makes it comfortable after a long day's drive and bunk down early tonight and then hit the road first thing in the morning. Probably make our way up to around Moab, Utah and find a place to camp there. There's national forest and BLM land everywhere so it's just amazing what places you can find and Lando can run free out here and have a lot of fun. But after Moab then I think it'll be another day's drive up to somewhere in Montana not too far from the Canadian border and then one more day up to Radium Hot Springs, BC. We're only about, I don't know, 500 feet from the uh from the freeway. We just found a little spot, a national forest, there's a trail coming in and here we are. So yeah we're gonna have a little fire tonight and then hit the hay early and get on the road tomorrow. Good morning, March 18th. Just about to head north. I guess we'll be in Utah, a little bit of Colorado and then Utah. It's gonna be colder tomorrow night. It's a little chilly tonight but not bad at all. So more bad news to do with the virus. Seems like it's even more contagious than we thought. So we're gonna be keeping a low profile and just kind of working our way north over the next couple of days. But this morning making a fire to warm up, a coffee, trying to keep things as normal as possible. Not to be fearful but to be smart and vigilant. So we're taking the precautions when we fuel up which isn't very often because of our long-range fuel tanks man we couldn't have got those at a better time. That gives us double the capacity so we're going you know 700 miles or something but or kilometers I guess before we have to fill up but when we do we wear rubber gloves. We're keeping a distance from everyone else and day from us and just doing what we can. So many plans to come here and do trails and like the White Rim Trail was on our list for this year to do the three days loop. Anyway see how crazy things are right now and how fast times change. We are just driving through. Restaurants are closed. The national parks are either shut down or only open a short amount of hours. So we're on our way up to Canada and we're just going to drive past all this beauty but we'll be back. We're just gonna we're just stopping here for a minute we're making a quick meal and then stretching our legs letting the dog run making a strong coffee getting coffeed up and then hitting the road again. We'll try to go we've got yeah 12 and a half hours to the border we'll try to go half of that tonight if we can and then half tomorrow it sounds like a fair trade-off. So for now though it is tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches tomato soup with meatballs. Now we're just quickly washing up the dishes and hitting the road although we would love to stay here check this place out quiet remote and beautiful. Lots of protection from these junipers. We'll make sure to put a waypoint on Gaia GPS so if y'all are coming through this way you can find it with beautiful views in all directions. All right we've eaten we've done the dishes put everything away it's amazing what you can do out of the back of a jeep and all that's left is we're just brewing up a nice cup of coffee so we can hit the road. We're gonna push as hard as we can things are getting crazy and we just got an email from the government of Canada that we need to fill out a form they're looking for anyone who's not in the country right now to register on this website let them know where we are so we're only at the outset two days but probably if everything goes well we'll be in Canada by tomorrow afternoon so probably around eight o'clock tomorrow night yeah that's what I think with all the stops and whatnot so yep that's uh that's our goal but I'm gonna register anyway just so they know we're here and know we're coming. So as we're driving through these small towns we're starting more and more to see the local McDonald's blocked off um people are allowed to use the drive-thrus but little the ones that hurt the most are these little restaurants I saw one in a tiny town it said opening soon a little restaurant he's not going to be opening for a while or she but um just uh our thoughts are with all you guys uh small businesses families that are um not able to go to work right now in terms of uh paying your bills it looks like relief is coming so that's good um things are being taken care of the best they can it's a tough situation for everybody but it sounds like if everybody just hunkers down for a while 15 days whatever the gestation period of this thing is will slow the spread down to almost nothing and hopefully get this thing under control we're 14 hours from where we're going uh from the border about 12 and a half hours from the border of Canada so if we get kind of rejuvenated here eat some food grab some coffee we might push another you know even if we could do half that if we could go seven more hours then we're getting awful close so all right so we've passed through quite a bit of Utah now we uh went probably the fastest we've ever gone through Moab and Cayman Islands and Arches we normally spend a few weeks there at least but uh we're coming up through a pass we're about 100 miles out of uh Salt Lake City but of course once we start going through the mountain pass a ton of weather starts coming through on the road again this morning um we had a good night's sleep it was uh I think we arrived at um we stopped at a KOA because we couldn't find anything else around here and it was around 11 30 so we got our tent set up hit the sack and we're now back on the road by seven and we have a 10 hour drive roughly 10 hours to the border and then two hours to where we're going so long day ahead but uh we're almost there oh we noticed uh around five o'clock a bunch of motorhomes around us getting uh their engines started and starting to pull out and we notice they're all from Canada so everybody's doing the same thing I guess trying to beat the border closure haven't seen ice in a long time we were driving along everyone needed to stretch their legs and just then we saw a sign saying access to the little blackfoot man that's the river on a river runs through it so we used to watch that movie a lot love the fly fishing really cool to touch the little blackfoot from near Missoula Montana just crossed the border we are in Canada um no problems but they gave us this uh by law we have to self-quarantine for what 14 days so we just gotta lay low for two weeks so we're back in Canada but to all our friends in the US my goodness you guys uh thanks for everybody that checked up on us made sure everything was going well for us offered us places to stay offered us to stop by and have a meal you guys are awesome and you're going to come out of this whole thing so is Canada with flying colors you're going to defeat the virus and get back to normal and then we will be back because we had a lot of exploring we put up so after we crossed into Canada we drove about two and a half hours north to the small town of Radium Hot Springs British Columbia this is the same town that we spent a couple of last year snowboarding in the mountains and we rented the same condo that we had last winter we did our mandatory 14 day self-isolation and then we were super anxious to get outside we had to go shopping for some food and supplies and we started hiking every day with Lando now we're surrounded in mountains as you can see in the background and rivers and wilderness areas so it's a perfect place to be kind of quarantined for a while lots of beautiful hikes along the river and short drives into the mountains this town is usually bustling in the winter during ski season at least on the weekends but because of everything that's going on they shut down the entire ski resort so this place is pretty much a ghost town and you'll actually find more mountain goats in the on the streets than people so it's a good place to self-isolate and kind of let see what is happening with this whole virus situation so we've been here for almost a month and our rent is up so our plan now is to pack everything up into the jeeps and to start heading across the country to Ontario to get back to our cabin for the rest of whatever self-isolation is required we plan to do that by traveling on logging roads and back roads and just staying as far off the grid as possible all the way back to Ontario it's going to be quite the adventure and we're looking forward to sharing it with you in the weeks ahead and in the meantime we'll see you down the road you