We got off to a great start today! We were downstairs to the car deck as soon the announcement was made. We threw our bags into the Mokes and jumped into our seats. Tim was able to get out first in the Green Moke, then a van, then Phil behind the wheel of the Blue Moke was right behind. The time was 8:05 am, which is phenomenal given that the boat was scheduled to come to dock at 8:00 am. We’re counting this as a big win!

First point of business was actually to pick up some motor oil in Sumas, WA, at the local NAPA Autoparts store. This was strategically chosen as it puts us directly in-line with our next stop, which is Cedar Valley Alignment in Mission, BC.

Crossing the border in Sumas was uneventful. We got quizzed a bit about where we went and what we bought, but we were soon waved through by the Canadian Border Services guard.

Back on Canadian soil we made a bee-line for the alignment shop, to get the Green Moke checked out to be sure that the wheels didn’t need an adjustment. Tim had felt that that things weren’t quite right with the alignment, and may have contributed to the premature wearing of the tires the previous week.

Cedar Valley Alignment and the wheel alignment was a match made in heaven. The owner there, Nolan, is a Mini fanatic. He’s owned at least 8 Mokes and many Minis. He ice races Minis regularly, creaming the competition. We got put in touch with him by Rick, another one of our Mini contacts, and he also dropped by the shop to chat with us while we were getting the alignment done.

As it turns out, the alignment was still in spec. The tire wear was likely due to over-inflation of the tires. Many thanks to Cedar Valley Alignment for all the help today (Nolan, Deeana, and Daniel)! They helped make a small tweak to the alignment, but also let us change our oil in their shop and helped identify some bushing that needed to be replaced. Thanks too to Rick who also gave use a bunch of travel tips through the interior of British Columbia.

We were on a bit of a timeline today in order to pickup Charlie, Tim’s son, from the airport as he was flying out to join us as Chief Snack Eater, now that Jeff had abandoned that role and headed back home. Charlie’s plane landed just after 12, and we were running at least 30 minutes behind, so he needed to cool his jets for a short while before we could pick him up.

After getting Charlie, we then needed to grab a quick bite to eat and head north out of the city. We grabbed the most convenient McDonald’s along the way, and then headed to the waterfront to make sure we dipped the Moke tires into the Pacific Ocean!

After getting confused by Google Maps, we looped through Stanley Park one and a half times and then got onto Hwy 99 (a.k.a. Sea-to-Sky Highway) and motored north. Motored north that is, until the Blue Moke decided to burn out it’s third ignition coil! We had just passed through Porteau.

Stuck at the side of a very busy and windy one-lane each-way highway, with about 1 foot of shoulder was an absolutely terrible place to breakdown. As best we could we set up our traffic cones and draped a reflective vest on the Moke in order to warn traffic. Honestly, this could have easily been a very bad situation given how fast and impatient the drivers here were. We were constantly being honked at as cars were zooming by. Not sure we really wanted to be stopped here either!

We managed to quickly identify and swap out the coil, now that the symptoms and cause were well understood. And get rolling again… for less than a kilometer!

This time, it looks like we ran out of gas on one tank, and the tank swapper was being difficult about swapping to the secondary tank. Fortunately we had now got ourselves down to a stretch of Sea-to-Sky that had two-lanes each way and a moderately sized shoulder. So, Phil hopped out and pushed the Blue Moke as dad steered it. Eventually we came to the crest of a hill and the Moke was able to coast down to a pull-off at the bottom of the hill. We would have a safe place to diagnose and fix the situation finally, just at the south end of Oliver’s Landing.

We did finally get the engine sipping from the tank with fuel, and then continued north to a gas station where we could fill up and do some more work on the ignition coil.

We decided that maybe we should try a few more preventative measures to eliminate possible coil break-down causes. We were carrying a spare distributor with us, so Tim fitted it and adjusted the timing. Although this is likely not the cause, we did the swap just in case. Later, we would modify the wiring to the coil.

At this rate, we were running short on time to get to Lillooet before sunset. Our plan was to not be driving after the sun goes down. Never-the-less we soldiered on and headed north.

We grabbed another bite to eat in Squamish, then drove up past Whistler, and through Pemberton. The sun set on us about an hour out from Lilloet, but we had light for about 30 minutes. The last 30 minutes driving through the mountains was definitely dark. The Mokes were also very sluggish in the higher altitudes, as it seems the thinner air was causing fuel mixture issues.

We rolled into Lilloet around 10:30 pm, and got up into the hotel. A good night’s sleep was definitely in order, given all we had been through today.

Starting Location & Time	Bellingham, Washington – 8:05 am
Ending Location & Time	Lillooet, British Columbia – 10:30 pm
Total Kilometers	412 km
Total Time	14h 25m