Home Again

One of the old adages Linda and I have always held to is the one about visitors being like fish and the longer they stay the stinker they get. Something like that.

Smile!

We had a wonderful time with Jill and Barry, but we always like to keep our visits short so that we don't become stinky fish.

We packed up and left on Monday and took two nights to get back to Cd'A.  Our first night's campground was located at Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park. It was a nice spot with a couple little lakes that we could walk around.

The last night we camped at Gifford State Park on Lake Rosevelt. We swam in the lake and after drying off, ate dinner as a thunderstorm blew into the area. Great lightning but Kobi was not impressed.

Jill and Barry's Loon and baby.

Had a wonderful dinner at Joe's place.  

Sunset on the last night at Lac La Hache.

Two pups playing.

Storm moving in over Lake Rosevelt.

Our Destination

Going for a walk to Sucker Lake. 

The area where the mosquitoes attacked.

Sucker lake, they pronounce it Sucker.

This could be called a bad decision.

Heading North

We leisurely packed the camper after I brought it back from the repair Doctor. Once everything was accounted for and in its place, we hit the road.

The first hard right turn we made produced a thunk that made both of us think something was up. I pulled over and crawled under the front end of the truck. I spotted the problem and then jacked the front up.  I whipped out my tool box and replaced the right axle joint and bearing. I washed the grease off and we hit the road.

Well actually, when we heard the noise I went directly to Perfection Tire and they diagnosed the problem. Four hours and $750 later we had a new axle joint and bearing. My hands didn’t even get a bit dirty. We were on the road heading north, five hours behind schedule, but glad we didn’t get way out on the road somewhere and had the parts break down.

We drove up through Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry to the US-Canadian border and crossed at Port Hill. The crossing was nothing; a smile, a couple questions, and then we were off.  We drove to Creston, BC where we found an RV resort called Scotties. It was a nice little spot. Nothing fancy at all, but we were only there for the night, so we settled in and had dinner.

Packing up was easy and we were on the road by 9:00 AM.  The valley we continued up was huge and we were very impressed with the beauty. Our paths lead us to Crescent Valley where we turned North and wound our way up to follow the shore of Slocan Lake. We passed through New Denver and then at Nakusp, Upper Arrow Lake appeared on our left and we followed its winding shore to the ferry at Galena Bay.

They loaded us onto the boat where we had a front row seat as we crossed the lake. One side of the lake was clear and sunny, but the Shelter Bay side of the lake was covered in dark clouds. We could actually see snow in the high peaks and it looked like more was falling.

Everyone followed us off the ferry and then rushed to pass. The line thinned out and we soon came to Revelstoke. The campground we chose was located in the southwest part of the town. Linda got us registered and we found our spot. I looked at the information they provided us and saw that they had WIFI.  Linda noted the password to the internet was train and not long after, we figured out why. A train came rumbling by on a raised railway about 100 yards from our campsite. Throughout the rest of our stay, a string of railcars rumbled past at 45-minute intervals. We filed a note in our “Book of Campsite Clues” about the password foreshadowing the campsite flavor. This note was right next to the one we logged about camping in a site called “The Sand Pit.”

Our campsite was a bit close to the neighbors and we found out we had to pay to use the showers. This is one of our pet peeves. If you pay to stay in an RV resort, you shouldn’t have to pay to shower.  It was one looney for five minutes of hot water, so I made the best of it and got myself washed off. We ate dinner and then played cards. We hit the sack and read. The groups around us were a bit noisy, but they were drowned out by the sound of the trains. We fell asleep with the sound of the rails, images of the Hobo life danced in our heads.

We packed up and drove into Revelstoke where we parked and found a bakery.  Linda found out that a cinnamon roll almost always beats a chocolate chip cookie. I smiled and gave her several bites of my amazing roll. We walked around the main downtown area and then headed out, our sights on Salmon Arm where we would meet up with two of our friends that we had met in Mexico.

The lakes in this region are very beautiful.  Shuswap Lake is shaped like an H and has four distinctive arms. Salmon Arm is in the southwest part of the lake.  The city is very large, but not so big that it had lost its small town charm.

We met Manon at a restaurant at the edge of town. Manon and Yves have lived in Salmon Arm for many years. We met them in Melaque and always look forward to seeing them each year when we return.  Stopping by for a visit was natural, but seeing Manon away from the Mexican beach town setting was a little different.  She was so proud of her town and we had a great lunch as she told us their history in this region.  Yves was working and actually had a bit of an unscheduled emergency that he had to take care of before we met him that evening. Yves is an arborist and he has a very busy business working on trees and vegetation.

After lunch, we went back to our campsite and cleaned up a bit and then Manon came by and picked us up. We drove to their quaint little house and met Yves there. With the group together we drove downtown and walked to the city park where there was a live concert and a wonderful family-friendly gathering. The music was wonderful and we spent the next two hours watching the children and their parents dance to the music.

Yves and Manon drove us back to our campsite and we said our good-byes. It was so great to have this time with them. We’ll see them in December in little Melaque.

We slept soundly and got up and hit the road. Next stop, Lac La Hache.

Canadian selfie at Kokanee Lake.

We arrived at Jill and Barry's just in time for dinner!

Miles, Kilometers, What the Heck?

We drove from Anacortes to Lac La Hache yesterday. It took us about 7 hours and it was a very impressive drive.  I couldn't do a lot of looking around because most of the drive follows rivers and gos up over passes which kept my attention on the road and not on the beauty around us.

The highway led us up the Fraser River and then up the Thompson River breaking away North bound at Cache Creek. We monitored our progress in miles and hours on the road. I had mapped the entire route out with Google Maps but I think they use a combination of miles and kilometers when they give me their total mileage.  I had a tough time predicting our arrival and assessing our progress because of the combination of the measurements. To compound my distance problem further, all the towns and points of interest are named after miles distance. If you look on a map you travel through towns called 70 Mile House, 100 Mile House,  and an example of a lake would be 103 Mile Lake. None of these names match the kilometers driven, which don't match the miles, which therefore cause the metric impaired, to be completely confused all the time they drive.  Linda called out the metric speeds and then calculated the miles per hour, and then shouted to me to SLOW DOWN! By the time we reached our destination I was a mathematical mess.

We arrived at Jill and Barry's and were blown away with their home. It is right on the lake and is an awesome retreat.

During the day we were able to watch two rockets get launched into space and Barry and Jill took us for a boat tour of the lake. We had a great time. We closed out the evening with everyone sitting around watching lightning while telling each couples stories of how they met, got engaged and then married.  It was cute and funny at the same time.  Kobi hid under our legs but  in the end he either was board of our stories or just couldn't take the thunder any longer and he got restless to go to bed so the party died down.

Launching rockets into the blue.

Jani, Chris and Emma packed up and left Grandma and Grandpa with tears in their eyes. As a bit of a diversion we all loaded up and drove to Williams Lake to look around.  Locals call it Bill’s Pond, but it really is a lake.  Lakes are very prevalent up in this region.  I think we saw about 50 of them as we drove up.

On Friday we all loaded into the car and Barry drove us into 100 Mile House where we spent the morning cruising the farmers market, having coffee and buying groceries.  100 Mile House is rather small but it has everything that you might need to be comfortable.

 

Successful launch and return.

Once we loaded up on our dinner we drove back out to the lake and spent the afternoon sunning.  Our dinner choice for the evening was stir fry and we got a chance to eat some sesame tofu in vegetables with noodles. Jill through the dinner together and it was delicious!  Linda and I had never eaten tofu before and we found it to be very good.  I’ll be looking into some recipes when we get back home.

With dinner over and dishes finished we got in the boat and motored out to watch the sun set.  In one direction you could see a beautiful orange-yellow sunset and in the other the almost full moon sparkled off the water.  Full moon will be Tuesday night so the man in the moon was very visible.  Once the sun sank into the distance we slowly made our way back to the dock. It was our last night and what a beautiful one it turned out to be.

Keep an eye on it!

Saturday we packed up, said our good byes and hit the road.  It was a bit sad to go, but we needed to give Barry and Jill some time to get back into their normal life.  They had visitors for over two weeks and we were the ones stringing things out.  So we drove off to make our way to Merritt, BC where we had made reservations to camp.

Four otters playing in the lake.

Caterpillar, anyone? Anyone? 

Jill and Barry's place from the boat.

The evening conversations begin.

Maybe a pot of gold over there.