BC 2022
| 2022-07-02: Drive to Horsefly | ||
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| Driving our gas sipper, Nemo, I’ve never really paid attention to how much it costs to drive out to see Cheryl, either in Quesnel or Horsefly. Today I paid attention (yeah… inflation). The highest we paid for gas was $2.22/L (which is $10/gallon). Total to get here was about $150. We came via Prince George, and including breaks, it was 14 hours. We brought our tent, but they’re forecasting thunderstorms for tonight and tomorrow night so Cheryl offered for us to sleep in her motor home instead. We decided ‘better safe than soggy’ so we’re sleeping in the motorhome
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| 2022-07-03: Horsefly | ||
We spent a nice relaxing day on the deck at Bob and Cheryl’s cabin. It was quite warm but not hot. Lots of hummingbirds, and a nest of hungry baby birds just off to the side. Then around 4:30 the rains started. They say it’ll last til Tuesday evening so we’re pretty glad we chose the motorhome!
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| 2022-07-04: Horsefly | ||
The morning was a little cloudy but it cleared off quite nicely mid day so Cheryl made us a fire and we sat around it until about 3pm when the rains returned
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| 2022-07-05: Drive to Doug's | ||
| Leaving Horsefly, just about where the road changes from gravel to pavement, we finally saw the doe with two fawns that Cheryl and Bob had been telling us about. \n\n There was a truck on the other side of the road coming toward us. Mama Doe, Calm Fawn and Panicky Fawn were in the ditch on our side, about 100 feet ahead, and Panicky Fawn was running for his life towards us, trying to stay ahead of the truck. I just completely stopped to wait and put the hazards on. \n When the truck had passed, Panicky Fawn stopped running, and was just ahead of us in the ditch. Mama Doe was cautious, but when I switched the engine off, apparently she decided we weren’t a threat because she and Calm Fawn walked up to reunite with Panicky Fawn. \n I expected them to leave fairly quickly, but they didn’t. They just hung out there while Brent snapped some pics. After a couple minutes, a car came up behind us, and the deers started crossing the street. Mama Doe went directly while the two fawns kinda dawdled across. Panicky Fawn was very slow in crossing. I restarted the engine and started easing toward the right side of the road which encouraged him in the right direction and he finished crossing the road. As I passed, and the car behind us followed, Panicky Fawn panicked once again and started running up the ditch on the far side. He gave us, and the other car, a good run until we were finally passed him. Silly silly Panicky Fawn. We hope Mama Doe got them both safely into the woods. \n Photo (from Brent) below. Today was a driving day.\n We had a nice trip along highway 97 south. Stopped at Centennial Park in 100 Mile House and walked out to see their waterfall. \n We missed Painted Chasm because of poor signage but found the Horsting Farmers Market. \n Since Highway 97 meets Highway 1 west of Kamloops, it doesn’t make sense to take the Coquihalla, so the old highway it is! I asked Brent to take over the driving in case the cliffier highway scares me. \n We had a nice, scenic drive along the Thompson. Where the Thompson meets the Fraser is where the town of Lytton is/was, which had completely burned in last year’s forest fires. I wanted to stop and gawk at it but there were gawk-blockers all along the highway - the road was blocked off and the highway was fenced off. I could see a little through the fence and the town still looks pretty flattened. I don’t know how much rebuilding is happening. Poor Lytton-ites. Lytton-ians? \n Shortly past Lytton, we spent some time in a construction zone where they’re using a pilot vehicle to guide folks through a zone with a temporary one-lane bridge. \n When we were beyond Hope we took highway 7 instead of the TCH. I don’t think I’ve ever been on it before. Very very nice. Pastoral. We made it to Poco after a drive that was longer than I expected. Doug plied us with chicken, potato salad and beer. Lisa relinquished her bedroom for us so that we could have a room that ‘Puss’, their nottheircat hasn’t been in. We have the tent set up in the back yard in case the ‘Puss’ dander has leeched into the room but I’m kinda hoping we don’t need to use it since there’s been a bear in the neighborhood lately, and there was a raccoon in the yard when we went to set up the tent. \n
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| 2022-07-06: Port Coquitlam | ||
| I went to bed last night in Lisa’s bedroom in the basement which had been declared the most cat-free room. Unfortunately my lungs did not agree with that assessment and at 1:15, Brent and I moved to the backup plan - our tent in the back yard. Thank goodness we set that up. Also thank goodness that the raccoon that came past while we were setting up did not return, nor did any habituated bears (which they’ve been having problems with here lately). It’s an adventure!! Brent and I went for a couple of walks in Port Coquitlam today. What a beautiful city in a beautiful area.
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| 2022-07-07: Port Coquitlam chores day | ||
| Brent and I put the run on a raccoon when we first set up the tent in the back yard. It seems to think the back yard is its back yard. I put the run on it again last night around 7pm. It came back a couple of times in the night, though, banging around in the back yard and and making grunting noises close to the tent. Makes it hard for me to sleep. Stupid raccoon….\n\n \nI have named the back yard raccoon ‘Frankie’ (Frankie Five Fingers). The Google says that raccoons grunt to signal their presence to homeowners, so when Frankie comes by at night and grunts, she’s probably just letting us know that she’s here. We’ve seen her digging in the lawn, which The Google says is her looking for food - probably grubs. \n\n Then, this morning, the heavy rain showed up and for the first time ever our tent sprung some leaks. We think we can scotch guard around the seams of the roof vent so hopefully we can get that done today. The rain is supposed to clear off for several hours. If we get that taken care of maybe we’ll go see the Elvis movie this afternoon when the rain returns. \n\n We bought some Scotch Guard today and sprayed the vents on our fly. Hopefully that seals up the drips. | ||
| 2022-07-08: Rogers Outage, Meridian Arms, Bear | ||
| Frankie didn’t come by all night last night so I was afraid maybe I’d actually succeeded in putting the run on her for good. Nope. She came by this afternoon. I was sitting in the back yard and I heard a clatter. I thought maybe it was her pushing the lid off of the compost. I went over towards the compost and the lid was off and her little face popped up from inside. As I tried to get my camera ready to take her pic, she poked the rest of her face out and she had a whole bagel in her mouth. It was SO CUTE! Unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough to get a pic of her like that. \n\n Later in the evening, I went to lay down in the tent and listen to some German lessons while Brent and Doug watched the news. After I’d been out for maybe ten minutes, Brent came out and told me he and Doug had just seen a large black bear walk past the front of the house and down the street. Brent and I moved our tent from the back yard up onto the deck, which is quite high off the ground. Never a dull moment wildlife-wise around here. In the evening we went for dinner and drinks at the Meridian Arms Pub with some of Brent’s old school mates. Today was the big Rogers outage across the country. Rogers phone and internet is out, as well as ATM service across the country. This is the second time in 15 months that Rogers has had an outage like this and it sounds like this time is similar to last time - self-inflicted. Some system upgrade or something. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was some kind of cyber attack- it’s been pretty disruptive for the whole country.
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| 2022-07-09: Minnekhada Park | ||
| Brent and I walked to Minnekhada Park and then did a bit of hiking in the park and then walked back. We heard there was a bear on one section of trail so we skipped that section. There were signs up that Western Toads live in the park and toadlets might be trying to cross the trail so be careful where you step. I hoped we would see a toadlet. \n About 1/3 into our walk, we saw some folks looking at something on the side of the trail. We had a look. OMG it was hundreds of teeny toads, many of them still with a prominent tadpole tail! How cool! Then, just a short way from there, we saw tens of thousands of tadpoles swimming around in the swamp with the occasional toadlet leaving the water and hopping over to join the others. As we continued our walk there were toadlets, literally EVERYWHERE. We had to be careful not to step on them as they were all over the trail hopping from one side to the other. We also saw one full-grown toad sitting on the trail. The whole thing was completely magical. I’m so happy we were there for the day that the toadlets emerged from the swamp. It was almost as special as the day at Forgetmenot Pond when the ice was breaking up.
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| 2022-07-10: Downtown Poco | ||
| Two nights ago, Brent and Doug, and some of the neighbors, saw a black bear going down the street in the evening. It visited a few yards trying to knock over the garbage bins. \n This morning, while Brent and I were sitting out front having breakfast, the same bear came down the street, following the same route and targeting the same trash bins. Brent and I watched it make its way down the street and then we called it in to Fish and Wildlife. A trash bear eventually becomes a problem bear. Hopefully they can catch it and relocate it someplace where it won’t become a problem bear. After the bear sighting, Brent and I walked down to downtown Port Coquitlam. We had breakfast at Amigo restaurant, which had very good food at very affordable prices. Then we walked back. The walk was about half of what we did yesterday, which is good because yesterday kinda kicked it out of me a little bit so today’s 8km was a good recovery walk.
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| 2022-07-11: Head to Madeira Park | ||
| Brent and I have been doing a lot of walking since we got to Poco. I’m really happy about it. I haven’t done tons of walking in years and I’m really out of shape for it. I have sore legs and hips and some blisters on the bottom of my feet that are turning to callouses. Hopefully it will help me with all the walking we’re going to be doing in Germany next month. \n Today we walked through Wellington Park, then up, and down, along the Coquitlam River trail. Very pretty. This afternoon we made the journey out to Doug’s cabin on the Sunshine Coast. He’s been renovating it since last year, and to say it’s completely torn apart right now… well… that’s a bit of an understatement. Brent and I pitched our tent outside. I think Doug is going to sleep in what is left of an original bedroom. As I remembered from last time, it is really really beautiful out here. Oh, and mosquitoful as well.
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| 2022-07-12: Cabin Reno Day | ||
Today we spent at Doug’s cabin. I hung out and went for a walk. Doug and Brent cleaned up the construction zone and hung Typar along the open end of the building. Tomorrow I think we’ll haul a truckload of construction detritus to the dump and head back to Poco.
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| 2022-07-13: Sinkhole and Return to Poco | ||
| As planned, we took a load of construction trash to the dump. When we got back, Doug went to back into his driveway, and… the front of the truck suddenly dropped… the front passenger wheel had broken through a sinkhole that no one knew was there! Thankfully not a huge one like you see on the internet because they got the truck out easily. Brent and I apologize for not taking a photo of the truck in the sinkhole.\n Later on we made the trip back to Port Coquitlam
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| 2022-07-14: Brent Memory Lane | ||
Today we took another walk in Poco, otherwise known as ‘Brent Memory Lane’. We walked up Coast Meridian Road to the very end, including a side trip to Harper Park.
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| 2022-07-15: Coquitlam River Part 2, Frankie’s Kits | ||
| This morning Brent said he hear what he thought were multiple raccoons in the yard. He heard noises from multiple locations as well as chittering and grunting sounds. \n I’ve been learning a little about raccoons since we got here - we have to share the back yard with Frankie Five Fingers so I thought it was a good idea. \n\n One of the first nights we were here I heard some grunting sounds near the tent. I looked up raccoon sounds and the internet says they make grunting sounds to announce their presence. \n\n Brent and I had assumed that Frankie is a female - Brent thought he saw some protruding nipples on her. At least once a day she comes across the street, then into the neighbor’s yard, and over the fence to where Doug’s compost bins are. If there’s anything worth eating in the bins she’ll help herself. I really regret being too slow to get a pic that time that she came up with a complete bagel in her mouth. Then, she’ll keep going in the same direction, leaving Doug’s yard out the back beside the tarped truck. She always moves slowly and methodically, and occasionally, she will approach us in the back yard until we yell and/or gesture at her. She’s never acted even a little bit aggressively. \n\n Since Brent told me what he heard last night, I started wondering if the ‘multiple raccoons’ he heard were Frankie and her kits. So I looked up raccoon mothers. What the internet says is that kits are born in the spring and stay exclusively in the den for about two months. Then the mom starts taking them out on foraging expeditions. I’m wondering if what Brent heard was a foraging expedition with Frankie taking her kits out. I’m also wondering if the reason she has tried approaching us is to see how we would react and make sure we wouldn’t attack her (or her kits). \n The longer we’re in Poco the bolder Frankie gets. She keeps approaching me, and one time was just a few inches away before I spotted her. I wonder if she can sense that I feel a lot of compassion for her and would prefer to feed her, even though, for her own safety I put the run on her with a broom instead. One of her eyes is bad but she keeps coming up to me and looking up at me with her one eye beseeching, ‘Please help a mama out!’ I wish I could do more, Frankie, but the best I can do for you is to try to keep you leery of humans. <3\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Brent and I went for another walk along the Coquitlam River today then went on a quest for a Tim Horton’s. We found a Tim’s but then had frosties from Wendy’s instead.
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| 2022-07-16: Cloudy Movie Day | ||
| It’s kind of a cloudy, at times drizzly day in Port Coquitlam, and I need a rest day from all the walking so all we did today, besides sit at Doug’s, was go see the Elvis movie. It was better than I expected it to be. | ||
| 2022-07-17: Smiling Creeks and Brent’s Big Friend Meet | ||
| Today we went for a walk up Smiling Creek to Harper Park, then returned via West Smiling Creek. It was cool, cloudy and humid, so not a bad day for walking up a big hill. We saw lots of enormous fresh bear poops so made sure to keep up a constant chatter. In the evening we went over to a John and Sofia Parker’s house for a big gathering with a bunch of Brent’s old friends.
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| 2022-07-18: Amigo Breakfast, Colony Farm and Minions | ||
| We went to Amigo for breakfast for the third and last time for this trip. I love it so much. Just a nice little ‘mom and pop’ with good food and great prices. We went for a walk at Colony Farm after breakfast, but due to an injury in my right foot, and a trail closure, we kept it very short. I did help four snails cross the path safely. Snail-on little buddies! And my apologies to the one little guy that I think I accidentally returned to his departure side rather than his destination. In the afternoon we went back to the theatre and saw Minions. Going to movies is one of the things that I sorely missed during the pandemic.
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| 2022-07-19: Last Day in Poco | ||
| My foot injury is taking its sweet time about going away so I’m going to try the ‘stay off it for five days’ strategy. Ugh. | ||
| 2022-07-20: To Vancouver Island, Dinner with Rob and Jane | ||
Today we bid farewell to Doug, Akiko and Lisa and headed to the island. We got settled in at Charmaine and Geoff’s and then went to Rob and Jane’s for dinner. We made it back on time for Bat TV but unfortunately it wasn’t on tonight. Maybe tomorrow we’ll get to see some bats.
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| 2022-07-21: Charmaine and Geoff Day | ||
This morning we hung out with Charmaine in the yard, pruned her tomato plants and harvested some beans. Then the three of us went for a bike ride and lunch/drinks at Canadian Brewhouse. When Geoff was done working for the day, we went downtown for Mexican dinner and then a drive, including visiting the puppies we discovered last night with Rob and Jane.
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| 2022-07-22: Drive to Port McNeil | ||
| We left Charmaine and Geoff’s early today to afford lots of time for dawdling and sight seeing. Malahat Drive was awesome and then we did the Seaside Village Route including Cowichan Bay, Maple Bay, Crofton, Chemainus and Ladysmith where we rejoined the highway. We stopped and had breakfast at Brannon Boat Ramp in Nanaimo and then continued on our way. \n\n Campbell River is kind of at the north end of civilization on the island. Beyond there the highway slows and narrows, and there are no cellphone bars to be had. It feels quite remote. I was very pleased to discover, though, that Apple Maps now has the ability to track you and give directions even when you’re not connected. I had forgotten to download the Vancouver Island map for Maps.me so we couldn’t rely on that for directions while we were in the dead zone. \n\n Speaking of dead zones, I think my brain was one when I booked our Airbnb. I didn’t think to ask if the property has animals, and… of course it does - two cats (one of them a very fluffy Main Coon). Thankfully our host was very understanding and flexible and let us pitch the tent in the yard so I can sleep out there. \n\n After we got settled at the Airbnb we took a drive up to Port Hardy to check out the ferry terminal and make sure we know where to go at 5am tomorrow. Then we went and had dinner in Port McNeil. At the Airbnb Brent slept inside and I slept in the tent. I could feel my lungs reacting to the cats already and he was really looking forward to spending a night in a bed sooooo….
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| 2022-07-23: Inside Passage | ||
| We reserved seats in the Aurora Lounge on the ferry so we could see out the front of the boat. Unfortunately we’re in the second row of seats, so not a great viewing opportunity, and we’re seated next to a grouchy German woman who keeps coughing. We’ve been standing up to look out the side windows which is much better. The decision to get seats in the lounge was a very good one. Since the weather was so great we probably didn’t need them - we could have spent most of the day outside, but you definitely can’t count on beautiful clear weather in this part of the world - we just got super lucky. \n Our first whale sighting of the day was when we were near the Hedley Islands. We saw lots of whales today (orca and humpback) and a couple of enormous sea otters floating on their backs. \n When we got off the ferry after midnight we headed straight for our motel, which ended up being in a pretty skeevy area (Brent says PR is pretty skeevy in general). The motel had no protected parking, and a sign up to remove all valuables so we ended up humping all of our stuff in from the car - not just what we needed. We had to make three trips to bring everything in, including food, camping gear, and Brent’s tools. Not sure if it was entirely necessary to take everything in but since we got up the next day and the car hadn’t been broken into, I’m happy with the decision. We met a young couple from Switzerland on the ferry today. Floriane and… ? Floriane invited us to pitch our tent in their yard in Vessy (just south of Geneva) when we’re touring in Switzerland next year! Fun!
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| 2022-07-24: North Pacific Cannery with Calkins | ||
| Mechanical Butcher’s real name Re the company store (pic below):\n Workers were paid only at the end of the season. In the interim they were given coupons to use at the company store so they had no idea how much they were spending. Also the store manager would adjust prices based on whether or not he liked you. So, many workers ended up owing money to the company store at the end of the season and were thus forced to sign up for the following season to work. We woke up this morning and did a load of laundry, had breakfast, and then headed off into the rainy morning to the North Pacific Cannery where the Calkins family was going to meet us for the tour. Lisette and the had been there before, but it was a first for Vince, Brent and me. It was really interesting. More interesting than I would have expected for a fish canning museum. My main takeaway was the astonishing level of exploitation of the fish population and the workers. They had Chinese, Japanese and First Nations workers, all who had their own jobs, and were naturally segregated by language. They worked in horrifying conditions and were, essentially treated as disposable. No surprise. In the evening we hung out on Vince and Lisette’s covered deck where we sampled Vince’s fancy beer, learned to play otrio, and taught Maelle and Sabine to play Hawaiian music on their noses and bagpipes on their throats
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| 2022-07-25: Nisga Memorial Lava Bed | ||
Today, Lisette, Maelle and Sabine took us on an awesome adventure day in the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park, including stops at Rosswood General Store, Drowned Forest, Wilp T’aam Lax Sankw’ax Visitor Centre, Tree Cast, the lookout hike and suspension bridge at Gitwinksihlkw, Lava Lake, the Peeing Tree and Lost Lake. Then we went back to their home and Vince and Lisette made us barbecued chicken, beets and collard greens for dinner.
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| 2022-07-26: Drive to Quesnel, Break Nemo | ||
| Enroute to Horsefly (actually, Quesnel, as it turned out) today we stopped for looks at Ksan, historic Hazleton and Moricetown. When we left Moricetown we realized that we were making ourselves pretty late to get all the way to Horsefly today. I messaged Cheryl and she suggested that we stay at her house in Quesnel tonight instead and finish the drive to Horsefly tomorrow. We decided to do just that. \n Unfortunately, Cheryl’s driveway is better suited to trucks than to a little Nemo. We high-centered on the driveway ruts and broke the heat shield that protects the gas tank from the heat of the exhaust system. To make our adventure even more fun, Cheryl’s place, being in the boonies and all, has no cell service. It’s wifi only, but since they’re out at the cabin the wifi was switched off. Cheryl gave me instructions for starting it up, but we had trouble getting it working for about 30 minutes, so for a while I thought we had no way to contact the outside world (and a broken car). Finally I realized that I could use Cheryl’s land line at the house to phone her cell and got in touch that way. At the same time as I called her the wifi finally decided to work. Through Cheryl, Bob told us where to find some car ramps and we pilfered a piece of wire from his tool bench. Brent has straightened out the heat shield, attached it back to the car with the pilfered piece of wire, and pinky-swore that it would get us back to Edmonton where we’ll have to get it properly replaced.
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| 2022-07-27: Drive to Horsefly | ||
| We made the last bit of drive out to Horsefly to see Cheryl, Bob and Jack. It’s really hot right now so we didn’t do a lot beyond sitting on the deck. We went for a quick spin on Cheryl’s new-to-her pedal boat, Penelope Pédalo. We set up our tent without the fly on it and slept that way. It was nice and cool, and with all the mesh on the tent, just laying in it we could see a billion stars. It was awesome! We’re now booked for a couple of important appointments as soon as we’re back in Edmonton. Monday: Covid boosters; Tuesday: new heat shield for Nemo.
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| 2022-07-28: Day at Horsefly | ||
| Another beautiful and relaxing day out at Horsefly. It’s kinda stinkin’ hot (or maybe that’s just me… at least the stinkin’ part). \n Brent and I took another spin around on the pedal boat, and we did a lot of hanging around.
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| 2022-07-29: Drive to Edmonton | ||
| There was some beautiful ground fog as we left Horsefly early this morning. I guess it’s probably Groundfog Day every day at Horsefly if you get up early enough. \n We left Horsefly at 5:30 local, shared the driving (via the Little Fort route) and arrived home around 19:00 local (one hour lost for time zone).
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