Chase

After four days of comfortably settling into our Kamloops hotel room we sadly said goodbye to the Maverick Motor Inn and headed out for Pritchard and Chase. The Pritchard Eco-Depot was closed today unfortunately, so we continued on to Chase, and then because we are keeners decided to do the facilities in Scotch Creek.

Here is a drawing I did before dinner on Susan’s snazzy window’s 8 touch screen computer!

This next photo is in the Marina at Scotch Creek, a beautiful place to summer.

And here we have photos of Chase. A train seems to go by every 30 min and I can hear them from our motel room across the street! Fascinating!

 

Sunday in Kamloops

I’m finally almost caught up on blogging! Susan and I always seem to be a week behind events in our journals. This being my journal.

Today we woke up at 9:16, almost missing breakfast which ends at 9:30! Aftarwards we came back to the hotel for some down time. I took a nap because I wasn’t feeling completely rested, and Susan played the pokemon game she just got on her phone. She just downloaded it yesterday and has already logged 11 hours of play time. She’s napping now though, so it all evens out.

Yesterday at the Ploughman’s Lunch we asked the waitress what we should do on Sunday (Because almost all the stores and restaurants downtown are closed Sundays), and she suggested hiking “The Patterson Creek Park” to get to a place called “Bridal Veil Falls”. She described how to get there, but in the end Susan and I were trying to discover the path based on loose directions of starting at the Denny’s. We did eventually find this sign though! and then in going towards this funky bridge, we found this other sign at the trailhead! (Yay! Susan and Therese are super detectives!) Turns out there was much closer trail parking, but oh well!

 

 

We sort of got lost again on the trails, and started hiking up some pretty steep and sandy paths. We decided to turn back off of that route because we knew that coming down that sandy steep path in our runners was going to be difficult. It was, but no one got hurt. We changed directions and followed to boys in skate shoes carrying skateboards along the correct path. They were much faster at hiking that Susan and I were. We couln’t believe it, considering their footwear and that they would have had to climb rocks and scale rock cliffs (above a shallow stream) with a skateboard in hand! There were even lots of families doing this hike, but they probably didn’t mind getting their feet a little wet, as Susan and I tried to avoid.

The  hike was surprisingly short, only about 10-15 min to reach the falls. There was a little bit more to the trail but it was very steep and none of the other groups we encountered hiked up further, EXCEPT the boys with skateboards, who we saw at the top of the falls later on!

This waterfall is called “Bridal Veil Falls”. We met some very nice people with their dogs, and these girls with their mountain-climbing dog and kitten! The cat acted like a dog, I swear, in all respects except that she did not like the water at all!

Those girls recommended we check out the nearby cave, but neither Susan or I had a flashlight app, so we didn’t go all the way in. “Its a dead end, there’s nothing inside, but if you have a flashlight the ceiling glitters with minerals” they told us.

Afterwards we did a little more hiking because that all had felt too short. Lots of the soil was sandy and eroded on these paths. Here is Susan pretending that she is at the beach!

 

 

We also saw this funky tiny cactus plant in the sand. I didn’t touch it, but it did not seem to be rooted into the sand. Air cactus?

Afterwards we were both hungry and so we stopped at Safeway to pick up some snacks. We got a veggie platter, some peaches, and sunchips and dad’s cookies! Luckily Susan and I both really like chocolate chip oatmeal dad’s cookies!! We had our mixed lunch, and then I went for a swim in the pool. They have a waterslide and a hot tub. The waterslide was meh, but still a nice swim.

Now I’m off to watch some Veronica Mars or Parks and Recreation. I really want to watch some 30 Rock, but I don’t have any.

Saturday in Kamloops

Susan and I get to spend 4 whole sleeps in Kamloops! We are already loosing track! Today is day 2 of our weekend. Yesterday Susan and I bummed around until noon and then we went downtown. Everywhere in downtown has pay street parking here, up to a 3 hr limit. Its not too expensive at $1/hr (except the 3rd hr is $2), but we parked a few blocks away to avoid it.

We walked around for a while to find a nice cafe with outdoor seating for lunch. We had read about one cafe called “Oops” on Urbanspoon, but they closed at 1 on Saturdays, and we got there just too late. So we walked down the street some more, avoiding the multiple breakfast-all-day places because that was what we had had for lunch the day previous.

On Friday we had Lunch at “Hello Toast”, a delicious place. Susan had eggs in a basket and I had a fried egg with salsa and cheddar cheese on top. Both meals came with fried potatoes and a side of toast. We both had the cranberry sourdough, good choice.

 

 

Anyways, back to Saturday. We ended up having lunch at a place called “The Ploughman’s Lunch” which I reviewed on Urbanspoon HERE. I’m the reviewer called Therese with the “?” as the picture. Good resemblance, I think.

After lunch we walked around downtown some more and browsed the boutique stores there. Then, too soon after lunch, we stopped into a cake store nearby on Victoria Street (Sorry I forgot the name) and I had this cake, and Susan had a root beer float. They had these sweeteners on the table. Notice that they read “take only on the advice of a physician” … greeeaat. Sorry you cant actualy read that in the photo. We did not eat the sweetener, this cake was sweet enough. It was chocolate strawberry mousse flavour with whipped cream and cocoa on top. Waaay to filling, and Susan barely helped me eat any of it! Carley (my last roommate) always helped me with cake eating 🙂 That’s ok, Susan’s pretty cool still.

 

We came back to the hotel and Susan sat outside in the grass underneath the room. I stayed in the room and blogged. I saw this bird out the window. What kind is it? I’ve never seen them before.

What kind of bird is this? Tell me in the comments!

We had chinese food for dinner at the restaurant connected to the hotel. We each ordered a menu item we enjoyed and then shared. I ordered lettuce wraps ❤ and Susan ordered Special Chop Seuy, which is a bunch of veggies in sauce. The “Special” is because there is a variety of meat and seafood. We got fortune cookies at the end of our meal. Susan didn’t want her’s. I started eating mine, but then I accidentally dropped the other half on the floor! Somewhere I heard that the rule is that for the fortune to come true you have to eat the whole cookie. So I guess I wasn’t getting that fortune, which turned out to be good because the fortune in that cookie read “A challenge is near”! What an awful fortune! So I began to eat the next cookie for a fortune that would come true. This is how it read:

“You and your partner will be happy in your life together”

I am very happy with this fortune! Yay Susan and I are going to have a great 3 more months! Fortune Confirmed!

The Quest for Sand Dunes in BC

So after our big Williams Lake day, we still weren’t done! We had heard that there were sand dunes nearby, and Susan was determined to check it out 🙂 So we went! First we got some really fantastic pizza from The Red Tomato, we got a pizza that was half baked potato and half “crazy canuck” which was really just a lot of yummy bacon, and came with maple syrup to dip it in! The pizza was really good, even though we had it about 1.5 hours after it had been warm. We did this because we wanted to have our pizza when we got to our destination.. which we thought was only going to take 45 min to an hour, but actually took us much longer because we got lost.

Getting lost was a tragedy not only because it meant our pizza got colder, but also because we started this trip rather late, at about 6:30, and by the time we finally got to the site it was after 8pm, meaning we didn’t have much daylight once we finally got where we were going.

We were really excited to see these dunes because Williams Lake has mountains and plenty of trees on them, and we could not fathom that landscape becoming one of sand dunes.

  (These photos are in chronological order)

But then, right before our eyes, the landscape did begin to change. The hills grew sparser, with sandier soil, and eventually the giant mountains and cliffs dissapeared all together and we came to a large stretch of land that was flat, occupied by cow pastures, and where the fields were filled with rocks.

So the reason we got lost was because our only directions to this spot our GPS “Garmin” could not find was a photo on Susan’s phone of google directions and a map. So we set garmin to go to a general spot, and we were super glad when it turned out that Garmin had lied to us and had found the road we were looking for. So we went down that road! Unfortunately, eventually it turned out that we had gone down an adjacent road just 20m or so away from the correct road.

So the Purple line was the road that we were looking for, and eventually did get to. The Black box is an Indian Reserve. The red line represents the road we wasted a lot of time going down first. It seems very short, and that it shouldn’t have made such an impact on our trip, but the road was a little longer than represented, and we could not drive more than 20-30 km/hr because it was a dirt road uneven with years of people driving through mud and then the mud hardening rigidly. Here is a photo of those road conditions.

I know we sound silly. How could we possibly not notice that this wasn’t the correct road?! We passed through this town, we should have known it was the reservation! These sand dunes are well known, so lots of people would have traveled the road there right? Well when we saw this sign, of course it did not say “Farwell Canyon Rd”, but we thought that maybe it was just named something different here. And once on this road we wanted to at least follow it through just in case. It was SO close to where the road was supposed to be!

Well, eventually after driving this road for a while we come to a section near the end where the road only had two tire paths, and the middle was quite overgrown with dandelion poofs blooming. The bottom of our car is quite low so as we drive over this grass it makes a loud grating sound. By driving over the dandelions and removing the fluff, I realize that this means that the road has to have been untouched for a while. (What good detective skills, right? I’m just like V Mars). We soon come to the end of this road, which ends at what seems to be an abandoned ranch. A gate blocks off the end of the road.

I was terrified to see this animal spine lying on the road at the end. Thank goodness it did not puncture our tires. After driving all the way back to the highway, we soon found the correct road, very well labeled.

Bad Sign

Good Sign

The correct road is gravel paved, so we still were not able to drive more than 40-50km/hr but we did eventually get where we were going. There were at least three instances of cows on the road though. They were good “cow cows” (as Susan called them), who moved off the road as we drove through. The stared at us lazily.

 

Finally we arrived in Junction Sheep Range Provincial Park. We were told that Mountain Sheep do hang out here, but not so much in spring when they have their newborn babies to take care of.

In the above photos we are on top of the canyon’s edge on the North side. You can drive right down into the canyon, and we did. Astounding landscape, so unique and tucked away. We were loosing daylighy quickly, however, and couldn’t stay long. The mosquitoes were coming out, but more importantly we did not want to drive back through those cows again in darkness.

Sand Dune? I think we found them?

On our way back I was sleepy, mosquito bitten, and had a lap full of cold pizza, but the views were worth it. We saw more cows on the road on our way back. The city of Williams Lake was beautiful at night, but unfortunately I did not take any photos of it all lit up. Long post with lots of photos, thanks for reading about our exhausting adventure!

 

 

 

Williams Lake

This past week Team 2 had the pleasure of spending a day in Williams Lake packed with recycling and adventure. After visiting a good number of facilities in town, we had the opportunity to meet up with Mary, a friend we met at the RCBC conference.

Mary is a recycling goddess. You can ask her anything about recycling and she’ll tell you all about it – all with her baby in hand! Mary works as an educator with Waste Wise, a branch of the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society which educates children about the importance of recycling, composting, and making choices which reduce waste put into landfill. As a side project, Mary is the President of The Potato House, one of the last standing heritage houses in Williams Lake, transformed into an education community garden and small community venue.

The Potato House doesn’t actually grow potatoes, but is so named because the man who previously lived here did. Today the lot is still home to a large garden, who’s edible garden, 3 different compost types, and beehive create the perfect environment for children to learn all about different types of composting, importance of animals to plant growth, and gets children excited about growing (and eating) plants grown in their own gardens! I’m sure the kids all love it, because we sure did!

There are bears in the area, so this electric fence surrounding the beehive is necessary in order to not attract bears into town.

This is the 3rd year for The Potato House, and they still have more plans for expansion. We watched the Potato House’s Executive Director and all-around garden guru, Marin, build a raised bed for vegetables. They are planning on expanding their community garden space and renovating parts of the actual house so that it can be used more as a community venue and education site.

After our tour of The Potato House, we followed Mary to the “dump”, which is actually so much more. The Central Cariboo Transfer Station not only accepts regular recycleables like cardboard and glass, but also is a Paint Plus depot, meaning that they take back Paint (with original label and lid on), aerosol paint, flamible liquids, pesticides and gasoline! The Cariboo Regional District has also put together an awesome guide to recycling almost anything locally – take a look!

What really blew us away was the “Share Shed” the transfer station has on site. A share shed is a place for the community to take and leave household items and clothing for free! Similar to a free, open air Salvation Army, item quality and organization is ensured by the staff who work there. Employing people who have difficulty finding work elsewhere, the share shed staff inspect donated items and have been trained to recognize bed bugs. The staff also ensures that the share shed remains a friendly environment that is so valuable to the community.

 Great work Williams Lake!