July 9
Finally, we are heading off on an almost unstructured trip. Our only commitments time-wise are to be in Crawford Bay tomorrow, Fernie by the 12th, and back home by August 1st.
We were loaded up and ready to roll shortly before noon. A couple of stops to run some errands - not always an easy feat when you're hauling a mini-apartment - and we were on the highway heading east. Beautiful day.
Passed a couple of gorgeous classic cars along the Manning Park stretch. They caught up with us when we stopped at Manning Park Lodge for some lunch and a stretch. It was very hot, so it was good to get back in the air-conditioned truck and be off and running again.
Finally, we are heading off on an almost unstructured trip. Our only commitments time-wise are to be in Crawford Bay tomorrow, Fernie by the 12th, and back home by August 1st.
We were loaded up and ready to roll shortly before noon. A couple of stops to run some errands - not always an easy feat when you're hauling a mini-apartment - and we were on the highway heading east. Beautiful day.
Passed a couple of gorgeous classic cars along the Manning Park stretch. They caught up with us when we stopped at Manning Park Lodge for some lunch and a stretch. It was very hot, so it was good to get back in the air-conditioned truck and be off and running again.
Copper Mountain mine southwest of Princeton
We could see dark clouds ahead and they did not disappoint. While fueling up in Princeton, the winds blew, the sky opened up and hail pounded down on us. Soaked through, we waited out the worst of it in the A&W parking lot, which was starting to look like a lake.
By the time we reached Osoyoos, it was sunny and HOT, HOT, HOT again. Haven't been to Osoyoos in years (actually decades), but it appears to be a lovely town. Just a bit too hot for my liking. What a climb up Anarchist Mountain out of the valley. And for a long way along the upper part of the climb we kept seeing these impressive neighbourhood markers, for a development called Regal Estates, at each road branching off. Turns out it is some 3,000 acres comprised of minimum 3 acre lots. I have no idea how many lots have been developed, but the roadways into each section are done with their respective "animals" standing sentry (caribou, mule deer, wolves, even sasquatch). One thing I do know for sure is that anything there is out of my price bracket (didn't win Lotto Max last week).
Hints of things to come
So up over Anarchist and down the other side to our destination for the night, Rock Creek. Stayed at the Kettle River RV Park (actually closer to Midway than Rock Creek). A lovely park that I would highly recommend to anyone travelling that way. The only down side was a tremendous thunder and lightning storm that hit about 3am, with more hail pounding down on the trailer. Anyone who's ever camped in an RV in a hail storm knows how noisy that can be. Fortunately it only lasted about 15 minutes. Then all I had to do was try and get back to sleep and not worry about whether there would be a flash flood on the Kettle River and we would end up floating to our next stop. However, we did manage to depart in the normal manner.