Artist in the making??

August 17th,
Friday was a quiet day. We had a relaxing breakfast and just enjoyed the day as much as possible. The smoke is a little better and we are able to get a small glimpse of the mountains outside our door.
We went up to the Rec center around two. They were having a craft class. It was painting a flower. I have always thought that some day when I am not running like a crazy person that I would like to take painting lessons. This class seemed like a good idea. The class had a fee of ten dollars attached so I decided to give it a try.  I had fun and the results were not too bad if I do say so myself. One of the teens decided that she would charge one hundred dollars for hers and I think mine was definitely better so who knows?? This may be the beginning of a new career.

After supper I was roaming around the dial and I came across a Barbara Streisand movie. It was The Prince of Time with Nick Nolte. It was an amazing movie that I had never seen . So that is why you did not get a posting last evening. It was really late by the time it was finished. I loved the movie. If you have not seen it you should. The script and the acting are wonderful.

Muddy Mystery

On Tuesday as we drove to Canal Flats we kept seeing these mud covered vehicles. They were covered in red mud. In a lot of cases the only clear spot on the vehicle was the path of the windshield wipers and the head lights that they had obviously cleaned. The mystery was made even deeper by the fact that the bottoms of the doors and the wheels were not covered in this red mud. There were at least 100 vehicles in this state. They alternated with clean vehicles so it could not be a muddy road ahead. As you can well imagine this drove Ken crazy. My fertile imagination went to work trying to come up with an explanation. I decided that somewhere up ahead they were having a fund raiser. You would be sprayed with this mud and if you made a donation they would wash your vehicle. That would explain why some cars were muddy and some were not.
Yesterday when we were gassing up at Canal Flats, one of those muddy cars pulled in. Ken went over and asked them about the mud. They explained that there had been a week long music festival at Salmo. Patrons arrived and parked their car in a very dusty sandy parking lot. As vehicles passed by or used this lot the dust flew and settled on the top of  the parked cars. After a full week the cars were encased.( but not on the bottom) The festival ended and people left the lot taking all of that dust with them.

Mystery solved.
 I only wish I had a photo to show you.

Moving Day

Thursday was moving day. We will be heading to Sunchasers Resort at Fairmont Hot Springs. This is an exchange for our time share. Our base is Orlando but we are staying in Canada this year so this was the available exchange. We would have preferred a fall adventure but this was all we could get on short notice. Besides we are cruising in the fall.
Because Canal Flats is only a half hour away and because we could not check in until 5 we had a full day to enjoy.
The one attraction we did not get to include yesterday was a trip to Findlay Fall so after breakfast we headed out.We could not find the falls at first so we went as far as we thought we should on this washboard back road. We decided to give up so we turned around and headed back. Then we stumbled upon other cars parked just off of the road in a clearing. They had found the trail leading to the falls. The way was a narrow winding path through the woods but we followed it and sure enough we found Findlay Falls. They are beautiful and worth the treck.

We stopped to gas up. It is a lot easier to gas up when the trailer is not behind. Kelly calls that "being on the hook".

We returned to the park and began to pack up our clothes and groceries for the week in Fairmount. Ken moved the trailer out of the site and parked it in a clearing that Kelly recommended. We will return and pick it up next Thursday.

The drive was very hot and because the AC is not working at full capacity I was glad it was a short drive.

After circling a few times we found the place to register for Sunchasers. It went smoothly and after circling a few more times we found the unit we were assigned. It is lovely. We are in one of the B units with one bedroom. We are on the ground floor and we have a lovely patio .

There are plenty of things to explore near by so it should be a good week.

We unloaded the truck and put all of the food away. The meat had not thawed. But I discovered that I had forgotten to bring the milk. We went to the little shopping mall and got milk and bananas and had a wonderful hard ice cream. While here we saw the reddest sun we had ever seen, Quickly the sun dropped behind mountains we could not see.

We returned here and enjoyed TV for the first time in a few days. Then we called it a night. I was pleased and surprised to find that the WiFi is pretty good.

August 15th

We slept well last night because it got cool. The time zone changed so we slept a bit later than we usually do.
We are at the Canal Flats RV park. The reason we are here is the fact that the owner bought the Avion Canper and the Chev truck. We wanted to see it in its new home and of course visit  Kelly.

Our first stop was to go to The Base Camp coffee shop. This is an amazing place. Our friend Kelly runs the place and he is a collector. The walls are covered with wonderful memorabilia.

Kelly told us about some of the things we could see and places we could visit today.

Our first stop was Tilleys Memorial Park. We drove around and took photos. The staff member was named Tom and he gave us a map and some advice.

 He warned of mosquitoes so we went to the local grocery store to get the repellant we had forgotten. This is a very interesting business. They carry almost anything you can imagine. The prices are higher than I am accustomed to.

Our next stop was a trip to the head waters of the Columbia River. It is so hard to realize that this little stream is where the mighty Columbia begins The trip can easily be walked in 15 minutes. The trail is actually wheel chair accessible.

We next headed for the Swan Lake provincial Park. This park is 22 kilometers of winding, bumpy guard rail free road. It was dusty and rough . I was very glad that Ken was driving.
 The big attraction here was Lussier Hot springs. This area is a natural outdoor hot spring area. There was a very steep path that lead to the river and the springs.

There were about 30 young people there. I did not realize that there was not a change room at the bottom of this trail. I should have changed into a swim suit at the top. I was not going back up to change. Ken had his suit on under his shorts so he was fine. There was a Sulphur smell and there were 5 different "pools"

By the time we got back to the top of the trail we were hot and tired and hungry. We ate the lunch that I had packed.

We continued on to the Swan Lake . I figured since we were within 5 kilometers we should see it. Actually the smoke was so very bad again today that we did not see the surrounding mountains. But we did enjoy the lake.

We returned to the camp ground and before we knew it our stomachs were telling us it was dinner time.
We went across the highway to Fire Valley 98 restaurant. We had our meal and neither one of us could finish what we were given. Their regular meal is served on a platter and their small senior size is served on a large dinner place. The food was usual but unless you are very hungry order one regular meal and share it.

We are now back at the trailer playing on our computers. The WiFi here is the fastest I have ever experienced. AMAZING!!!

Tomorrow we are off to SunChasers Resort in Fairmount.

Sore eyes!!

It took us just over 8 hours to travel from Osoyoos to Canal Flats.
We travelled past wonderful orchards and vineyards, amazing desserts and spectacular mountains.
We saw little or none of it. The smoke from the forest fires obscured our view and hurt our eyes.
The traffic was light and we arrived safely, for that we are thankful.

We are all settled in and the evening is lovely. There is quite a breeze so it is much cooler and I know we will sleep well tonight.We are on Mountain time now so we will loose an hour's sleep.

Kelly has invited us to breakfast in the morning so that should be fun.
I have a picture of our site. I tried for a picture of the red ball in the smoky sky but it is not that great.

August 13th

Monday August 13^th

We had a casual morning, just relaxing. We headed out around eleven because we had arranged to meet Sylvia and take her to lunch. We went to the amazing Home Hardware store here in Osoyoos. Ken got the battery he needed and I got a new mouse. !!

When it was time to pay Ken discovered he had forgotten his wallet. So we headed back to the campground to get it. The drivers license is needed.

We met Sylvia and the three of us went to Smitty’s for lunch. We had a good visit because service was slow. The food was good but the air conditioner was set too high so we were not comfortable.

After lunch we walked back to Sunset Ridge to continue this visit. Sylvia is so sharp and even though she is in her nineties she remembers everything so clearly. Visiting with her is a real treat. It was almost four before we headed out.

We stopped for gas and then returned to the campground. The smoke seems to have lessened but it is still a problem.
There were 2 beautiful sculptures at the gas station.

After we had supper we went for another walk around the grounds. I took a picture of one of the long sites. I cannot believe how long they are.

I also took a picture of our site.

 It really is a special campground and everyone seems to be having so much fun.

We plan to head out early in the morning.

August 2018 Holiday

Sunday August 12,

This is the first day of our mini vacation to the BC interior. We were ready, loaded up and pulling out at eight . It was a gray morning and the air was quite smoky because of the forest fires in the area. The traffic was light but there were times when we could not see the surrounding hills.

We drove for 2 hours and then stopped at Manning Park. We had a little walk around and then we went to the little café and had a coffee and shared a wonderful cinnamon bun.

We continued and around noon we were at Mariposa. There we had our lunch and went shopping for fresh fruit. We bought peaches, plums, apricots and cherries. We also picked up a gift for Pam and Frank. We want to thank them for collecting our mail and watering my plants.

The air quality was so bad at times that our eyes burned. We could smell the smoke but we could also taste it. It was almost as if the smoke was coating our teeth.

By three we were at NK'MIP campground and all set up. We used the air conditioner because it was very hot in here. Before long we were comfortable.

 The past few days were very hectic and even though this was an easy day we decided to lay down for a few minutes. Two and one half hours later was woke up. I guess we were more tired than we thought.

We decided that it was time to explore the camp ground. By now it had become cool and we actually had to get our jackets.

 This is an amazing campground. It is beautiful and clean and well planned and a pleasure to be in. The sites are level and long and clean and well laid out. There is a lake on the property. The wind was blowing so there were several waves on the lake. We were surprised by the number of and the size of the boats on the lake. Rental for boats and water tours is available.  There is a convenience store, a café and a restaurant.

 We figure there are many millions of dollars of toys parked in this campground. One site had a mid sized boat, followed by a large diesel pusher motor home, followed by a closed in box trailer, followed by a new Corvette that was transported in that box trailer. One pull through site held it all.

It is obvious that many of these sites are held by full time people. They have patios and shelters and flowers etc.

Our stroll took an hour and we returned to the rig and had supper. Then I discovered that I brought my mouse but forgot the doggle. That was not good. Trying to use my laptop without a mouse is a real challenge. I gave up trying to do anything.

It was not long before we were calling it a day… a long day but a good day.