Across BC to Pincher Creek..a testament to the year of western drought

We made it. Started off early from Keremeos and had a good run across highway 3 with litle traffic to frustrate our progress. The general landscape was green everywhere, despite showing up in some of the photos as browned out. But despite the green, everything is dry. The rivers on the first part of the trip were running hard with lots of white water but the colour was clear. The ones near Cranbrook and Fernie were also running high but were muddy and brown.

This photo is taken as we rise out of Osoyoos on Osoyoos Lake. We are now standing at a viewpoint only a mile or so north of the US border. The south end of Osoyoos Lake is in the US. The orchards are lush and green and cherries are ripening. This is early in the morning and nothing was open, but the many many fruit stands will be full with fruit in just a few weeks.

We cross over the height of land and then we drop down to Kootenay Lake at Castlegar which like Osoyoos  straddles the middle of the lake and has a significant but ancient bridge that joins the two halves of the community. We are here at another view point, rising up out of the valley on the way to Cranbrook.

 We were most interested to check on the status of the snow pack in  the mountain ranges that we crossed. This snow is at Kootenay Pass just out of Castlegar and for May, this is not a significant amount of snow. Not good.

 We arrive in Creston, a large agricultural valley that claims a number of ranches and agricultural farmland. It has an old time traditional feel to it and we wish sometime we could take the time to explore it properly. The main street is a little treasure.

 

As you can see, the mountains surrounding Cranbrook are already almost devoid of snow. 

 The Rockies outside Fernie are better but not by much. The summer looks like certain drought for all wildlife (plant and animal) and without adequate rain, a terrible fire season. This photo and the next one were taken on the BC side of Crow's Nest Pass.

 This photo was taken on the Alberta side of Crow's Nest Pass. The view is more spectacular than the BC side, but unfortunately the amount of snow has not improved.

 At last, just as we were starving for our evening meal, we approached Pincher Creek and we enjoyed how little it has changed from our last trip taken in mid-summer. The leaves are very young and the lilacs just blooming so spring arrived very recently. There were dark foreboding clouds to the east. However, when we checked into the campground the host said that the clouds were very dark and promising but that they held no rain. Another discouraging report on the growing state of drought in the west.

 For the next 2 days we will be crossing the prairies and doing long days, so no blog until we reach Ontario. Stay tuned!!

First Day

If it all is starting to look familiar, there is a good reason as we have done this section of the trip three times in the past 3 years. Some things vary. The weather obviously as we have done July and October but this is our first May. This trip was wetter than we had ever seen, and greener. But it reminded us just why we always choose this route for the camper. First of all, the mountains are gentler and the grades less steep making Rick's life as chief navigator much easier. Secondly, the traffic is negligible. Long stretches of empty highway and only the occasional semi or camper to whiz past us, and nobody getting impatient with our slow inclines.

I welcome those of you who are new to this blog and I do hope you enjoy some of our ramblings (both physical and mental)...this first day was short and we arrived at Keremeos campground at 5PM. We always stay at this campground because it is run by a lovely retired German couple and it is spotless and beautifully kept, they always have a giant treat for Molly and  the grounds are lovely and green no matter what the season. To see what it looks like at other seasons, you can always check back through previous blogs. There is also a photo of the grand talus slope right behind the office but I refuse to post it more than once..


This was the scenery this afternoon, with clouds looming, erratic bursts of rain and then rays of sunshine. The cattle didn't seem to mind any of it. This is after we left Manning Provincial Park and passed through Princeton.

 The campground at Keremeos reminds me of road side cafes in the 1950s, with quirky details. The wife of the owner likes to collect bird houses.

 We are staying on the left side. Molly is gleeful about the soft plushy grass, as we have none like this at Gabriola. She rolled and rubbed and enjoyed the moment to the max.

When we pulled in to the office, Molly perked up as she recognized the place.

 And she kept her head riveted onto Rick as he brought back her treat from the office.

 Once inside, she woofed down her supper and then instantly zonked out in her favourite spot under the dinette. All is well. We are having good beginnings...

Tomorrow it looks like the weather will clear and if the traffic remains light, we might actually make it further than our planned spot at Cranbrook, perhaps to Crow's Nest Pass. If we are REALLY lucky we might even make it to Pincer Creek, one of my favourite places on the planet. "Why?" you might sensibly ask??  Well....it is because this unassuming little prairie town on the edge of Alberta is surrounded with views like this....

On our way! Ontario bound.

Today we  left home on Gabriola Island for a 5 week, 6,300 mile (10,000Km) RV driving trip through Canada to the Province of Ontario. We will be on the road for 7 days initially and that will see us to our friends house on Bass Lake outside of Gravenhurst, Ontario. From there we will move down to Hampton to See our Great Grand Daughter for the first time. Thence to Ottawa to visit Barbara's sister and finally the long run back across the country to Hudson's Hope, BC. Barbara has a cousin there that she has not seen in many years. From there we go to Davie Lake which is just north of Prince George, BC for a few days of rest and relaxation before finally heading home.

Home again....

Sorry for the long pause in the travel blog. We are home now and reflecting on the tail end of our trip. Basically, we had one issue after another and were very relieved to finally see the MV Quinsam at the Nanaimo docks waiting to transport us home to our island on the last leg.

The weekend we were scheduled to leave the campground in Palm Springs, we had a serious issue with our truck. The warning system kept giving us very strange signals such as "Service trailer brakes" when in fact we weren't at that moment even towing the trailer!!  Other ones also popped up randomly and with no apparent logic. The real problem is that this warning system also essentially shuts the truck down to "limp mode" meaning first gear. Obviously travelling over 1,000 miles on the freeway to get home wasn't going to be possible this way. The Chevie dealers were not able to help us (fully booked), and the campground's rules limited us to a 14 day stay, so one way or the other we had to leave.

Rick being the logical electronic troubleshooting genius that he is, decided that it was only the warning system which was glitched, and the warning signs it was sending were false and could be ignored. So Rick obtained an ODB scanner that permitted him to read the appropriate engine error codes and reset them, thus allowing us to utilize all of the gears. With some degree of trepidation we set off, hoping that our assessment of the problem was correct. We made it 20 miles and then the warning light went off again and switched the truck into "limp" mode. Rick reset things and we started off again. It only happened once after that and fortunately not on the freeway, but we drove the rest of the way home in the far right lane expecting at any moment to have our truck shut down. Rick did a magnificent job of handling all of this.

We had to review our itinerary for the trip home, as we didn't really want to get stranded out in the desert somewhere miles and miles from help. So we decided to take the main freeway around LA and deal therefore with the stress of the possibility instead of the engine shutting down on the massively frantically busy freeway system. I am sure you can imagine how pleasant it was to have to choose between these two stressful choices. With a hope and a prayer we continued on the main freeway from Palm Springs back towards LA. We stayed in the slow truck lane and battled terrific winds buffeting us on all sides. Just before our turn off northwards on Interstate highway 15, another little crisis descended. Ahead of us was a long semi-trailer encased properly in a huge tarp. Under the intense buffeting of the wind, the tarp gave way, was sucked under the smaller truck behind him, and then under us. The problem was, it didn't come out from under us. Other drivers frantically tried to get our attention, but we already knew. We just had no place to pull over safely. After a few very stressful moments, Rick saw an area and pulled over and stopped. By now I could smell something akin to burning oil coming from underneath us. Rick dashed out and crawled underneath and frantically unwrapped this huge tarp from around the muffler, just in time to prevent it from bursting into flames. We were a bit shaken by this bizare turn of events.

Finally, we reached our turnoff and made it away from the LA basin safely and camped the night near Coalinga. The next morning it dawned sunny and warm and we stopped for breakfast and gas at Harris Ranch. This is a cattle ranch started in 1937 by Jack Harris and today it raises, processes (and cooks in their own restaurant) a huge amount of very fine beef. We dallied over breakfast in their spacious haciena-style restaurant and then watched the chef outside preparing their smoked and seasoned prime rib roasts for the dinner menu that day...

We thought we had put the worst of our luck behind us, but Lady Luck had deserted us on this trip and before you could say "torrential rains" we ran into the last band of the massive tropical front that had been coming ashore from the South Pacific. This time we were by-passing San Francisco in heavy traffic and the rains were pounding us so heavily we could not even see where the traffic lanes were. Another scary experience and again, our sturdy RV driver pulled us through magnificently. I think his nerves were shot though, and we slept soundly that night, exhausted by the day's efforts.

We had decided the freeway was not for us, with our uncertainties of engine health so we reversed our route on the 2 lane route of highway 101, making just one detour to visit the San Gabriel Mission in Sonoma. This was the northernmost Spanish Mission in the US and we had never seen it before. So we relaxed here for a few hours and the sun actually started to break through..

Northwards we continued,  through the redwood forests. We passed through the sanctuary for the largest Roosevelt Elk herd in the world, and were able to experience a huge herd lying contently on a meadow beside the highway. They totally ignored the traffic and cameras clicking and continued to rest in the long grass. One group crossed directly in front of us, stopping traffic in both directions.

When we reached the Oregon coast,  it was just recovering from the terrific battering it had taken from the storm, so it was dark, overcast, chilly and unpleasant compared to the lovely day we had experienced on the route down...we did however get some dramatic shots of the angry sea, still boiling from the onshore storm...

Our last night on the coast was spent at Waldport, Oregon and in the morning we were blessed with a lovely sunrise to lighten our departure to Portland.

At last the tropical winds had abated, the sun returned and we made it safely into Portland that night.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we did make it home all in one piece and having a much greater respect for the planning and provisions that need to go into preparing for a trip such as this and for the unscheduled crises that can occur. We managed OK, but we have now a much better idea of how to improve it for the next time.

Stay tuned for our next adventure whenever that shall be...

Our backseat navigator "Miss Molly Jones Wedlake" would like to say a proper good-bye woof as well.

Around and About...Palm Springs revisited

We have spent a couple of days relaxing and trying hard NOT to go much of anywhere...as you can see from these photos of me and Molly at the campground. The photo of me holding a book is a reference to my close attachment to the long running Australian series "A Country Practice". Most of you will know about that addiction and my close friendship with one of the lead actors.

One morning this week Rick took this early shot of the mountains in behind the campground, and I think it caught the general ambiance of the area...

On the weekend we heard a great racket of loud music start up around the little lake from our campground...and after awhile we decided to investigate, so we walked around and saw a huge gathering of people in the day use area, all very colourful and a master of ceremonies whipping them into some kind of frenzy. On closer examination we were informed that it was a Colorvibe 5K Run for charity. I had never witnessed one of these before hence it was a real culture shock for me. The chap on the microphone was building them up to a great climax when huge swaths of some kind of scented coloured powder were ejected all over them and then they were released to run around the campground and then around the lake on their run...I hope I have given them justice in explaining this. Here are a few photos taken from our camper as they went "running" through. Although called a 5K run, we did notice that most folks were more ambling than running.

Yesterday was a day spent getting to the Moorten Botanical Gardens in Palm Springs. Here a little explanation is in order. The desert floor and oasis that makes up the Palm Springs area is about 25 miles long and Palm Springs is only the northernmost population centre. South from Palm Springs are arranged  the other centres: Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta and Indio. These are all connected by the main strip of highway 111, which is really a suburban 4 lane boulevard with lights every mile or so. It takes FOREVER to travel from Indio (where we are) up to Palm Springs. This time, to avoid the hassle and bustle and general clutter of 111, we tried a backway that joined up with the freeway and yet it still took forever to get the gardens.

Here are a few explanatory shots to show you what the long boulevards look like around Palm Springs proper. The other communities have similar Boulevards, with similar stunning landscaping and huge investment in palms, greenery coupled with natural desert landscaping.

After cruising through a section of Palm Springs to the base of the mountain, we finally arrived at the little gem called the Moorten Botanical Gardens. It is quite small, just a generous city lot with the original 1938 Mexican mission style house set into it. Here is a selection of photos from our time there.