Tuesday, April 21, 2015

We Go Where Now?

The day dawned early, and while my beloved was busy with a few chores, I set out to scope out our "escape route". The road through the campground was narrow with trees on either side.

This should be interesting I thought. I took a picture as I wandered back to the coach. I had a fairly good idea of what I was doing. At least I was clear on the way forward, though it held some interesting challenges.


Definitely not this way, I thought to myself. The route I had planned was better, if marginally so than this "improved goat track".


This, by way of comparison is the road we had to take to come down to the campground last night. Although the lens does not do it justice, it is probably a 
15 - 18% grade.

 Considering 12% will set your brakes on fire if you are injudicious in your use of them, the roll down here was on of those situations where I told ScooterChick "no problem baby" whereas my hands were fixed on the steering wheel with an grip of iron and the knuckles on each meat-hook were lily white.  


I conferred with my co-pilot, by which I mean to say I told her the path was clear for us to exit the campground. In spite of my history, she just gave me a loving look and said "OK Christo OK".


A few miles down the highway we were stopped at a work zone for a few minutes. One can see an excavator working behind the barrier which has been erected to prevent stone from cascading onto the highway.


And where would these rocks come from one might wonder? Up there I would surmise, since the cliff face rose about 1000 ft. up to the top.


Shortly thereafter we came to one of the seven tunnels you encounter in the Fraser Canyon. This one is China Bar Tunnel.

Trippin' Sista was squealing pretty loudly when we met a Semi Trailer truck "boiling up the road" in the opposite direction.

Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention that the tunnel is curved??? Within a fairly short period of time we had passed the towns of Boston Bar, Spuzzum and Yale and on the way through Yale we saw a "flea market."

We looked in vain for a small table, and saw nothing of interest except for the


GOL  NU GET  OTEL. This place looked as though it had been closed a
long time.


A look back towards our rig as we walked back across the parking lot empty handed. Well, not quite as I was holding her hand and she mine.


After our bargain hunting, we stopped at Lake of the Woods for a bite to eat. This was particularly poignant for me since the last time I was here was 43 years ago.


It truly is a Lake of the Woods, although there are doubtless scores of them littering the continent. It is picturesque, and the water is a lovely temperature for swimming in the summertime.


We breezed through Hope and stopped for both gas and propane for the rig prior to stopping for the night.


We made our way to Thousand Trails, at Cultus Lake. This is a membership camping club and in the interest of luring us into their system, they comped us a night. Oh yeah the internet was $8. I think we can manage that.


I received directions to our site from Martin and though I  tried to follow them to the letter, I still made a wrong turn and ended up here. This doesn't seem right somehow.


Well, I can't turn this way. That would put me in the creek.


I can't turn this way, that would put me in the brush pile with no maneuvering room. What to do?


I ended up having to 1) offload the van, 2) lock the steer axle on the tow dolly, and 3) back down the road past the visible tree line. I ended up injuring the dolly somewhat in the process.


We finally got situated and hooked up in our allotted site. We reloaded the car and I effected some repair to the injured dolly. Oh yes, it had begun to rain in a fairly convincing fashion while this took place, so I was soaked to the skin when I came "home", and even now am composing this post with a blanket over my legs.

I should like to say "poor me", but the truth is I am counting my blessings, particularly with Patsy by my side.

  Rah rah rah, sis boom bah, go team go...yay us!!! 

1 comment:

Trobairitz said...

Sounds like there is a bit of a learning curve with the rig. But with your lovely wife by your side what could be better?