The past few days have included several adventures including using a family bathroom in a coffee shop to make phone calls on skype, learning that Langley, BC and Fort Langley, BC are not the same towns, sleeping in a tent right next to trains, camping with people we had never met, misplacing a toothbrush, fighting off mosquitoes the size of pennies that have absolutely no problems biting through jeans, and heading down a dirt road for an hour only to arrive at the hot springs when it was 90 degrees outside. Ah yes, just another day in paradise. :) Actually this weekend was really good. We had a wonderful time connecting with a dear friend and getting to meet some of her friends that she has made here at CanIL (a summer linguistics program). While Rodney and I were certainly not in on all the "word" jokes, we enjoyed getting to meet some more people on our journey.
We are now at a coffee shop in Whistler, BC. This place is just like the pictures. There are striking snow covered mountain tops off in the distance and wonderful green fields and glacial streams everywhere. We spent two days in Pemberton, just a short drive north of Whistler, where we shared a campsite with an older couple that was traveling around the interior of BC. They gave us a little insight on the park structure here in BC, so hopefully with that and our newly-acquired, more-detailed BC atlas, we will have a little better luck finding campsites. While sometimes there are signs for places, they are often not very near the turnoffs, so I'm sure we've zipped right past some potential sleeping places completely unawares. On the weekends camping places can be really difficult to find here. Canadians all seem to camp for their summer vacations, and we have been really surprised by the number of people. According to our books, however, it should be easier to find places the further north we go...I just hope that's the case. Driving in frantically trying to procure the last site is getting a little draining, so hopefully all the Canadians will just get back to work soon. :)
In Pemberton we took a long drive out into the country and down a dirt road toward hot springs. What possessed us to do this on a 90 degree day, I'm not sure, but the drive was great. At one point, we looked up and the prettiest red-colored black bear ran right across the road. He was the biggest one we've seen so far and perfectly proportioned. The sighting has renewed my zest for keeping up a clean campsite. :) On the way back, we stopped at a great little vegetable "pay by honor" stand. The info said that three teens run the place, and it reminded me of my own entrepreneurial endeavors of old and lots of berry baskets in our living room. (Thanks for driving, Mom.) We bought some potatoes, and they have been great. We have more left, and I'm pretty excited to get to cooking them. I'm finding that I actually really enjoy cooking outside. Trying to keep everything gluten and msg free is certainly a challenge, but we've had some great dishes like potato curry and garlic potatoes and beef. I am learning that Boulder was perhaps the epicenter of the gluten free world, and I really miss Udi's bread. Well, we are heading north again today. We have calculated that we have about 2,000 miles left to get to Alaska, and we have driven over 3,000 so far. I think we may have underestimated our mileage for the trip. Well, I just looked out the window, and it looks like the clouds here are lifting. Perhaps we will get another look at these famous ski peaks before we head on...
No comments:
Post a Comment