June 30th, Sunday

Sun this morning ! We decided to spend the day in Castlegar and give Bernie a break from driving all those hills. Laundry, coffee, Rv washed were the high points of the morning. We headed to the Lions Gate Pub across the river from Castlegar for a lunch on a patio by the river. Met a young man who lives in Nelson and graduated from Dal with a Masters. Afterwards we did the Castlegar Sculpture Walk - there are 31 new sculptures throughout the downtown created by local and international artists. You are to vote for your favourite and at the end of Sept the winner will be announced. They ranged from 1/2 meter sculptures to 4 meters high in wood, bronze, metal, stone, etc. and most are for sale or lease. Most were beautiful and interesting and others we still don't quite get the idea. Everybody sees things differently. My choose was Honkfest and Bernie's was Raincoat Kids.Anybody is interested they can see all 30 at www.sculpturewalkcastlegar.com

Down by the Columbia River we walked across a suspension bridge to Zuckerberg Island where Mr. Zukerberg took 5 years to built a house called Chapel House in the early 1900's. He lived here with his wife and taught school to the Doukhobar children. His mode of transportation was a row boat. A beautiful spot to live.

Our last stop today was at the Doukhobar Discovery Centre where the history of the Doukhobars and their communal life in the Kootenay Valley was shown thru artifacts, buildings, and videos. It reached a warm 37 degrees today and a cool drink tasted great !

June 29th, Saturday

Thunder, lighting, rain and traffic noise made an interesting night sleep ! We left relatively early this morning heading for Nelson, BC. The drive was windy, hilly but good road and the scenery was beautiful. Lots of rivers, trees, valleys, mountains, etc, etc. Before Osoyoos we stopped at Spotted Lake which is very strange to see as it has large "spots" on it due to high concentrations of metal in the water.

Osoyoos is the area in Canada known as the "desert". 48km north and 25km west along the valley is sand covered with desert plant life. It is very barren looking and with the irrigated land (mostly fruit trees and vineyards) and the housing it provides a peculiar landscape. We visited the Osoyoos Desert Centre which was a boardwalk stroll thru the desert (so, so).

Our twisty, up and down drive - we reached 1535 meters several times doing 70kms on the up part and a lot slower on the down part- continued thru beautiful little towns of Greenwood and Grand Forks with their western facades, deer on the lawn, wood carvings and Canada Flags flying. Sometimes on the drive it was Magnetic Hill - we thought we were going up when we were going down and the rivers sometimes looked like they were flowing the wrong way. Sounds like a new song ! Bunked into night at a campground at Castlegar Golf Course - beautiful course, small campground and no highway noise. May stay here an extra night

June 28th, Friday

Warm today and I think the sun may come out ! We had a morning visit with Sam, Jack, Max, David and Kelly before we said our goodbyes. Just down the road we found a place where Bernie had his hair cut, bought a few groceries at a local market (I would be there every day if it was close by at home) and then on to visit John and Suzanne Vermeer. John worked for us for 5 years before he moved to BC. They have a great spot between Abbotsford and Mission. Delicious lunch, caught up on their news and off we were again. We are back into agricultural land and in the Abbotsford area it is a lot of high bush blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and cherries. There are hundreds of greenhouses and we could see tomatoes being grown in some. As we took the #3 towards Hope dairy farms were everywhere. Took a little detour to Chilliwack to try and find an item we need but no luck. Harrison Hot Springs on Harrison Lake is a beautiful resort town with beaches, hot springs, trails, water activities, restaurants, etc and looked especially great today because the sun was shining ! After Hope we stopped at the spot where a huge landslide in 1965 buried 3km of the road and a lake with 70 meters of debris. An earthquake started the slide and it took a huge part of the mountain.

An early stop in the mountains at Sunshine Valley, steak barbecue and a lazy time in the sun - perfect

June 27th, Thursday

Rain again. Poor Bernie was soaked after unhooking but somebody has to do it :-). Caught the 10:15 BC Ferry out of Duke Point and arrived on the mainland by 12:30. Back in traffic - thru part of Vancouver, Langley and stopped in Abbotsford at David and Kelly Elliotts to spend the night. Great playtime with their 3 little kids, delicious dinner and good company and off to bed. All is well.

June 26th, Wednesday

Rained hard during the night which made a slow start to get up and get going in the morning - pitter, patter. Visited Duncan, the City of Totems and did a walkabout to view the 80+ totem poles in the city.Each had a plaque with the story of the caving and the carver. Duncan is also know for having the largest hockey stick and puck !

Also in Duncan we isited the Quw'idsun Cultural Centre where they displayed the history of the Cowichan Tribe. For our tour of Duncan we were graced with the presence of the sun. Super ! But as we left to head for a winery tour of Averill Creek Vineyard the rain came again. Didn't bother the taste of the wine any as we sat on top of a hill and looked out over the Cowichan Bay and Salt Spring Island. The rest of the afternoon we spent at a IH truck dealer in Nanaimo having an electrical problem fixed on the RV. Booked into a fantastic RV resort (Living Forest) over looking the Nanaimo Harbour, sipped a cold one, watched a tugboat and a guy run around on the logs in the harbour, met a couple from London, Ont (compared roads and spots to see) and had a walk. Beautiful night. There are NO bugs out west - what a treat. This is the view from our campsite

June 25th, Tuesday

The start of our trip home !! The wind is blowing me east.... Rained all night but stopped as we pulled out of the campground. A bit of last minute shopping in Tofino and we headed home. We stopped at Combers Beach in the National Park to have a walk on the beach and had to take another beautiful trail on a downhill boardwalk thru the rainforest (they get 3 1/2 m of rain a year) to reach the beach. Not as many steps as yesterday :-). Lots of driftwood, dozens of sea lions on the rocks, huge breakers, mist on the water and a beautiful sandy beach. Along all the paths are bushes with berries that look like raspberries but don't smell or taste like raspberries - found out today they are Salmon Berries. Our last Pacific Ocean visit was at Wickaninnish Beach. The Indian Kwisitis Visitor Centre gave us a natural and cultural history of the Pacific Rim. We watched the surfers for a while and then walked to South Beach where the huge breakers were awesome. Such a powerful force. During our trip in the western provinces we have noticed a lot of the tourists are from Germany

The coast along here reminded us a lot of Nova Scotia and the water was as cold ! As we headed to Nanaimo the rain started again. For the next 2 hrs we had rain, sun, mist, sun, clouds. Pulled into the Chemainus Garden RV Resort for the night. Walked into the small town of Chemainus and enjoyed the dozens of wall murals, had dinner and then enjoyed a Beach Boy type band at the town centre park. Great music and time and fun meeting people.

June 24th, Monday

Rain early but stopped by the time we were on Mike White's boat heading out Browning's Pass to find some black bears along the shore looking for crabs at low tide. And bears we found - a mama bear and her two cubs. So busy looking for food and playing that our boat came within 25 feet of them. Also saw another half dozen bears, seals, eagles and porpoises. It was a great time with Captain Mike and two young girls from the Philippines. After the tour we walked the town of Tofino, a bit of shopping, lunch at the Schooner restaurant, picked up some smoked salmon, groceries,and art galleries.

A short drive down the road we came to the Schooner Bay Trail which took us on a km boardwalk thru the rainforest (331 steps up and down), by huge trees, woodpeckers, huge plants and to the north end of Long Beach which is on the Pacific Ocean. The beach was sandy, lined with huge driftwood and the tide was out. Off came the shoes and we walked in the Pacific Ocean. It was cold - no swimming today. A delicious steak barbegue and Chicago winning the Stanley Cup finished our day.

June 23rd, Sunday

Woke up to pitter, patter again. I think we have had 5 days of sun in the last month. Packed up and hit the road, well we tried. The RV went one foot and shut down the same as it had done on PEI last fall - a 30amp fuse blew. The owner of the campground went to town and picked up some fuses for us and we were on the road to Ucluelet. Another windy, narrow, hilly road and the MacKenzie Mountain Range covered in clouds. One hill was an 18 degree slope - down to first gear and put along . Bernie does a great job.

Stopped at a few river and lake view points. Our first view of the Pacific Ocean was from the pretty little town of Ucluelet.Even saw palm trees ! Lunch at the Matterson House, a walk and drive around town and then onto Tofino. As we entered Tofino we hit the 9000km mark of our trip and the farthest west in Canada we can go on this trip. Booked into the prettiest campground of the trip - the Crystal Cove Beach Resort on Mackenzie Beach. It has lovely log cabins, RV lots, beautiful gardens and on the beach - a perfect spot to come to in Tofino. We donned our raincoats and rainpants and walked to the Botanical Gardens. Tropical gardens, beach and old growth forest - the trees and plants are huge. Well worth the walk and visit. .JPG" />

June 22nd, Saturday

Crazy grandparents woke at 6am and Skyped the Brennan clan in Fort Lawrence. It was great to see all 6 of them who were excited that school was almost over and they were heading to the cottage for the week. Hope they have warmer weather then the West coast ! It is overcast today and a balmy 14 degrees. We crossed on the BC Ferry, the Queen of Oak Bay, from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. The water was like glass. We left Nanaimo and took the #4 towards Tofino on the west coast of the Island. The road was windy and ran along Lake Cameron for quite a while. We stopped at Cathedral Grove and took a walk thru an old Douglas Fir stand. The trees are between 300-800 years old. The largest is 9m around and 76m tall. Awesome to see !

Our next stop was at the McLean Mill just past Port Alberni where they have a 1925 steam saw mill operating during the summer months. We were lucky enough to pick the one day in June they were open and operating. Some of the logs they were milling were 150 years old and 4' in diameter. An old place but full of things to see. Hard way to mill logs

Then we found our Camp Ground, Arrowvale which is not like its web site :-) Very rustic but friendly people. We barbecued and Bernie watched Chicago win again

June 21st, Friday

Woke to no pitter, patter of rain. Still overcast and cannot see the mountains but it is not raining. We only travelled as far as Squamish, BC - about 60kms. Bernie wanted to get the brakes checked on the motorhome before we did any more mountain climbing. At the Squamish Truck Repair we were given a thumbs up and keep on trucking. The owner grew up in Truro - small world. Big excitement was we found a new coffee pot small enough to fit in the cupboard. I broke the other one a week ago and we had tried several stores along the way but had no success. Our other stop was at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park which had 20+ full size railway cars to tour including a steam locomotive, passenger cars, private car, caboose, mail car, etc. Also they had a fantastic model railway in working condition and it took up most of a rail car. A nice calm evening to barbeque and sit outdoors

June 20th, Thursday

Pitter, patter again. Rained all night and rained all day. The mountains are covered in clouds and everybody dressed in long pants and coats. Spent the day roaming around Whistler (I think most of the staff is Australian ), a bit of shopping, sipping on a cool one and watching the mountain bikers, dinner at the Keg and just an all round lazy day. The flooding in the Calgary area, Canmore and parts of BC are terrible. We were very close to some of those areas a few days ago.

June 19th, Wednesday

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter. All we heard today - rain, clouds, cool made it impossible to see the tops of the mountains. We back tracked a few kms to Hell's Gate Gorge where the mighty Fraser River flows thru a gorge 33 meters wide. Rode the gondola down to the river edge where we walked the suspension bridge over the gorge and watched a video on Simon Fraser's exploration of the River. Fraser's quote " We had to travel where no human being should venture for surely we have encountered the gates of hell" after climbing the mountain sides to get by the gorge. Also watched a documentary on a salmon's life cycle on the Fraser River and its spawning grounds. There are fish ladders along the side to help the salmon get thru the gorge.

The roads today were not highways - they were narrow, windy,steep in places with a 15 degree grade for you truckers out there and one lane bridges. We had beautiful scenery even without seeing the mountain tops, drove thru a lot of small Indian reservations, saw deer, met log trucks in the middle of no where, one lane traffic thru a previous rock slide, a stop in Lytton to see where the Fraser (brown and murky) meets the Thompson (blue and clear)(a clear line can be seen),and visited the museum in Lytton. We noted that the word "Resort" is used very loosely out here. Beware, we don't think there would be a chocolate on your pillow.

We stopped in a little town called Lillooet decorated with Jade art work on the streets and had several interesting encounters with people - a German girl (who worked on a farm in Pugwash) and her Mom and Uncle who were touring western Canada, a couple from Holland at the restaurant and a local who lived way out back of the town on a road he said we would not want to travel on :-) On to Whistler and the campground. Rain - no barbecue but do have the hockey game on TV - Go Chicago

June 18th, Tuesday

The birds woke us at 4:15 ! I swear there were 200 of them but it could have been a dozen. Right outside our bedroom window and singing for all they were worth. The rest of the day was all about the drive. We started off on the Westside Road (should have been our first hint-no road #)on the west side of Okanagan Lake heading towards Kamloops. It was narrow and windy and treacherous - an hour of hold your breath.

Who would of thought these roads would be just outside of Kelowna ! The rest of the day was a beautiful drive northwest to Kamloops, south to Hope and then north towards Littooet along the Fraser Valley. Some long hills to climb and come down - one was 18km up and 18kms down at 70kms an hour. We saw moose, deer, desert conditions, rivers, sheds and tunnels, a cowboy herding horses, mountains with snow and a lot of fantastic scenery.

At Boston Bar we called it a day, found a great campground, pulled out the lawn chairs, set up the barbecue and had a delicious steak dinner

June 17th, Monday

Pitter, patter. Rained all night but woke up to sun and warm temperature. Spent the morning relaxing by the lake drinking coffee and reading. What a life - almost like being at the cottage. Steve and Denyse picked us up at lunch time and we had a wonderful 3 hour lunch at the Quails' Gate Winery overlooking the vineyards and the lake. They are visiting friends in Kelowna and it was great to spend some time with them. Game three of the playoffs, a thunderstorm and grilled cheese sandwiches closed out the day.