Deana, my niece Samantha, and I had started out from the island and headed into the interior to pick up Mikayla (She had been visiting with Grandma and Grandpa at our family cabin at Lazy Lake). We hopped in my 1996 Mazda 626 Chronos anticipating a wonderful time. We had prepared for some sightseeing and then stopping one night to camp along the way in our huge 6 person tent. The weather was incredible and the forcast was for more of the same!
We caught the first ferry out (well... maybe the second one!) but we were well on our way early in the morning. I expected to put some miles on the road before it got too hot. Until we got to Chiliwack and the girls decided they wanted to go SHOPPING (what else?)
Oh well, I guess you have to be ready to change your plans at the drop of a hat sometimes, soooo.... In we went, our first sight seeing stop - The MALL. The girls started by picking up two matching Blues Brother's hats, matching red sun glasses, and two set of "grills" (for those of us from the stone age that is fake braces with lots of glitter!)... they said it was a "family bonding time"... and then they proceeded to start hitting the clothing stores. And finally, they couldn't forget the junk food for the trip.
Three hours later, we are back on the road. This time we made it as far as Hope - and we were getting ready for Ice Caps from Tim's. It was starting to get warm, but we were finally on our way up the Hope - Princeton. We might have stopped to check out Hope Slide, but we were now three hours later than previously planned... so over the top we went.
From Princton we stayed on the lower route through lower B.C. We toured through the Highway #3 to Keremeos through to Osoyoos. We passed by a Spotted Lake and then came onto the floating bridge in the city. The girls had to stop for "sightseeing to check out the waterfront, and of course, "the eye candy." Then we popped into visit "Tim" again for another Ice Cap and to top up with gas (YIKES!! Gas prices).
Off we go again, up the Osoyoos switchbacks (hairpin corners... several of them in a row). We were all actually have a fun by this time - the girls squishing each other and providing a roaring commentary as we careened around the corners. The view of Osoyoos Lake was incredible (God's creative pallet) and then we started to see other works of art along the roadside. elk, deer, moose, eagles, etc... and yes... even a SASQUATCH. (Huge animal carvings) I did try to stop to take a picture of the Sasquatch, but we missed him and we couldn't turn around! I guess you'll just have to trust me :)
We roared over the Crowsnest Highway - through Bridesville and Rock Creek, then to Midway, Greenwood and Grand Forks (affectionately known as Grand Spoons). It was getting pretty warm so we tried to stop for a quick dip in a stream (and a stretch/rest from driving) but we didn't actually make it to the water... oh well, back on the journey we go.... By this time, it was starting to get later in the evening, so we were considering whether to keep going all the way to the Kootenays or to stop and set up camp.
We had discussed stopping at Christina Lake for the night, but the girls were still stoked and ready to go on. (Unfortunately, we would have arrived at 1:00 am and I don't think the grandparent's would have been impressed!) I kept on driving and realized at that it was getting late and we still had to set up camp. We pulled into the Nancy Green Summit Provincial Campsite at 9:00 pm and the girls decided to be "independant teenagers."
Fortunately, God provided a wonderful Grandma from Alberta in the site next to us, who offered to help me set up the tent (after the girls hastily took off for the lake). By this time the sky was dark and we had to use a lantern to finish staking up the tent... then I had to go find the girls. I knew they had taken off for the beach, but I was not aware that they had to pass by the "Hell's Angel's 25th Anniversay Campout" on the way!! Lots of Harley's and Gold Wings, lined the campsite sparkling in the moonlight with a "quiet" bunch of guys sitting around a campfire singing campfire songs... NOT!! And Deana and Samantha had gone down there somewhere!
Me with my flashlight, looking for two teenage girls in the dark... but for the grace of God and hearing Him give me directions, I walked right up to Deana and Mikayla... and I got to pray for (under my breath) for the bikers too. THANK YOU LORD!
Anyway, we finally got back the tent without event and the girls decided that they didn't want to sleep in the tent that I had painstaking built (maybe it was wise with the Bikers at the end of the park) so they slept in the car and I had the tent all to myself... Not our offical plan for the day, but eventful day anyway!!
.... more to come another day.
God bless,
Deb <><
A Summer’s Journey… Day 2 - Vehicle Problems...
We caught the first ferry out (well... maybe the second one!) but we were well on our way early in the morning. I expected to put some miles on the road before it got too hot. Until we got to Chiliwack and the girls decided they wanted to go SHOPPING (what else?)
Oh well, I guess you have to be ready to change your plans at the drop of a hat sometimes, soooo.... In we went, our first sight seeing stop - The MALL. The girls started by picking up two matching Blues Brother's hats, matching red sun glasses, and two set of "grills" (for those of us from the stone age that is fake braces with lots of glitter!)... they said it was a "family bonding time"... and then they proceeded to start hitting the clothing stores. And finally, they couldn't forget the junk food for the trip.
Three hours later, we are back on the road. This time we made it as far as Hope - and we were getting ready for Ice Caps from Tim's. It was starting to get warm, but we were finally on our way up the Hope - Princeton. We might have stopped to check out Hope Slide, but we were now three hours later than previously planned... so over the top we went.
From Princton we stayed on the lower route through lower B.C. We toured through the Highway #3 to Keremeos through to Osoyoos. We passed by a Spotted Lake and then came onto the floating bridge in the city. The girls had to stop for "sightseeing to check out the waterfront, and of course, "the eye candy." Then we popped into visit "Tim" again for another Ice Cap and to top up with gas (YIKES!! Gas prices).
Off we go again, up the Osoyoos switchbacks (hairpin corners... several of them in a row). We were all actually have a fun by this time - the girls squishing each other and providing a roaring commentary as we careened around the corners. The view of Osoyoos Lake was incredible (God's creative pallet) and then we started to see other works of art along the roadside. elk, deer, moose, eagles, etc... and yes... even a SASQUATCH. (Huge animal carvings) I did try to stop to take a picture of the Sasquatch, but we missed him and we couldn't turn around! I guess you'll just have to trust me :)
We roared over the Crowsnest Highway - through Bridesville and Rock Creek, then to Midway, Greenwood and Grand Forks (affectionately known as Grand Spoons). It was getting pretty warm so we tried to stop for a quick dip in a stream (and a stretch/rest from driving) but we didn't actually make it to the water... oh well, back on the journey we go.... By this time, it was starting to get later in the evening, so we were considering whether to keep going all the way to the Kootenays or to stop and set up camp.
We had discussed stopping at Christina Lake for the night, but the girls were still stoked and ready to go on. (Unfortunately, we would have arrived at 1:00 am and I don't think the grandparent's would have been impressed!) I kept on driving and realized at that it was getting late and we still had to set up camp. We pulled into the Nancy Green Summit Provincial Campsite at 9:00 pm and the girls decided to be "independant teenagers."
Fortunately, God provided a wonderful Grandma from Alberta in the site next to us, who offered to help me set up the tent (after the girls hastily took off for the lake). By this time the sky was dark and we had to use a lantern to finish staking up the tent... then I had to go find the girls. I knew they had taken off for the beach, but I was not aware that they had to pass by the "Hell's Angel's 25th Anniversay Campout" on the way!! Lots of Harley's and Gold Wings, lined the campsite sparkling in the moonlight with a "quiet" bunch of guys sitting around a campfire singing campfire songs... NOT!! And Deana and Samantha had gone down there somewhere!
Me with my flashlight, looking for two teenage girls in the dark... but for the grace of God and hearing Him give me directions, I walked right up to Deana and Mikayla... and I got to pray for (under my breath) for the bikers too. THANK YOU LORD!
Anyway, we finally got back the tent without event and the girls decided that they didn't want to sleep in the tent that I had painstaking built (maybe it was wise with the Bikers at the end of the park) so they slept in the car and I had the tent all to myself... Not our offical plan for the day, but eventful day anyway!!
.... more to come another day.
God bless,
Deb <><
A Summer’s Journey… Day 2 - Vehicle Problems...
Well, the sun came up early and the chickadees were a twittering. I was the first one up and went a visiting our neighbourly grandma in the next tent. She graciously offered a cup of coffee and some camp stove raisin toast... Recognizing that Deana and Samantha were still curled up in their sleeping bags in the car, I decided to take my time and enjoy the cool morning air in the company of a wonderful woman sent by God.
The bikers staying at the end of the campground were all very quiet… I’m not sure what time they shut down the night before… but they were obviously not yet ready to face the day… much to my joy at the peacefulness of the morning.
When the girls finally did awaken, they wanted to get on the road right away. So, we took down the tent and packed up the car to proceed with our journey to the Kootenays (not to mention that the girls didn’t want a camp stove breakfast at the campsite, they instead wanted miniature sugar packed cereal boxes to start the day! Yeah, Kellogg’s!) When were finally did make it on to the highway, we thought we were in for some smooth sailing. It was still brisk outside, but we could tell that the warmth of the sun was definitely on the schedule.
We travelled a short distance and saw a Mama bear and her cub crossing the road ahead. We tried to get a picture… but unfortunately, weren’t quick enough. Then… the car started to act up!! The engine light came on and the gears started to disengage. Here we were at the top of the Nancy Green Summit, a mom and two teen-age girls, and the car goes on the blink! After pulling over to the side of the road and a bit of prayer, we restarted the car and were able to go a short distance before it started doing it again.
Fortunately, a couple drove up in a truck and asked us what was happening. When I described the scenario to them, the gentleman suggested that it sounded like the transmission. He said that when we stopped the transmission fluid would drain back into the reservoir and be enough for us to get on our way, but once it had circulated the tranny would disengage and throw us into neutral. He suggested that we keep doing what we were doing to get up the slight incline and then let it stay in neutral and coast down the mountain… as I mentioned… we were still at the top of the Nancy Green summit. He said that Rossland was only about 10 kms away and that we would probably be able to make it there to find a service station. Sooo… we took his advice and did just that. It was beginning to get a little wearing having to stop and restart, put it into neutral and coast as far as we could down hill, then stop again and restart if we had another incline to make… but we finally saw the entrance to the town.
I was able to pull into a service station and we thought that we were home free. I went in, talked to the attendant on duty and picked up some transmission fluid. I was under the hood of the car, and ready to “play mechanic,” when I realized… I couldn’t find the Transmission fluid filler drain…. And the attendant couldn’t find it either! Well, to give her the benefit of the doubt, it was Sunday and she was just there to fill up the gas and man the store… she was not the mechanic, but really! In fact, they didn’t have a mechanic coming on duty until Monday and she couldn’t think of anyone else to call in.
Fortunately, I had my handy-dandy cell phone with me (actually we had three cell phones between the three of us!) I gave my Dad a call. Between, text messages and phoning we were able to discern that the filler drain was actually the Tranny Dip Stick hole… go figure! (Remember that all you guys, it might come in handy one day!) I gently poured some of the transmission fluid into the dip stick hole (being careful not to overfill it), and we decided to try to get on the road again. Trail was further down the mountain, so if it didn’t work, we could continue to coast down there, but if it worked we would be well on our way… For future reference, the road from Rossland to Trail is a lot steeper and a lot curvier!
Well, of course, the car started to act up again. We managed to make it to Trail… holding on a bit tighter because it was a bit steeper, and it was pretty well ALL downhill, but we were able to coast into a service station that looked like it had two open mechanic bays! Yahoo! We were safe and sound… BUT they hadn’t employed a mechanic for three years. Thankfully, the attendant was wise and suggested that we check to see if we had a towing package on our insurance ….which we did.
This is where things started to get interesting! I finally started to admit that God must have a sense of humour! We called the Insurance people and when the tow-truck driver called us back, he asked “Did we want to be towed to a place in Trail or in Castlegar?” (Which was 15 minutes away). It was then that I remembered a good family friend of ours (actually he gave the Toast to the Bride at my wedding!) lived in Castlegar. I asked the Tow Truck Driver if he had access to a Castlegar phonebook to see if Chris was still around, and low and behold… The driver knew Chris personally! God-incident or what??
Anyway, the driver gave me Chris’ number, and after chatting on the phone, we decided, of course, to tow the vehicle to Castlegar. Nothing was opened on Sunday, of course, but the driver suggested taking it to OK Tire, as he knew the people who ran it and recommended them. Chris picked us up at the shop and we crashed their place for a few hours. (We even got to take part in his sister’s birthday BBQ, and got to meet ALL the family, which was really nice!) There was nothing else we could do about the car at that moment… so we decided to continue on our way to the Lake. At 7:00 pm he drove us to the bus station and we hopped the bus to Cranbrook where we had arranged to have Dad pick us up at around 1:00 am the next morning.
We would deal with the car the next day by phone…. Our story continues.
Summer’s Journey… Day 3 - Finally at the Lake!Well. We finally made it to our family cabin at Lazy Lake. A journey that should have only taken about 13 hours took us three days when it was all done and over. We were stranded without our vehicle… but at least we were stranded somewhere absolutely beautiful!!
The first thing that we did when we got there was find my missing daughter, Mikayla. She happened to be sleeping out under the stars with her second cousin Montana (Monty for short!) It was a happy reunion (as I am sure she was getting rather worried about where we were in our trip as well.) We packed our suitcases into the cabin (we had left everything else in the car back in Castlegar) and hit the hay.
The first thing that we did when we got up in the morning was head for the lake. After 3 days in a vehicle… well, let’s just say that the water was just what the doctor ordered! We wandered across the “lagoon” and dove in on the other side of the island to start swimming across the lake. It was cool and refreshing… and, oh, we were sooooo thankful!It was the beginning of a beautiful 3 week vacation that had been extended from our originally planned 5 day trip.
We still had to deal with my car via several telephone calls (that is a story in itself!) The Tow Truck driver and Chris had connected us with some wonderful people at OK Tire and they took a look at my car. Unfortunately, it was too far gone for them to repair, so they recommended transporting it back to Borderline Transmission in Trail. Fortunately, they said that all of the towing was free of charge…. Chivalry is not dead! Once at Borderline, they took a look at it, ordered a part in the hopes of being able to rebuild the tranny, and then finally came to the conclusion that the rebuild cost more than the car was worth. In all the process took over two weeks, and in the end, the vehicle was considered a write off. C’est la vie.
Fortunately, God had put us where we needed to be, in the midst of family and in the midst of His wonderful creation. I can’t say I was too disappointed about having to stay in the Kootenay’s longer that expected. We just had to look beyond the circumstances and enjoy all that the LORD given to us. We were able to take advantage of a swim in the lake almost every day we were there. Other water activities included boating, canoeing, trips on the SS Rumrunner, jumping from “Castle Rock” and from the rope swing on the other side of the lake. Rising early in the mornings gave me an extra special blessing as I was able to view the beauty of God’s creation encircled in a peaceful mist. Other activities included driving around on the ATV, trips up the Estella Mine, and Mikayla tells a tale of climbing straight up the mountain to our water barrel. We had a chance to visit with family at Lazy Lake, in Wasa, in Kimberley and in Cranbrook.
“Through the Fire” Part #1…
Another unexpected thing that happened during our stay was our deliverance from a forest fire and a second possible forest fire. One day there was the smell of smoke in the air. We turned on the news and heard that a forest fire was burning along the train tracks outside of Fort Steel. Now Fort Steel is only 15 km away from the lake, so we sent out “the men” to look into this further. My uncle, Lloyd Dean Sr, was retired from the Kimberley Fire Department, and just happened to have access to almost immediate information. We were told that we should get ourselves ready to move out. If the call came, we would only have ten minutes to be out of our cabin if the fire continued towards us. After much prayer, we heard that the wind had shifted, and thankfully, we were out of the path of the fire.
“Through the Fire” Part #2
A few days later, however, we were sitting on our cabin patio when I looked across the lake at the Rope Swing. I thought I saw a flash of fire, so I picked up the binoculars to check it out. What I saw caused my heart to leap and a yell (and a prayer!) to come from my lips. A group of teenagers had started a campfire in behind the trees, and it had gotten out of control. One young lad was running up from the lake with what we later learned was a beer can full of water (while his buddies were trying to put out the fire by … well yes… peeing on it.)
By this time, others had seen the fire too, so Dad, Mark; a forest ranger buddy of his, and Deana quickly hopped in the boat and headed over there with a big bucket, work boots and shovels. The teens took off through the woods towards the provincial campsite.
Fortunately, Lloyd Sr had hopped on his ATV and cornered the teens as they came out of the clearing and I hopped into my parent’s Santa Fe while grabbing a camera. Dad’s team was able contain the fire, we were able to get pictures of the culprits, and the Fire Marshall attended it all in the next day.
Delivered from fire again… Thank You LORD!!
We still had to deal with my car via several telephone calls (that is a story in itself!) The Tow Truck driver and Chris had connected us with some wonderful people at OK Tire and they took a look at my car. Unfortunately, it was too far gone for them to repair, so they recommended transporting it back to Borderline Transmission in Trail. Fortunately, they said that all of the towing was free of charge…. Chivalry is not dead! Once at Borderline, they took a look at it, ordered a part in the hopes of being able to rebuild the tranny, and then finally came to the conclusion that the rebuild cost more than the car was worth. In all the process took over two weeks, and in the end, the vehicle was considered a write off. C’est la vie.
Fortunately, God had put us where we needed to be, in the midst of family and in the midst of His wonderful creation. I can’t say I was too disappointed about having to stay in the Kootenay’s longer that expected. We just had to look beyond the circumstances and enjoy all that the LORD given to us. We were able to take advantage of a swim in the lake almost every day we were there. Other water activities included boating, canoeing, trips on the SS Rumrunner, jumping from “Castle Rock” and from the rope swing on the other side of the lake. Rising early in the mornings gave me an extra special blessing as I was able to view the beauty of God’s creation encircled in a peaceful mist. Other activities included driving around on the ATV, trips up the Estella Mine, and Mikayla tells a tale of climbing straight up the mountain to our water barrel. We had a chance to visit with family at Lazy Lake, in Wasa, in Kimberley and in Cranbrook.
“Through the Fire” Part #1…
Another unexpected thing that happened during our stay was our deliverance from a forest fire and a second possible forest fire. One day there was the smell of smoke in the air. We turned on the news and heard that a forest fire was burning along the train tracks outside of Fort Steel. Now Fort Steel is only 15 km away from the lake, so we sent out “the men” to look into this further. My uncle, Lloyd Dean Sr, was retired from the Kimberley Fire Department, and just happened to have access to almost immediate information. We were told that we should get ourselves ready to move out. If the call came, we would only have ten minutes to be out of our cabin if the fire continued towards us. After much prayer, we heard that the wind had shifted, and thankfully, we were out of the path of the fire.
“Through the Fire” Part #2
A few days later, however, we were sitting on our cabin patio when I looked across the lake at the Rope Swing. I thought I saw a flash of fire, so I picked up the binoculars to check it out. What I saw caused my heart to leap and a yell (and a prayer!) to come from my lips. A group of teenagers had started a campfire in behind the trees, and it had gotten out of control. One young lad was running up from the lake with what we later learned was a beer can full of water (while his buddies were trying to put out the fire by … well yes… peeing on it.)
By this time, others had seen the fire too, so Dad, Mark; a forest ranger buddy of his, and Deana quickly hopped in the boat and headed over there with a big bucket, work boots and shovels. The teens took off through the woods towards the provincial campsite.
Fortunately, Lloyd Sr had hopped on his ATV and cornered the teens as they came out of the clearing and I hopped into my parent’s Santa Fe while grabbing a camera. Dad’s team was able contain the fire, we were able to get pictures of the culprits, and the Fire Marshall attended it all in the next day.
Delivered from fire again… Thank You LORD!!
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