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Category Archives: road trip

California Blooms

More from the road trip.

We left here with snow on the ground so the profusion of flowering plants in California was very delightful. Many of the wildflowers were similar or the same as some that grow here. Others were quite new to me. And others were recognizable as nursery plants run amuck. But most were beautiful and lush.

Wild mint of some sort
A mint being choked by field bindweed
Field bindweed was very widespread on the cliffs above the beaches
Wild iris
I don’t know this one.
This is something common in CA but I don’t know what it is.
Perennial Martha Washington geranium shrub.
This succulent was pulling its way out of the big geranium
Some sort of berry?
Chocolate lily?
Yellow violet
Three-needled pine that somewhat resembles ponderosa but is different.
hmmmm.
hmmmm.
California poppies
Serviceberry?
I think this is an Arabis, similar to the local one
Eucalyptus blossom
Paintbrush
Columbine
Lupine
This reminds me of a tiny flower that grows from a bulb

There and Back

It was nice to be able to visit friends both coming and going to and from the beach. We saw old friends and their dogs. On the way we stopped in Olympia and had five black dogs altogether! Going to the beach I was lucky to have perfect driving weather with blue skies and no rain or snow. Coming home was a different story. Snoqualmie Pass was closed for avalanche control and opened shortly after I got there. Most cars had to put on chains. Lucky me with my AWD and traction tires, I could skip that tiresome step. Still, the going was slow with bumper to bumper traffic all the way over. A drive that normally takes half an hour took two hours! I was greatly relieved to arrive in Cle Elum and take a break. Blewett Pass was not in bad shape – just compact snow but folks were driving too fast or too slow and it took longer than usual too. What a relief to arrive at Kim’s house. The next day, it was snowing hard in the Wenatchee valley and we enjoyed a walk in the orchard before I left. It weather improved as I got farther north and across the Columbia for the last time. Sadly there was a terrible accident and the highway was closed for three hours and I had to backtrack and take a longer detour through still another snow storm. I can’t tell you how good it felt to get home. The dogs were amazingly patient with all that car time.

A bad picture taken from a moving car but compare it to the photos from the return trip.
Brenna (12), Ty (2), Ella (11 months), Sky (6 months) and Luna (7).
Stopped just outside of North Bend
A walk in the orchard before the last leg of the trip
Luna!
Zur, in the background and Ziggy – Luna’s oldest dog friend.
Ick
The last snow storm on the way home

Summit Lake

Summit Lake has a small provincial park with a campground. When we arrived it appeared to be full and we were considering going on up the road towards Nakusp, unsure if we’d find anything better and available. We enquired with the park host who said the young folks putting up the toadlet fence were leaving that afternoon and we ought to check with them. Sure enough, they’d mostly finished with the fence and had most of their gear packed so we moved in before they were all the way moved out. It was a double spot and we shared it with some nice folks from Castlegar. We also met some other nice folks from Kamloops and an unplanned party went well into the evening one night! We really liked their dog and they were pretty nice too. By this time we must have been missing our dog, back home at Rover’s Ranch.

Summit Lake is a lovely lake for paddling and fishing. I saw numerous canoes and kayaks – more than I’ve seen in one place in a long time. Common Loons must have nested there this year. I saw an adult with an almost grown youngster. Ken enjoyed the fishing – catching some very large rainbow trout that we enjoyed, cooked over the fire.

The toadlet fence is designed to keep the toads out of the campground and also to funnel them to a highway crossing. They are born in the lake and spend their life there as tadpoles til they metamorphose into western toads and then they need to go to the mountains. In order to get there they have to cross the highway and it’s a dangerous gamble for the tiny creatures. We were told that in the past, so many toads were squished on the highway that it needed to be sanded. That’s a lot of tiny toads. Unfortunately all the toadlets don’t understand that they are supposed to come out of the water on the other side of the fence. We saw numerous ones on the road to the boat launch who did find the fence and some were able to squeeze through the tiny holes. Western toads, like many amphibians, are having a hard time these days. Summit Lake is considered a stronghold for them.

That’s it. The last post from the vacation. It was a fun road trip and we will probably re-visit that area again someday.

Summit Lake
Summit Lake
Very healthy devil’s club. This is a wet climate to promote such growth.
Dinner cooking on the campfire
Ken demonstrates proper use of cooking utensils including a shovel and pliers
Hold it like that
Dinner is served!
Toadlet fence along the road to the boat launch
Toadlet fence
Tiny toadlet thinking I can do it, I can get over this thing.
How do they know where to go?
I told you they were tiny
The dark dots are toads
We were there at the start of their season
Learning to crawl before hopping
Last paddle, the last morning of the vacation.

New Denver and Sandon

Before we left for BC, I read about various things to see and do and one of the things that caught my eye was a visit to Sandon – a ghost town relic left over from the heyday of silver mining in the area. The region was once one of the largest producers of silver in the west and a busy town with 1000’s of people quickly sprang up along the shores of Carpenter Creek. The mountainsides raise steeply up out of the valley and they quickly ran out of buildable land for homes and businesses and roads. Innovative thinking led them to put the creek in a flume – a four-sided wooden tube – and that became a main street of the town rather than a barrier. They also used it to dispose of trash and sewage. Imagine what the folks in New Denver, at the mouth of the creek, thought of that. Eventually the wooden flume failed and washed out much of the old town. Fire was also hard on the town and when silver prices declined, it was abandoned. During WWII it was used as a camp for Japanese-Canadian internees who were relocated from other areas.

Now the place is more of a junkyard with few intact buildings. Someone decided to store historic trolley buses from Calgary and Vancouver there. They presented an incongruous sight when we first arrived. We were puzzled til be found some interpretive signage. There is a nice museum in one of the old buildings and we enjoyed it, learning quite a bit about the place and silver mining in 1800’s and early 1900’s.

On the way to Sandon we stopped in New Denver and enjoyed their Saturday market with beautiful produce and lots of talented artisans.

 

In New Denver
Lovely market in New Denver
It is hard to picture this pretty big creek restricted to a flume
This looks like something from the ocean rather than the mountains
In the museum
Old building
Old train locomotive, partially restored
bolts
Fireweed and rust
This cat patrolled the main street through Sandon
Trolley in Sandon
More trolleys
Canadian Brill Car logo on the trolleys
An old train car
Sweet
An old neighborhood of Sandon where folks still live
Interesting, perhaps homemade, vehicle in Sandon

 

A Short Visit to Nelson, BC

For years, I have wanted to go to Nelson, British Columbia and on this road trip, I finally had the chance to see it. Boy, was I disappointed. Not because it lacks things to do or see or eat, but because the weather was hot and it was a tourist destination. It reminded me that I do not enjoy Winthrop, the town closest to where I live, in the summertime. Is that a bad thing for me to admit? I hope not. I like Winthrop during the fall, winter and spring seasons but between Labor Day and Memorial Day, it’s just too busy and often it is very hot. That’s how Nelson was the day we visited. Busy and hot. The people watching was interesting. We had a decent lunch. We found a good place for a beer. We probably could have found ice cream too. That’s all just the same as Winthrop. Being that it was so warm, we did not feel like searching for the interesting neighborhoods or finding the cool trails or even exploring the waterfront. I think I’d like to visit again – maybe in June or September or maybe even in winter. Many people were enthusiastic about the skiing in the region.

Here are a few images from the day.

Accordions seem popular in BC
There’s no place like Hume. Or so they said.
Nice flowers in the pub at the Hume Hotel.
Ken made a new friend outside a hair salon.
And more art, this time at the coffee shop, Oso Negro, I think was its name.
Nice water feature at the coffee shop
On the patio at the coffee shop
Nice art in Nelson
Later I saw her at the coffee shop where we had lunch
I’d like a yellow one, please