My last trip post

I really had a wonderful time in British Columbia. Now all I have to do is visit Newfoundland and Labrador and the three territories and I will have been in all the different parts of this wonderful country.

The plane landed in Kamloops and it was a three and a half hour drive to where my daughter lives. That was after we had lunch and did some big-box store shopping.

Kamloops is kind of a hilly place. The altitude kept changing too as we drove along. My ears kept popping.

This is a dark rain cloud that we managed to avoid. I tend to take pictures from moving vehicles so my apologies if it's blurry.

These are just some of the wonderful flowers my daughter has in her yard.

Gorgeous
Daylilies
in several colours.

This is just part of the garden where we picked fresh...

sweet, garden
peas and
raspberries and ...

fresh salad with edible flowers.

There were lots of birds and animals to see on my trip too. One day this little hummingbird managed to get into the sun porch and kept trying to get out. I thought the poor thing was getting stressed out beating against the window but my son-in-law came to the rescue.

I opened the window while my son-in-law caught the little guy and set him free.

There were some of these birds too. They are young laying hens who will begin producing in September.

This young buck came to visit a couple of times.

Here he is right under the window but he never looked up long enough for me to get a photo of his face.

I did manage to see a bald eagle on three different occasions but by the time I took the camera out, it would be gone or out of range. On my second day, my daughter and I were driving down the road and a baby black bear ran across the road. I'm glad we didn't see mama bear and that we were in a car.

Click on these photos and it will give you an idea as to what the roads were like. Gravel, with a lot of twists and turns - some of them hairpin turns and ...

switchbacks where you share the roads with...

logging trucks. It gets mighty scary when you're not prepared and you start on one of those turns only to find a logging truck sharing the road, coming at you, and there is a sheer drop off your side of the road. My daughter was a wonderful driver and those truckers were all used to it. This road was on the way to Farwell Canyon and the day we went, it was hot, about 30+ C.

Whenever possible, I try to get in a tour of the mine. Here's my daughter in front of the building that houses the offices.

This is inside the mill where...

a lot of this takes place. The rock is crushed and washed and crushed again.

Here I am decked out in all the safety gear - hard hat, rubber booties on top of my running shoes, bright vest, safety goggles and of course, the ear plugs. I didn't know if it was going to be cool or warm so I wore my fleece. It turned out to be quite warm inside.

After the tour of the mill, we went down to the pit. Here's an overall shot. The next photo will be taken beside that piece of machinery you see at the bottom of the pit (middle of the photo.) The green to the right is a lake. You run into the water table at times when you dig and the green colour is caused by the minerals in the rock.

Here's the machine that does a lot of work. It scoops up the rock that has been blasted and deposits the rock in the back of another vehicle (a big dump truck) which then brings it up to be put on a conveyor belt to be crushed and washed in the mill.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the massive scoop.

The operator has to climb two ladders or staircases in order to get to work in the cab. It is a specialized job that pays well but is boring. Eight hour shifts moving rock.

And here's a shot of the dump truck. Massive tires. The mine recycles the tires by utilizing them in the walls of the road.

Here's a shot of the dump truck in action. 24/7 the trucks move the material from down in the pit, up to get dumped and processed and then they go back and do it again.

And now for something prettier and more peaceful.

Horses on a hill. I love the zoom on my little Canon Elph.

This gives new meaning to "living on the edge." There were a lot of these houses that seemed to exist beside steep cliffs.

Prickly Pear Cactus in British Columbia. I don't know how it survives through the winter.

Beauty found on a rocky beach.

The blond bovines. I love their colouring.

Laila sitting on a log bench that her husband designed and built. This one is in the garden and there is another one beside the creek.

And this last shot of me looking down at my daughter's house from up top on the mountain. That is the Fraser River.

It was a wonderful vacation and my daughter geared it to my likes. I didn't show you the art gallery since there was only portrait photographs on display and I didn't show you the museum since you weren't allowed to take photos inside. My days were filled but in a relaxing way. Weeding, washing dishes, washing the floor and emptying out two hot houses of pots so they could all be hosed down took up some of my time too as did visiting with her neighbours. I'm just glad the weather was great - sunny and warm without being too hot.

 Thank you Laila and Gilles.

My Visit to Barkerville

Just before heading in to Barkerville, we visited Wells. It's quite the artsy town. We only went in to one gallery since time was of the essence and, being the nosy curious person that I am, I asked the artist how long she had been there. You see, Wells is small place and quite off the beaten track. She said that she had lived there for four years. I then asked her where she was from originally. Turns out that she was from Malaysia, had lived in 5 different cities in 5 different countries. She and her partner/ husband/ significant other came to Wells on February 14th, fell in love with the place (in the snow) and decided to stay. Weird is what I thought. Well, actually, I wondered what they were running away from.

I like murals and this was in Wells. Actually quite a few of the buildings are painted in wonderful bright colours. I bought a postcard showing the buildings and therefore have no pictures of them to show you.

This old truck made the brochure on Wells. It's on the road to Barkerville. I have mentioned that I like old vehicles.

Speaking of vehicles, this old buggy was at the entrance to Barkerville.

And so was this little ground squirrel.

Here I am with my son-in-law just entering the historic town of Barkerville. These sites give a much better history on the old gold mining town than I can give you:

http://www.barkerville.ca/history.htm

http://www.wellsbc.com/History1/barkerville.htm

http://www.cariboogoldrush.com/barker/index.htm

Since both my daughter and her husband work in the mining industry, we had to go and see the interpretive show that was being put on for the visitors. The Cornish Waterwheel is the power source that moved the water and gold out of the deep diggings and was used in the area right into the 20th century. This guy played the owner of the mine who was looking for financing.

This old guy gave some comic relief to the telling of the story of how the gold gets taken out of the ground.

He was quite an agile old coot and would climb up the Cornish Waterwheel quite nimbly.

Not all of the interiors of the buildings were accessible but here's the inside one of the old buildings. Note the utility quilt. 

Another bedroom. I had to have a picture of the quilt.

And one of the library.

This photo, of course, is my blog header. Of the 130 buildings on the site, 100 are originals. The building on the right can be seen here in a BC archival photo. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page.)

The sidewalks are raised, as are the buildings because in the spring, the river overflows and floods the streets. It leaves a lot of silt and rocks behind and therefore, the buildings were always being jacked up. One of the street interpreters said that archeologists wanted to see if they could find the original footings. The theatre's original footings were 18 feet below the ground level at present.

I loved the similarities of these two houses.

Now we get into the artsy sepia tones.

Day two started out with a general tour with Shorty, our guide, and one of the street interpreters in period costume.

At one time, half the population was Chinese and the town was segregated. On our first night visiting Barkerville we ate at a Chinese restaurant that was still in operation. The Chinese area was down the street and there was a sort of crude archway as the boundary.

Another street interpreter.

Some of the businesses that they would have had "back in the day."

With mining comes the assay office. This office serviced many areas.

This was a great stagecoach and I wish I could have had a ride in it. I guess I will just have to go back again.

And here's where we stayed. I did mention that we camped overnight and saw Barkerville in two days didn't I? It was rustic and the evening was cool/cold but I was well dressed in fleece. I preferred it to Toronto's hot, humid muggy temperatures.

Actually, here's our campsite. Keeping both tents dry is the big tarp. There was rain at night but I didn't hear it. We had to wait until the rain stopped to set everything up. I think the last time I had camped was with Laila on our 2004 road trip. I love it because I don't cook outdoors. Not even coffee - but I do the dishes.