Beautiful British Columbia

One week into Canada and my wallet has almost reached 29.92 inches of mercury, in Refrigeration talk that is a perfect vacuum. Schnikies! $8.00 for a beer, $13.00 for a hamburger, $7.00 for a pack of sliced cheese, $4.00 to do a load of wash not including the $2.50 for the dryer. The U.S. dollar has become weak and is now about 1 for 1 to Canadian. For you beer drinkers, a six pack in Banff was $11. I sound Jewish, I get it from my mother apparently. I take that back, she bought a very expensive tank of gas (5o gal. at $4.80 a gallon).

Despite the high prices, Canada is beautiful! We trucked out of the tourist havens of Jasper and Banff on to the nearby National Parks of Revelstoke and Glacier. These parks are neverending glacier capped granite peaks. The glaciel streams run all summer and get swifter with the heat of the day, most of the mid to late summer Canadian water comes from the glaciers, which are going to be gone in about 100 years or less. Scary! We camped right alongside one of these amazing streams in the Canadian Glacier National Park. The campsite was on the Illicillewaet River in the old growth forest. There were grizzly bear trail closings abound, but we took a short walk to The Meeting of the Waters (picture included) and along the old Canadian Railroad track. We took a short hike in Revelstoke to the top of the mountain where there was virtually a 360 degree panorama of Canadian Rockies. The next two days the four of us traveled through the valley country, which was full of farmland. Peaches, apples, honey, milk, cherries, corn and much more offered at dozens upon dozens of roadside fruit stands. We stopped in Penticton where we waited about an hour and fifteen minutes for our lunch, I guess the 6 patrons in the restaurant was more than they were used to. The stop in Penticton did afford us the chance to get a picture next to a HUGE peach. As we drove by I said "James and the Giant Peach!" my favorite kids story that my mommy read me. I miss my Mommy! Kim misses her too. She defends Kim to the hilt and keeps me in check. I believe one dialogue went as follows: I said to Kim "sometimes you can be such a dingbat!" Mom says to me "no she's not, she is sweet and you are lucky she puts up with you, you stupid #$%@!" That's my mother. Our friend Kata from Hungary said her mother would cuss her for five minutes straight and not use the same word twice, 'cause they had so many cuss words in Hungary. My mom was Hungarian in a former life. She is taming down, due to Grandmothering, but occasionally she can floor you. Kim doesn't particulary like cussing, but when my mom is directing it at me it is just fine.

We stayed outside of Vernon in an R.V. type campground overlooking Kalamalka Lake. The lake was crystal clear, which is the theme in B.C. Kim and I swam in the cool water and we all took hot showers in the morning. Free dump station too. We like dumping our sewage for free, I need to remember not to wear my sandals when dumping sheite, maybe none has ever got on my toesies, but I always feel like it does and worry about it for the next few hours. I am an anal geek in bluecollar bearded guy clothing. I almost got a good ol' Huber full moon on video camera and the timing would have been one for the record books, but alas Huber is a damn Grandpa and held back from the actual drawer droppage and just faked it as he climed into the upper bunk of the Lazy Daze. I have to hand it to the old farts, they loaded up into the bunk every night, didn't get up to pee and actually seemed like they enjoyed the cramped confines. It is nice to have parents that you can hang out with in a small r.v. for a week and actually regret sending them off to their airport hotel when it was over. We spent another night alongside a creek in Manning Park which is back into the mountains from the fertile Okanagan Valley. We cruised into Golden Ears Provincial Park the next day, so that we would be close to the Vancouver airport. We took a short hike to the Alloutte Lake then drove Mom and Bill to their hotel. Bill treated us to a very nice seafood dinner and we said our goodbyes. We went back to our lonely R.V. The next day I put up the souvenir coffee cup my mother had bought at a bakery near Lake Louise and I missed her already. I love you, you Moomy!

Kim allowed me to fish in the Alloutte Lake the next day. I didn't get my act together until 5:00, but I actually caught a nice trout and a couple of other weird fish. The bites were getting more frequent close to dark, so I pushed it right to dark. If you think the old growth B.C. forest is dark in the day, try finding your way back in the night with a l.e.d. flashlight that is operating on .002 volts of dead batteryage. I'm a big, tough, mountain man dude, but the dark woods doesn't give a shit about that. I made a few wrong turns and the panic was about to turn severe when I finally found an old rotted bridge that marked the trail to the campground. Trying to find your way around a 400 site Hobbit Village in the pitch black with nothing but campfire lights, trees and the odd laugh or two was a bit freaky too. When I finally made it back to the R.V. with my one pathetic trout and my headlamp putting out no more light than a ripe zit, kim was so full of genuine hugs of relief that I realized she really must love me.

We went towards Whistler the next day. Whistler is where the 2010 winter Olympics will be held. They are frantically trying to complete a huge road enlargement project, so the construction was continual for about 30 miles. We stayed at Alice Lake Provincial Campground, which was a smaller version of the Hobbit Woods of Golden Ears. It was nice, but the fishing sucked, so I voted for a move to the Porteau Cove campground that we had seen along the way. It was right on the ocean sound. We scored a primo spot on the beach there. The next day we went to Vancouver and rode our bikes around the town. It was a spectacular day of tourism. We went to the Grandville Island Market and around Stanley Park and to the treetop suspension bridges of Capilano Park. We had one of the best days I have to recommend a trip to Vancouver.

I have rambled and Kim is long asleep, so I will sign off and tell you about Vancouver Island in the morning.

Love to all, and yes, we kind of miss Arkansas and all of our buddies. Fall is a great time to be in the Ozarks suck it up cause those hardwood forests kick butt when it comes to color, these forests have size, but not the color.

Bye for now, James