Tuesday, July 27, 2010

It was 54 frickin degrees in the trailer when I got up this morning...burr! It had been so hot during the day that when the sun went down last night, we opened all the windows and left them open all night. It was another clear morning so we knew it would not be long before things would warm up...once that sun came over the mountain.

After breakfast, we packed up for our move over “to the other side”. We didn’t worry too much about securing things down inside since it was just a short jaunt...just had to make sure things were out of the way to get the sliders in. We made our way over to site 120 in the trees with no problems and got set up. What a beautiful spot...definitely has the “It” factor for us. This part of the campground is just like our provincial campgrounds...lots of trees, with much more space between you and your neighbour. There is one thing about the location of this campground...again, we picked one that is right beside railroad tracks! A very busy railway (with long trains that take 10 minutes to pass!) at that but at least the roar of the river behind us helps!

We had decided to take in the hot pools here today so we gathered our suits and towels (oh...and the shampoo, conditioner, etc to shower afterwards) and headed up there. We had to stop in at the office to get a new parking pass and pay an extra $13.41...the non-serviced sites were cheaper but we had only paid for 3 night before and now we were sure we were staying until Friday, making it 4 nights. The young fellow taking care of me at the counter mentioned that they had just gotten word that morning that there was a fire ban in place. I started laughing and explained to him what Steve had said last night ...”watch, we’ll finally get to a spot where we can have a campfire and there will probably be a fire ban put in place tomorrow!!!” Well, you called that one right, honey! Too funny! The fellow was quite apologetic (of course, it wasn’t his fault) and waived the extra $13.41 that we owed....hey, bonus!

We spent over an hour in the 2 pools they have...one is 104 degrees and the other 86 degrees...hardly refreshing! It was a pretty expensive swim at $8.50 each but you have to experience the hot springs since we were there. There really wasn’t anything special about them...no comparison to the hot springs in Banff. After showering, I met Steve out front sitting in the sun...yes, waiting for me. We were going to have an ice cream cone but after realizing the cost was $4.26 for one scoop, we declined... obviously we didn’t want ice cream that badly.

Well, you’ll never guess what we did that afternoon...we took an afternoon siesta! Yup, we laid back in our recliners and had a snooze! Guess we have time for that now that we are retired! Gotta like it! After our 1 ½ hour siesta, we thought we’d see if we could find the path down to the river that is right behind us...you can’t see it from our site but you can certainly hear it! We had no problem finding the path and we walked along the river’s edge a short distance down to the bridge where the trains cross the river. I wanted to get a picture of the train so Steve walked up to the tracks and put his hand on the rail and jokingly said “the train is a mile away” but after waiting there for a bit, we headed back. No sooner had we gotten back to our campsite, guess what we heard? Wow, you`re good, honey! ! LOL!

Back at our campsite, we sat outside enjoying our environment...it was really a nice spot and we are so glad that we switched sites. This is what we really enjoy! I must say, I never thought we’d find a spot like this that we could get our rig into!

After dinner, we went for another walk around the campground. Our “old” neighbours in the hook-up sites had asked Steve if he would mind popping by to take a look at the tire on their truck (yup, you’d better stop in Revelstoke and get new tires). This is a couple visiting from Germany...Otto and Astrid. When they had first arrived at their campsite, Otto had come right over and introduced himself. There are a lot of European tourists travelling through this area. Another very nice family—Paul, Bev and their son, Jack were from the UK currently living in Dubai where he was a military teacher. They had spent some time on a ranch in Canmore, Alberta and then rented a truck and 5th wheel to visit the BC coast. They were on their way back to the ranch and were flying home on the 29th. There was also another fellow from Holland that had stopped to admire the truck...his name was Rene...I think...doesn’t sound very Dutch to me, so maybe I have that wrong...a very nice fellow. It is really interesting talking about the differences between our countries.

I wanted to check my email, so with my ipod in hand, I made the long walk uphill to the office to get the password for the WiFi. The ipod is handy for checking email and generally having internet connection but I can’t do the posts to my blog so I will likely take my laptop up tomorrow.

When I got back to the trailer, Steve was just hooking up the laptop to the TV so we could watch a couple of programs. The mosquitoes and no-seeums were getting bad so he had retreated to the trailer. There was also a fairly brief thunder and lightning storm with a bit of rain....hopefully, it will be nice tomorrow for our hike.