Saturday, June 25 to Friday, July 1, 2016 (Tunkwa Lake Campground, Tunkwa Provincial Park, Logan Lake, Bc)

Saturday morning started off clear and sunny but as usual, clouds soon started rolling in. The forecast is for temperatures to reach into the 30's C (high 80's F) by early next week...well, that's for Logan Lake but since we are 15 kms north and at a higher elevation, we figure that should translate into the high 20's for us.

Today, we got back to our usual routine...Steve headed out fishing in the morning and Tucker and I went for a long walk. After that, I crocheted while Steve read his book.
Nice fish!

Late afternoon, we put our chairs in the truck, packed some bevies in the cooler bag and headed over to have happy hour with Ron and Bel and the ATV group at North Leighton. 

They are leaving tomorrow and we wanted to say goodbye and thank them so much for including us in their rides. We had a great couple of hours chatting and enjoying fresh trout cooked on the campfire...thanks Steve (and Mary)! New friends and relationships have been forged...we look forward to our paths crossing again in the future!

Steve decided to get out on the lake again Sunday morning for some fishing. After he left, I walked down to get Tucker and we headed out on a hike on the trails. Today, I thought we'd take the trail to Leighton Lake...going the opposite direction. As we walked through the campground and crossed the bridge over the falls, I saw the trail to the Bluff and decided to go up there. We're relaxing at the bench and enjoying the view from the Bluff...
Back down to the junction of trails, I wasn't ready to go back yet, so we continued around Leighton Lake...we're almost to North Leighton Campground...
We walked through North Leighton Campground and the trail to Leighton Lake Campground...now it's time for a water break...
Monday morning, Steve and Doug went out fishing. Unfortunately, it was a bust...no fish today!
While they were gone, I took Tucker out for a walk on the trails again...leaving Sue as the only one working this morning...poor Sue! But just to set the record straight, Doug had worked a couple of hours 'weed-whacking' before they went out fishing.

Tucker enjoyed a swim in Leighton Lake...
We had one heck of a thunder and lightning storm late in the afternoon. There was actually a double Rainbow at one point...
Tuesday morning we woke to clear blue sky...as usual, though, some big fluffy clouds moved in but nothing ominous...no rain and warm temps!

No fishing for Steve this morning...instead we headed out on a bike ride over to Leighton Lake, riding around both campgrounds. Great selfie, Steve!

We were sitting outside in the shade reading when Steve decided he was going to fix the string on the balls to the "red-neck golf" (Ladder Ball game)... something he has been meaning to do for some time. Of course, after they were all fixed, he set the game up and we had a few games. I won the first game....then lost to him the next two...

Wednesday morning Steve was back out on the water for a fish. He had a beautiful morning on the water but no luck today. It was a gorgeous morning...the water was like a mirror, something that doesn't happen often as it's usually fairly breezy. 
As usual, Tucker and I were out walking the trails again.
We were relaxing in the shade that afternoon when Doug and Sue stopped by...there was a forest fire north of Leighton Lake on the hillside. It started out fairly small...
 But didn't take long to grow...

About an hour later a spotter plane arrived to survey the fire...








It was almost 2 hours before the bird dog plane arrived to lead in the water bombers from Conair Aerial Firefighting....
The Convair came in first, then the Avro Jet, then finally four of the Air Tractors....





Avro RJ AT85...


Convair CV580....
Air Tractor AT802 Amphibious...
Once most of the fire was knocked down, the 4 Air Tractors kept on it while the larger bombers left...

They picked up water from Tunkwa Lake probably 20 times...






While the Air Tractors were picking up water, the helicopter would appear to do his part...
Well that sure provided hours of entertainment for us...especially Steve, a former pilot who loves anything to do with aircraft. He managed to edit his 173 pictures down to 34 :-)

Thursday morning Steve decided not to go out fishing. We had a "bacon, eggs and pancake" breakfast and then I headed out to get Tucker for our walk, leaving Steve about to hop in the shower. Tucker and I walked the trail to Leighton Lake, around both campgrounds and back.

We had a very relaxing afternoon...I sat outside reading and Steve spent most of it on the laptop working on the GPS tracks that he had downloaded onto BaseCamp. Next thing we knew, it was after 4:00...wow, the days are just flying by!

We had our happy hour outside watching all the long weekend campers arriving....always entertaining watching the rigs try to level off in some of the group sites.

Friday, July 1....HAPPY CANADA DAY!
We woke to cloudy a sky...and eventually some rain...we can just hear all the campers complaining! 

After breakfast, I walked up to Doug and Sue's to quickly use their internet to "ping" our satellite receivers...we were unable to get any stations on the receiver in the bedroom last night. Sheesh!

I tried taking Tucker for a bit of a walk but, of course, it started raining harder, so we turned around. 

Shortly after 11:00, we headed into Logan Lake. We filled up the water containers, then a propane tank...and then it was time to go to the pub and get caught up on-line! I worked on this blog update while Steve was on the iPad finding out what has been happening "in the outside world"....and that brings us up-to-date once again!




6 comments:

  1. Nice fish Steve. Too bad you do not like to eat them. :)

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    1. Thanks, Deb! Steve has had a great time fishing Tunkwa! He hasn't kept any of his own catches but one of the park volunteers smokes his own trout and gave us some...it was excellent!

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  2. Wow, that is an exciting week! Nice fish Steve and the firefighting would have been cool to see.

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    1. Yes, we had a birds-eye view...especially when they filled up with water on the lake! Very cool!

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  3. Hi from Logan Lake, thanks so much for the pictures of the airplanes, I heard that they did a fabulous job on the fire and would have loved to have seen the action. So it's nice to be able to see pictures of how talented these pilots are and how indebted to them we are for putting out the fires. I enjoy your blog and if I see a woman in a pub or café in town, furiously typing on a computer, I'll definitely introduce myself and let you know I much I enjoy your blog and your friend/caretakers blog from Tunkwa Lake.
    Have a good week until the next posting.

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    1. Thanks for tagging along, Marie. It's such a beautiful area, we have really enjoyed our stay!

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