What Else is New?

The end of an era.

Ever since Leo retired we have been meeting our friend Mark for coffee once a week at the Starbucks at our local Safeway.

Next week they are closing Safeway to turn it into a discount grocery.  There will no longer be a bakery, and the Starbucks closed for good on Friday, so I commemorated the occasion Thursday morning.

There's a new freestanding Starbucks down the street that took away most of the business but it's noisy and slow, and we appreciated the reduced lines at our local.  Now where will we go?

Then on Friday, Leo phoned me from downtown to tell me that our other hangout, the New World Cafe was on fire.

On a more cheerful note, we took advantage of a beautiful sunny day on Saturday for another trip down the Horsefly River.  I forgot to bring my camera so no pictures.  But we had a lovely afternoon despite the lack of documentation.

Usually we see scores of spawning sockeye at this time of year, but a blockage on the Fraser River has disrupted the spawning run.  Also, because of all the rain, the river was running as high as it was in late June so it would have been difficult to see them in the deep water.  We did see one live and several dead salmon on the banks.  Later we talked to people fishing and they said they'd seen quite a few go by.  So hopefully the run will recover.

It was really quite busy on the river.  There was a group of 12 taking a river rescue course at the put in and 2 couples camped and fishing at the takeout as well as as more fishermen on the river at the bridge in the town.

We stopped for dinner at the Soul Food Truck in downtown Horsefly and had falafel and a buffalo burger.  Excellent!

What's Blooming Late September

I bought this autumn flowering sedum at the farmers' market this spring.

This echinacea was newly planted this year as well and has only 2 blooms.

Note photo bomb by the Gartenzwerg Leo won at the final Kispiox Turkey Trot a few years ago.

The holly hock continues to bloom.

This dark red blanket flower continues to produce blossoms.

And this gisnt aster I planted last year is over 4-1/2 feet tall:

The volunteer sunflowers and poppies did well in my vegetable garden this year.

That bare spot in the middle is where my peas and beans should have been, but they were eaten up between the deer and the slugs!

This giant squash plant has pretty much taken over the back half of my vegetable garden.

But it's only managed to produce 2 very attractive squash.

The rest were devoured by the slugs!  Continuing on that theme, guess what caused these scars on this cucumber in our garden?

Slugs, of course!

I wish I could say these giant carrots came from my garden,

Foot included for size comparison.  Note the octopus-shaped carrot on the left.

But they were given to us by a Tim Hortons regular. Thanks Ken! He says he doesn't use any fertilizer!

Seniors' Games, Kelowna

55 to 69 year olds at the start of the 5000 meter race.

Another successful Seniors' Games, this year in Kelowna.

We camped at Bear Creek Provincial Park, one of our favourites, along with a pile of other Games participants.

Leo's friend and Rogaine partner, Bryan, camped with us.

There was a little excitement at the park one night.  Leo and I slept through it, but Bryan (in a tent) was woken by police and ambulance lights.  He was worried that someone had drowned as there were tugbouts in the log boom right next to the park in the morning.  A police officer came by to ask if we'd witnessed anything.  Another friend heard the cops yell "put down your gun" several times and then a shot.  Apparently they thought he had a weapon, shot him in the arm and he ran out onto the logboom before they rescued him and took him to the hospital. The officer who talked to us was likely an investigate that they call in anytime the police shoot someone.

Commuting  across the bridge from West Kelowna to the track on the other side of the lake proved to be quite a chore.  Even outside of rush hour the traffic on the bridge would often come to a standstill due to traffic lights further along on Harvey.  We'd come home from a hard day of competing (Leo) and spectating (Connie) for a shower and dinner and then decide it wasn't worth it to drive back into town for the games' evening entertainment.

On the other hand the weather was great, warm enough for comfortable camping and overcast enough during the day for competition.

Coming into the finish line for the 5000 m race.

There was more competition this year in the shorter races, so Leo didn't clean up as much this year as last but he still won gold in his specialties, the 5000 meters and the 10 km,

Coming into the 10 km finish line 

 despite a fellow from the Lower Mainland showing up just for the 10 km and making a race for it.

Gold and Silver in the 10 km

Final results:  2 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze.

Next year's games:  Richmond.

Fall migration

Immature cedar waxwing in honeysuckle 

We've had a crazy amount of birds passing through our yard these last few days, mostly feeding on our saskatoon, honeysuckle and cotoneaster bushes.

Waxwing in cotoneaster bush

Two days ago we had flocks of robins, cedar waxwings, and pine siskins passing through.  Along with them came yellow-rumped and orange-crowned warblers and ruby-crowned kinglets.  Northern flickers, a red-nap ed sapsucker and a hairy woodpecker  showed up.  Chipping sparrows and a few white-crowned sparrows. A creeper. Western tanager. The usual juncos , chickadees and a single house finch.  Some unwelcome rock pigeons. . Finally a single American goldfinch.

Caught in the act

Bird of the Day was this Anna's hummingbird, a first for our yard, which showed up after the rufous and calliope hummingbirds have left to go south.

Immature Anna's hummingbird at the feeder

Yesterday we had many of the same birds, as well as a drab female or immature lazuli bunting and a white-throated sparrow.

Return to Barkerville

It's ten years since Leo's brother Arthur passed away.  We used to go to Barkerville every year with him and our niece Monica and her family.  It's been 5 years since we last visited.

Monica invited us along for the Labour day weekend.  She made reservations in the campsite for us and we thought, What?  Who needs reservations to camp at Barkerville?

But things have changed in the last 5 years.  They now have electrical, and the campsite was packed!  They also built fancy cabins located at the park entrance.  These were filled by ATVers.  And the bed and breakfasts right in Barkerville all had no vacancies due to a wedding on site.

There's also some new exhibits in Barkerville.  Chinatown has been beefed up with more exhibits, including Chinese school (I think for Chinese tourists?).  We attended an excellent talk on the history of women's undergarments.

Also, Barkerville has WIFI

Some things haven't changed though.  Mrs. Wilson, who Arthur used to dance with at the end of the day, is still doing tours.

The Cornish wheel reenactment is the same as ever, complete with gription and leverite.

We still ate too much sourdough bread. We went for Chinese food at
Long Duck Tong.

We'll see what's new in 5 years time.

Trip to Victoria

View of Olympic Peninsula from Government House

We were home for a few days and then we off to Victoria to meet up with Leo's sister Cathy and her husband Rick who were out from Nova Scotia for Rick's work.

While Rick worked we took Cathy out to see the sights. We always seem to visit Ogden Point Breakwater.

It's been improved in recent years.  When we lived here there were no railings.

We saw a couple of otters playing in the kelp.

Then we drove along Dallas Road to Oak Bay.

Leo and Cathy check out the sealife

Leo and I stayed at my sister Dorothea's house. 

Dorothea's passion flower vine was blooming

The next day we went for tea at Government House.  This is also a new thing since we lived in Victoria 35 years ago.  It's run by volunteers,  very busy during the tourist season, and much cheaper than tea at the Empress (substantially less than $85-$125!).

A nice thing about tea in a public garden is fresh flowers at your table (and Dorothea's hat)

In the evening we drove out to Sooke Potholes for a picnic and a swim.  This is another place that's changed since I lived here.  It used to be private property and you had to hike in.  Now its a regional park with 3 (full) parking lots and a campground.

And the last day we took in the BC Aviation Museum at the airport.  I am not the least interested in airplanes, but I have now been to 3 aviation museums (Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa and the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley) and they were all really interesting.  

Rick and Cathy check out the Lancaster F104 being restored.

I believe this is a reconstruction of one of the early float planes designed and built in BC

Our volunteer guide was excellent and had lots of interesting stories about the planes.

From the museum Leo and I drove directly to the ferry and drove all the way home, arriving before midnight, because we were due for our next adventure.

Kootenay Lake

We had a great couple of days at our friend Kelly's family cabin.

There was paddling,

Swimming,

Rock jumping,

Beach clambering,

the discovery of some possible pictographs,

(Or maybe just iron stains?)

We even had a birthday piñata on the beach.

Piñata is bumblebee on top left

Leo, Margaret Ann and Lady the wonder dog brought back a big slab of rock Kelly found on the beach.

I spotted this Wood Frog hiding in a log:

About 1-1/2" long

We came down the steps to the cabin

And discovered this giant pinedrops plant.

All in all a lovely few days with good company, good food and good times.

Over the Gray Pass

The next morning we left our trailer at the provincial park and drove to Kootenay Lake where we'd been invited to stay with friends at their cabin north of Creston.

Unencumbered by our trailer, we decided to take the "shortcut" through the Gray Pass west of Kimberly rather than south through Creston.

Since we found this route through a 15 year-old Backroads Mapbook, we thought we should check in at the Kimberley tourist info to see about the road conditions.  She hadn't ever heard about it, but was able to confirm online via the Forest Service website that it was open. We were a bit worried when the only traffic going by was dirt bikes, but it turned out that though the road was rough and potholes it wasn't very treacherous ( and we did cross paths with several pickups later on.

Heading up the pass

Trusty Ram in the pass

Views from the top

When we got to the top of the pass someone was camped in the forest rec site with a trailer!  We certainly wouldn't have taken ours up there.

In the end it took as long to take the "shortcut" as the long way, but it was an adventure.

When we were almost all the way down we passed a truck and trailer stopped on the road with his hood up (probably overheated).  We suggested he probably didn't want to take his trailer up the pass.  We hope he found a place to turn around.

This road is part of the Trans Canada Trail so it's good we drove it since I wouldn't want to take a bike up those steep grades.

Mammal of the Day!

All through our vacation in the mountain parks, we were scanning the mountainsides for mountain goats but we never spotted any.

On our return trip though Kootenay National Park we spotted a flashing sign on the road warning of mountain goats.  Hah, we scoffed, Fat chance.  Then we rounded the corner and saw a woman parked on the roadside and wielding a camera with a very large scope.  I looked up to the bank on my right and there they were.

You didn't need a giant scope!

There were 5 or 6 goats and two little oned.

This one was tucked in behind a clay bank.