Best Birthday Ever!

Leo goofing around with what's left of his birthday cake and his 7-0 candles

 Leo turned 70 last week so I arranged for a 4-day group camping trip to Mahood Lake in Wells Lake Provincial Park.  (We went there for the first time last September.) Not really, but his birthday coincided with the trip and it was great to share this significant milestone with our friends. And he got two birthday cakes out of the deal!

Five couples came together for the trip.  Although the access to the lake is via 100 Mile House, the park is actually in the Kamloops Region.  We'd had recent rains but the Kamloops area is still experiencing wildfires so there was a campfire ban in place.  A disappointment as it was cold at night.

Here's our trailer nestled into our campsite.

Note damp soil, no fire hazard here.

It looks deceptively roomy, we were actually quite squeezed into our small double site:

Sharing our site is Rick's very cute 15' Escape trailer made in Chilliwack

The first morning some went fishing and the rest of us decided to walk to Deception Falls.  The road to the trailhead was further than we thought so we turned around before we got there, but we enjoyed our walk anyway.  We residents of the dry interior are always wowed by the lush green vegetation of the interior wet belt.

We stopped at the Canim River Bridge to check out the views.

In the afternoon we paddled down Mahood Lake to Deception Point. What a fabulous afternoon.

The beach at Deception Point is loaded with perfect flat skipping stones.  

I just recently was listening to a piece on CBC where they discussed the science of skipping stones.  According to the expert, a skipping stone does not need to be flat, just very smooth.  Perfect opportunity to test out this theory!  I had no trouble skipping the flat ones, but the smooth round ones sunk like,well, a stone.

(This is the 2nd time the scientists of Quirks and Quarks have been proven wrong in my personal experience.  Not a bad record in 60 years, actually.  The other time the expert asserted that many children have freckles, but only redheads keep them into adulthood.  Hah, says this 63 year-old freckled former brunette!)

On our way back we paddled right up to these two birds.

Red-necked phalaropes!  I've only ever seen phalaropes once before in my life.

Phalaropes are oddball sandpipers that feed in the water not on the shore.  They spin around in the water stirring up their food.  Bird of the day!

One last photo of this gorgeous day: