Camping at Green Lake

 

Leo and I camped at Green Lake Provincial Park for 3 days in July.  There are no non-reservable sites in any of the three campgrounds.  When I tried to make a reservation I found that you had to make the reservation at least 2 days ahead so I could not make a reservation for our first day.  So I reserved the other 2 days and we drove down early on Day 1 assuming that site would be free.  It worked out to be the case, but the park reservation system is nuts.  Half the park was empty, many of the previously reserved sites were never occupied.  If you just drop in you can stay in your site for one or 2 days only because someone might make a reservation while you are there.  Anyway. Rant over.

We didn't bring a boat because Leo is recovering from carpal tunnel surgery so we didn't get out on the lake.  We spent a good deal of time sitting in our campsite reading and watching birds.

For instance this dusky flycatcher who entertained us all 3 days:

There's a nice trail that follows the lake to the edge of the park

and then onto a network of snowmobile trails that lead to a small lake

in a meadow full of wildflowers.

Bedstead, brown-eyed Susan's and timber vetch

We discovered these large, attractive, white thistles that we assumed to be a European import, but turn out to be Hooker's thistle, native to western North America. 

 We later saw some at Big Bar Lake so the South Chilcotin must be the limit of their range; we've never seen them in our neck of the woods.

In the afternoon we went for a swim in the lake, then a long walk.  On the way back I felt a trickle down my back, discovered it was, gasp,

Blood!  Then I pulled this out from under my shirt:

What is it?  Approximately life size.

A leech had been on me for 3 hours!  I didn't feel a thing.   Of course it had to be duly documented for the blog.

I did force myself to go for another swim the next morning and emerged leach free.

Happy Anniversary, Baby

 We celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary on July 7.  We've been married so long we invited our friends to go for lunch at the Chilcotin Lodge in Riske Creek because we thought it would be more fun than just boring old us on our own.

Nice views from the patio

The burgers were good and the cinnamon buns are excellent. Quite a few other groups thought it was a good summer day trip so it's nice to see the lodge getting good business.

Our waiter was kind enough to take a picture of all of us.

At the Williams Lake Stampede

Photo thanks to Rhea Clements

 The Williams Lake Stampede was canceled for the Covid years so everyone was excited to be back and attendance at all the events was out of this world.  

On Canada Day Leo and his group played at the public market and the Community Band gave a concert in Boitanio Park  later in the day.

In honor of the return of the Stampede, Rocco Catalano, our euphonium player arranged the Williams Lake Stampede song by Alan Moberg for the band.

There's a recording of it on Facebook.  It's a little raggedy! We're suffering a bit from our Covid layoff. We'll do it better next year. 

On Saturday we played in the Stampede parade.  There was a great turnout and it didn't even rain.

From Facebook

You may have heard what happened Sunday at the Stampede Grounds.  That put quite a damper on our community's big weekend.

Immediately after the shooting, a big windstorm swept through.  Our friends were downtown (not at the rodeo grounds) and came home to find their big cottonwood had fallen on their house.

Fortunately, no one was home but there is quite a lot of damage.  They had already made an appointment with a tree faller to assess the tree for the very next day.  So he came and removed the debris instead.

And that was our Stampede weekend.

 

Bluebird boxes

 We acquired a bluebird box route again this year, but between the terrible weather and  Leo's busy schedule this spring we didn't make it out till the end of June.

Unfortunately by then Leo had forgotten how to get to the route and we drove out to the Meldrum Creek road the instructions he'd written down didn't make any sense.

Still it was a nice drive even in glowering weather, covering much of the same ground we traveled on our Farwell Canyon trip.

The Chilcotin meadows are lush and green this year due all the rain with lots of wildflowers.

I see timber milk-vetch, death camas and heuchera in this shot.

An arnica?

Very pretty member of the pea family

Death camus

Old man's whiskers

Blue-eyed grass

A white cinquefoil

A yellow cinquefoil

We checked a bunch of nest boxes but none of them turned out to be on our route.  

There were more swallows around than bluebirds.  Both species are thought to have been hard hit by the heat dome we had last year at this time. 

How many birdies in the nest?

Not bluebirds but tree swallows

The next week, armed with the map coordinates, we went out again and found our actual route.

Again the wildflowers put on a great display!

Don't know this one

Brown-eyed Susan

Paintbrush

Geranium 

Larkspur

Is this a penstemon?

Animals were seen too.

A pretty butterfly

A savannah sparrow with a grasshopper in its beak

Here's our second line at Copeland Flats.

Photo doesn't show the rambunctious bull bellowing just down the road (on our side of the fence)

Day Trip to Farwell Canyon

Our friends Ken and Sue stopped by on their way home from Haida Gwai and we made a day trip out to Farwell Canyon together.

On our way in we got a great view of a cinnamon bear walking through the woods (but no good photos).

Leo and Ken hiked up to the sand dunes

But first they had to go down to cross a gully

And Sue and I drove down to the homestead on the Chilcotin River.

See those two black spots perched on the dune?

They made it!

Afterwards we drove back down to the bridge to check out the view.

The water was roiling.

Next we visited the nearby pictographs.

 What a beautiful spot!

As we drove up out of the canyon we spotted the cinnamon bear again and then this big mama bear

And her yearling cub (?).  

We took the Meldrum Creek road backand checked out the Till Lake recreation site for possible future low gas consumption camping. Maybe not (The road in was muddy and rutted due to active logging in rainy conditions).

We spotted a large red-legged frog hanging out near the shore.

We crossed the Fraser River on Rudy Johnson Bridge and drove home on the Soda Creek Road past the fire that forced the evacuation of Williams Lake in 2017.

What's going on?

 Had a big thunder/hailstorm last week:

Hail collected on the canopy of our trailer.  We'd put it out to dry off.  Oops!

And on our patio furniture.  

Our flowers and vegetables got shredded.  Streets were flooded with water gushing out of manholes.

Iwn between showers, we went for a walk one evening at Scout Island.

 

I like the effect of these photos taken as the sun was coming out of a cloud.