July 6th 2016 - Larchwood Recreation Site

July 4th - Larchwood Lake Recreation Site

Monday, Hurray!!!! We are here at Larchwood Lake and we managed to scoop the site we wanted after checking out this spot last week. Right on the lake where you can see the fish rise and Ray can easily launch his boat. Another group came in looking for a spot 15 minutes after we pulled the coach in, so we were lucky as there are only 2 spots on the water that fit us. The lake is fairly small but a glorious green colour and very clear. We've even seen fish and turtles swim by the beach as the water is so clear. There are only 22 sites total here, one being used by the site operator. Although totally full on the long-weekend, there are only 5 other groups besides us here right now, so pretty quiet.

When we arrived, someone left a fish head on our beach from the weekend. Paul, the site operator removed it for me. I do not want bears to visit or Freya to roll in it!

We just got set up and erected the first up tent over the picnic table, as we noticed some black clouds rolling in.  We spread out all of the fishing/boating stuff on the table and we didn't want it all to get wet. Sure enough the rain began and continued off and on for the rest of the day so I baked a batch of bread while we were stuck inside. Yummm.

Yup it is raining!

Tuesday morning, after a restful sleep, we were up at about 6:30 am. Generator hours are from 9 am to 7 pm so at 9 am I got busy making fresh scones for breakfast, taking one to the site operator Paul to keep in his good books! He said as long as it is not too busy we can stay more than the 14 days. I must admit I'm liking the cooler weather for a change so I can do some of the baking without getting cooked out of the coach.  Ray spent the better part of the morning putting together his new pontoon boat, getting ready for it's inaugural run. It sprinkled on and off all day, but was quite warm, so I'm able to have a campfire and sit under the first up shelter reading all afternoon. (being available to lift this .... move that for Ray assembling his boat) Ray's pretty much done in just putting the boat together, so he'll wait until tomorrow to launch. He sure is getting excited about fishing again, especially when we see the fish rise and jump. This apparently is a trophy lake and they release 1500 fish every year here and you can only keep one fish over 20". Another great day doing what we love to do.

The new pontoon boat sure looks small next to the motorhome!

Wednesday morning after coffee and breakfast, we got the boat down to the water and I carried the battery down and lifted it into the boat so he could install it. After that, he began setting up all of his fishing gear, rods etc. and noticed his tackle box with his "tippets" etc. was missing. I guess Kristi missed giving that back to us by mistake, so Ray went back into Cranbrook (only 40 min away) to get some stuff in preparation for fishing tomorrow. I spent the morning putting out my solar lights and hummingbird feeders. They've not seen the light of day since Quartszite! The weather today is a little breezy but fairly warm. We'll take it. Tomorrow the forecast is pretty good, but we'll be into the rain by the weekend they say. Fingers crossed it will miss our little valley.

July 4th - 2016 - Road trip to Fernie

July 3rd - Fernie

Our last day here at Fort Steele RV Resort, and Ray's back is better after resting it, so we decided to take the 1 hours drive to Fernie. Ray wanted to take some pictures of the "Rocky Mountains" and today the weather is in our favour. 

For our anniversary, I wanted to take the chairlift to the top of the mountain, so we did. The ticket price included lunch either at the Lost Boys Cafe at top or down below at Kelsey's Pub and Grill. You know what we chose! We decided to do the chairlift first as the forecast is for thundershowers later this afternoon. It's a sunny and a balmy 24 degrees at the bottom of the lift. When we got to the top the winds increased to about 30 km and the clouds started to roll in and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. They'd even shutdown the lift the day before for awhile due to a thunderstorm. Yikes we were not dressed for that! so ... we did not stay very long just took some pictures and came back down the lift. They had a big mountain bike race earlier in the morning, so all of the trails were very busy and not very safe for the hikers apparently.

Here we go.

Views from the chairlift.

Chairlift views. Look at all of the flowers.

From the top, looking down at the Elk Valley

Big White

Elk Valley and Mt. Hosmer

Fernie Alpine Resort

The meal was included in the lift ticket but the beer was not. :)

View from the patio

Next it's off to explore the town of Fernie. It sure is a quaint little town. Lots of outdoor patios with pails of water everywhere for the pooches. They even have a large off-leash dog park along the river, so a very dog friendly place.  We've found everywhere in the Kootenays' people are so friendly even for BC standards.

We stopped at the Visitor's Center to check it out first. They have this oil derrick on display.

The Visitor's Centre also has a sani-dump for $2 and potable water with fairly easy access.

Next it was off to the historic downtown.

While not quite "historic" we checked this place out but unfortunately it's closed on Sunday.

Mountain biking is huge here in Fernie with the trails up the mountain accessed by the chairlift for the months of July and August. Here downtown they were having an event for the kids.

This little girl apparently was the winner, just not this run.

Managed to catch the train coming through town.

1912 Catholic Church still open for parishioners. 

Courthouse still operating. Circa 1908.  Only Edwardian chateau style courthouse in BC.

This used to be the Crowsnest Coal Company circa 1905 now houses the Brickhouse Pub.

Here are some more views from town.

The alpine flowers are gorgeous.

 View of the Three Sisters (L), Mt. Hosmer (R) and the Elk River.

Tomorrow we are moving to Larchwood Lake Recreation Site, a short 1/2 drive from our current location to get in some fishing for Ray finally. The price is right $14/night, but with Ray's disability card we only pay $7/night. That will certainly help our camping budget for the month as we did not expect to pay $40 per night or more.

July 2nd 2016 - Marysville and Happy Anniversary to us! 39 glorious years.

July 1st - Lake Kookanoosa

We decided to drive to several forest service sites along Lake Kookanoosa, towards Fernie, which is supposed to be our next destination. All of them were a bust for our size or too many trees so our solar wouldn't work, including Englishman Creek Rec Site and Gold Bay Rec Site. Most sites were too far from the water as well for Ray to launch his pontoon boat to fish. Bummer. I decided to stop and check out Kikoman Creek Provincial Park to see the site I booked on line and had to cancel due to the breakdown. It would have been acceptable although getting down to the lake was fairly steep so no floaty boat here either. We spent several hours checking all of this out and were glad we did as we had to come up with a plan B, especially as this is the long weekend and "there is no room at the inn!" in most cases. We were supposed to spend a month in this area. The day was really tough on Ray, so he couched for the rest of the afternoon and night. Glad we went and saw, instead of just showing up! Did not even take a picture!

July 2nd - Marysville Falls

We started our morning with Carolans and coffee ... yummm. Next, I made Ray's favorite breakfast, french toast and bacon. Ray's pretty sore from our activities over the past few days, so we took it easy until noon. Then he started feeling house bound, which brings a headache, from not walking outside. So we decided to take the short drive to Marysville from the Cranbrook side and walked the short 1/2 km boardwalk along the stream to Marysville's 30' falls. Spectacular. We even found two ladies painting the falls.

One of the ladies painting along the river's edge.

Horseshoe Lake Recreation Site

Tried to make Ray stay put today as he was pretty sore but it was so hot out, even in the coach since we had to move to a 30 amp site for the weekend and meant only 1 air conditioner. For us and the dog to stay cool for awhile off we went 10 km up the road to check out Horseshoe Lake Recreation Site. What a lovely lake. The road goes all the way around and there were several spots that we could fit in. They also had a meadow with tons of people camping in it. The place was packed for a long weekend. A lovely short drive and a great hour spent. Definitely something to keep on our list for another time. It is supposed to be a good fishing lake, the only drawback is no motorized boats.

Getting Freya Wet.

June 30th 2016 - Fort Steele Historic Park

June 30th - Fort Steele

We packed up again this morning and the coach is back into the shop by 9:30 am. As it's going to be a few hours, we decided to tour Fort Steele Historic Park as Freya's allowed to come and it is hot out again. It took us 2 hours to tour the town .... more than we wanted, but we sucked it up and kept on going as we had no home to go back to. Ray is really going to pay for this now and have to take one of "Alice's little blue pills" to survive this many days out of our routine.  Fortunately we finished walking around the place as the clouds opened up just as we reached the car. We may go back and do just the steam train, a 20 minute ride around the place in the next couple of days.

Hi Ya Freya!

Clyde and Dale were pretty curious about the dog too.

Fort Steele offers wagon rides as well as steam train rides here ... all at a cost of course. The steam train is out of service today and we could not take Freya on the wagon.

Even the employees were trying to stay in the shade.

Dr Hugh Watts in the background

Kootenay River

We checked on the coach at about 12:30 and they were "waiting for the okay from the Extended Warranty people and BCAA for the tow damage. It turned out that not only did the idiot that towed us wreck the exhaust pipe for the generator and bend the steel angle iron holding up the generator he also cracked the lower fiberglass cap with his impatience of unhooking the coach from his apparatus which we witnessed. Anyways BCAA paid the portion of our bill to fix the exhaust pipe and angle iron to the tune of $700. We still do not know about the cracked fiberglass and would not get it fixed until September. The extended warranty company is still fighting with Freightliner about not wanting to pay the whole bill less our deductible. They're trying to say we should've ordered used parts. Horse Shi....... Freightliner people are awesome and I would recommend the guys in Cranbrook to anyone needing Cummins Diesel Care. Anyways, they let us leave today and we are back at Fort Steel Resort for the night. I managed to be able to book for three more days but in a 30 amp site as it is the long-weekend and we do not know which direction we are going in yet.

Ray's mom seems stable at home. Ray is couched here for now and other than moving to our new spot tomorrow we are not going anywhere. Later this weekend we may drive to Kimberley and see the mine museum and train ride. We shall see.

Pics of the pasture backing up to the RV Park

Here is a picture of where we take Freya for a swim and throw the chuck it for her, a two minute drive from the campsite.

Wildhorse River