June 1st

We started this morning in wet drizzly weather much the same as we had left. As we headed north it felt like we went around a corner and entered a completely different environment. Suddenly the fir shifted to pines and sage brush popped up from the ground. The clouds thinned out and the sun began to shine.

We drove for about an hour to Yale and stopped to visit a museum that I had found advertised on the internet. We went off the main road and followed signs to a bus parking lot. We turned into the lot and then discovered that it was too small to turn around in. We had to disconnect the car so that we could turn the motor home around, and then reconnect the car. We weren’t disturbed because we were going to see a great museum. It was closed.

After Yale, the road enters the Frazier River Canyon. The canyon is very steep and gorgeous. The sides of the canyon are so steep that it required 7 tunnels to make the highway through the canyon. The few towns consisted of a splattering of houses and sometimes a bar. As we drove, it got sunnier and sunnier. When we got to Cache Creek, we learned that we were in the Arizona of Canada (it is actually advertised that way). We stopped and bought fishing licenses and a couple of flies recommended by the proprietor. He also recommended that we go to Downing Provincial Park on Kelly Lake. So we drove another 25 miles north and then turned on a narrow road to go 11 miles to the park. We got there and the lake was beautiful, but the park was closed. Further down the road we stopped at a fishing access spot to see if there was room to camp. A gentleman there, who was cooking a fish he just caught, told us to continue on the road and we would come to another lake which is good for fly fishing and has a little campground. The road narrowed and got a little treacherous, and we continued until we came to a beautiful little lake. There are primitive campsites in the trees on a meadow and no one else is here. Ironically, there are train tracks that go right past the lake. It seems contradictory to get out in the wilderness, and then have trains go by. And one did. You could hear it coming for miles. We put our chairs in the sun and read and ate homemade chocolate chip cookies from Eileen, explored and relaxed(only because our licenses are for tomorrow). I found one grave, with a picket fence around it from 1990. I don’t know what one must do to be buried in a provincial park. Mike put the boat together and plans on getting up early to fish. I will join him when I wake up. I have no idea what the name of this lake is, but we are in heaven.