Treated like royalty

Day 41

The perfect campsite allows for a perfect day of relaxation and rejuvenation. Thanks to the biodegradable power of Dr. Brauner’s we start our day off with a bath in the lake. Sure, we had to step over a bunch of frogs, and sure there was a bunch of green floaty algae, and sure there were leeches, but we still came out cleaner than we started. I guess since we didn’t shower once in the four days in Vancouver we couldn’t have gotten worse.

We open up the van (something that comes back to haunt me later), and enjoy the warm day playing cribbage, reading, napping, looking at rainbow trout swim up stream while an osprey watches, taking a bike ride along the lakes, walking around our campsite naked, and eating (in order) eggs with tortillas and avocado, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, veggie sandwiches with cheese and pesto and spicy mustard, chips and salsa, grapes and strawberries, and for dinner, salmon cakes with salad and corn on the cob. Essentially, all the groceries that we bought for the next few days disappeared rather quickly and deliciously.

We rode our bikes in the evening, and it felt like a storm was brewing - like in the east coast during those hot, humid summer days. But the rain never came. We went to bed full and happy.

**Note: I bet you’re wondering what haunted me. Answer: Mosquitos. I killed probably about a dozen that had managed to get inside the van while we had the door open for a couple of hours. After one day of camping I got 13 itchy bites. The only good part was smashing their guts. Except for this one mosquito who had apparently already eaten some of my delicious blood because when I killed her it leaked blood onto the carpet. Gross.

Day 42

We leave our little paradise nook and start driving east. We take Hwy 97 to Vernon, where we stopped to have a little lunch (at 4:30), and a swim in their Okanogan Lake. It wasn’t the hottest of days, but I swam like the dickens. It felt good to actually swim in nice clean water, instead of wade clumsily in green, murky, leech infested waters. Sure, I didn’t come out any cleaner, but no dirtier. Probably. Note: lunch was tuna sandwiches with chips and salsa and a ginger brew.

Then we continued our day the way it started: driving. And we were heading toward another little free camping site, only this time we didn’t have such good directions. The last step of the directions said “turn right on Summer Lake Rd.” So we did. Summer Lake Rd., as it turns out, is 46km long (like 26ish miles for the Americans out there). And since it is a free site, there are no markings. So we drive down for about 10 minutes and come up empty handed. So we decide that our best bet is to turn around and just start driving down some of the unmarked dirt driveways that we had passed. At no point did I think driving down strange dirt roads was dangerous or poor planning. And I was right! No danger at all. Our first unmarked dirt road led us to campsites! We drove to a little spot in a green field and parked. Then I saw that the road kept going. So we walked down a road littered with potholes, huge dips, mud, rocks jutting up from the earth in an effort to puncture tires, and huge puddles. On the other side: riverfront property. Correction: our riverfront property. Although Micah was hesitant (wisely pointing out that my AAA doesn’t work in Canada), I knew that we needed to camp right along the river. So we got the van, and burled through the messy road. Micah even made a video of it.

Now, here I am, sitting at a picnic table, Micah to my right, my van to the left, and the river and tree covered hill right in front of us. And there’s nothing else around. And it’s a beautiful evening.

Day 43

Today was a different sort of day. I made 2 discoveries on this day, both of which changed the course of our adventure.

Before I get to the first discovery, I must explain a stupid thing. That stupid thing is a highway that ends at a lake. The lake is not large. A Great Lake this is not. However, it’s big enough that the people of the county decided that it would be a good use of time and money to forego a bridge that would connect the two sides, and instead create a ferry system that travels back and forth across the lake until the end of time. And it’s not a big ferry either, which means that if there is considerable traffic, you have to wait about an hour for the ferry to come back. See, even though it’s only maybe a half-mile (at most) across, the ferry is slow, and takes about 15 minutes to cross (just enough time to make and eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches on cinnamon raisin cranberry bread). I found it all to be quite bizarre.

We made it to the town of Nakusp (whose name we could never remember and simply called it Naksuck). Anyway, this is where we made the first discovery. In town we went into the local market to buy some drinks. But they had none. Just like some of the bizarre conservative areas of the US, only liquor stores sell alcohol. Discovery #1: Beer is fucking expensive in BC. Like, prohibitively expensive. A six pack of Red Stripe for $12? Other six packs for upwards of $15. What the hell? Not only that, but both food and gas are also crazy expensive. A bag of Kettle Chips for $5? A gallon of gas for the equivalent of $4.40 a gallon? It’s enough to force me out of here more quickly than I wanted.

In Nakusp we went to the hot springs, which was great because the water felt amazing, and we got to take legitimate showers instead of lake showers. And here I made discovery #2: people here in Canada are very nice. Micah and I spoke with this gentleman for about three minutes, but he was on the way out, so we said goodbye. Then, after we were hanging out for another ten minutes the guy came back and handed us a piece of paper, saying “we have a lot of acreage, so if you guys want a free place to stay, you’re more than welcome.” This was perfect because we had no place to stay and it was already like 5:30. The only unfortunate thing is that it turns out that he’s able to let us camp any night but tonight. This is a problem because we were planning on being beyond the small town he lived in by the next day.

So Micah and I have ourselves a little huddle and call an audible. We decide not to drive the way we were planning and instead take this leg of the trip a little more slowly and take up the guy on his offer the following day. This just left us with figuring out where to stay the night. In our guidebook there was mention of a free campsite in the town of Silverton, which was less than an hour south. So we went. And we got the campsite successfully. And we read the sign that said it was $18 a night. And that made me unhappy. AH! But we didn’t give up hope just yet. We thought we might be able to just find some little road and stealth our way through the night. But it was getting dark and we were kind of clueless. We were stuck.

In the town of Silverton we parked next to a coffee shop hoping we could get some wi-fi to see if there was anything that we could quickly research. But they didn’t have any free wi-fi. So I went in to talk with someone inside to see if there were any camping options nearby. The only ones around (so I was told) were the expensive ones we already knew of. The people in the coffee shop - who, incidentally, we all playing musical instruments in some kind of all-inclusive musical jam - were quite friendly though, and before I knew it a woman named Linny had invited us to park at her house. And before we knew it, the entire community was welcoming us in. So we went inside, jammed on some bongos and egg shakers while drinking tea and meeting everyone in the little community. I think by the end of the night we had about 3 options of places to stay for free, but we stuck with Linny, who had been the first to extend her hospitality. When she was ready to head back home we followed her and Bronwyn (who was staying with Linny temporarily to help around the house) back to her home for a tour of her collections. Micah was suddenly in paradise as we walked from room to room, looking at and trying on various hats, purses, etc. She has something like 500 different hats or some completely amazing number. Basically, enough to never look the same twice. She also happens to be a chocolatier, and she shared some homemade dark chocolate truffles with us. Delicious! She also told us that the next morning was the local farmer’s market, where she sells her truffles, but where we could also pick up some other goodies.

It was a great experience to meet people who so honestly wanted to help out however they could. Everyone we met offered to let us do laundry or whatever we needed. Quite a change of pace to be in such a closely-knit group of people who invite complete strangers into their home. Discovery #2 was a lot better than discovery #1.