October 1, 2005

October 1, 2005

Keremeos to Princeton, B.C.

YEAR 2 DAY 106

 

Today was mostly sunny, and cold, with brief periods of light rain in the afternoon.

This morning we back tracked 13 km. east on Hwy. 3 to the town of Keremeos for some fruit and vegetable shopping. Keremeos bills itself as the "fruit stand capital of Canada". We bought a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as some local jams and cider. Hey ... we're in the Okanagan Valley and it's harvest time. We also went to a grocery store for some drinking water and luncheon meats. We returned to SunKatchers RV Co-op Park, prepared for departure, hitched up, paid our bill, and departed, west on Hwy. 3. We didn't drive far today, only to Princeton. Joanne wanted to stay at the Princeton Municipal Campground. We had stayed there last spring. Each campsite backs onto the Similkameen River. We drove past the campground to go into the town of Princeton to buy a newspaper, and fill up with diesel, then returned to the campground and got settled into a site.

We had lunch. I took a nap. We took Bo for an obedience training walk, then brought Teddy out with us and we all walked down to the river behind our campsite. The Similkameen River is only half as wide as it was in the spring. We could walk out onto the rocks that were the river bed when the water level was higher. Bo liked it. Teddy didn't. Teddy never likes to get too close to flowing water. We spent most of the afternoon reading the newspaper in the trailer. It was quite cold outside. The leaves are falling rapidly from the aspen and poplar trees. The forest is a vivid mix of bright golden deciduous trees in the dark green coniferous forest. It's quite lovely.

I did today's accounting, started today's journal entry, then downloaded and processed photos taken yesterday. I started a campfire and we sat outside by the fire for awhile, but not long, as it was quite cold. We went inside, prepared and ate supper, then went back outside to sit by the fire for awhile longer. The other day, in Creston, when we had a cable TV connection, we watched an interesting, and amusing, show on the Outdoor Life network called Survivorman. It was about a man dropped into the wilderness near Thunder Bay, Ontario, with nothing, and employing survival techniques to survive for a week. I employed one of his techniques tonight. Our campsite fire ring was a circle of smooth, flat river stones,most about the size of a cantaloupe. When our campfire had been burning for a couple of hours, and we were ready to go inside for the night, I took 2 "hot rocks" from around the campfire into the trailer. I placed them on a section of newspaper, and warmed my feet by them. Wow ... it was great ! They stayed very warm for a long time. I'm actually going to put 2 ideal size and shape rocks into the back of the truck to keep as my "hot rocks" for future campfires.

DSK