Sunday
; N’Kwala BC Forest Service Recreation Site
Late last night ;
We climbed up into our bed area (over the truck cab), Joanne went to
sleep, and I lay on top of my sleeping bag reading a book for awhile.
When I was ready to sleep, I put the book down, turned out my
bedside light, climbed into my sleeping bag, then leaned over towards
Joanne to give her a goodnight kiss.
OW ! … OW ! …
OW !
Something was stinging me !
Repeatedly ! ! ! In my armpit ! ! ! ! !
I was screaming. Joanne woke
up and sat up, wondering … WTF ? ? ?
With my left hand I was
grabbing at my right arm pit wondering what the hell was hurting me
so bad ? I felt something, grabbed it, and tossed it ! I turned on
the overhead light, with burning agony invading my armpit. Joanne
was still trying to wake up … WTF ? ? ?
There on Joanne’s pillow,
where I had tossed it … sorry, dear … was a wasp ! ! !
Joanne got up, passed me a
paper towel, and I killed the wasp.
I was in a lot of hurt !
Three stings in my armpit ! ****ing wasp ! ! !
Today was overcast and mild
during the day, becoming chilly and windy about 6 PM.
Late this morning we went for
a long, leisurely hike, hunting for mushrooms. We knew it was
unlikely that we would find wild mushrooms in this arid area, but we
wanted/needed an exercise walk anyway. We hiked for about forty-five
minutes. As expected, we did not find any mushrooms.
After lunch I napped briefly,
then went fishing. I tried a different spot on the river, and rather
quickly caught three very small Rainbow Trout. I didn’t want to
continue catching little fish, and risking harming them, so I
returned to the place on the river where I fished yesterday … and
in previous years. I caught another Rainbow Trout. It was
borderline between large enough to keep, and too small to keep. I
released it. Before calling it a day after about an hour of fishing
I caught a Mountain Whitefish and released it.
When I returned to the camper
Joanne advised me that the camper fridge had malfunctioned. I
puttered around with it and discovered that the burner igniter had
failed. I don’t know why, probably just age. I was able to
dismantle the burner assembly enough to light the burner using a
barbecue sparker. That’s what I’m probably going to have to do a
few times a day for the remainder of this trip, and/or until we have
the problem diagnosed and fixed.
Monday
; N’Kwala BCFSRS to Kamloops to Skimikin Lake BCFSRS
Mostly sunny and mild.
Before
leaving the campground at N’Kwala BCFSRS this morning we went for
our early exercise walk. We left the campground shortly before noon
heading southeast on Hwy. 8 back to Merritt. At Merritt we dumped
our waste holding tanks and refilled with freshwater at Canadian
Tire’s free sani-dump station. Thank you,
Canadian Tire.
We drove across the street and Joanne went into Dollarama to buy
some stuff. I was pissed off that she was unable to pass by a
“dollar” store without stopping to shop. Until I saw the credit
card receipt and realized … OH … she bought a birthday card and
birthday cake frosting. <sheepish>
From Merritt we headed north
on Hwy. 5 / the Coquihalla / “Highway Thru Hell” to Kamloops.
It’s easy to understand why “the Coq” becomes the Highway Thru
Hell in the winter. The speed limit is 120 km./hr., therefore ALL
truckers feel the need to travel at 130 km./hr., summer or winter,
rain or shine, or … snow/sleet, etc.!
At
Kamloops we stopped at the Visitor Information Centre to have a very
late lunch and get access to Wi-Fi. The Visitor Information Centre
was closed due to Covid-19, but their sani-dump station was
available,
and their Wi-Fi was accessible in the parking lot. While I
researched an RV fridge repair business in Enderby Joanne walked
across the street to Aberdeen Mall to shop for watch bands at
Hudson’s Bay. We both wanted / needed a new watch band. She found
a watch band kiosk in Hudson’s Bay and came back to the Visitor
Information Centre to get me. We drove across the street to Aberdeen
Mall, went into Hudson’s Bay, and each bought a new watch band.
And had them installed on our watches.
We
left Kamloops heading east on Trans-Canada Highway 1. Our planned
destination was Salmon Arm. But as I drove Joanne was researching
her BC Forest Service Recreation Site guide book. And found a
desirable sounding remote wilderness campground not too far from
Salmon Arm. So … ten km. before Salmon Arm we left the highway and
drove ten km., all uphill, to Skimikin Lake BCFSRS, arriving there at
6 PM. It’s a very nice pair of campgrounds, one on each side of a
pretty lake.
We
checked out both campgrounds and selected a site. Before lighting a
campfire and preparing supper we went for our late exercise walk,
walking around the campground and doing some mushroom hunting in the
woods. While Joanne “prepped”
supper inside the camper I lit a campfire then cooked supper on it.
It was new recipe, baked chicken thighs with peaches, and turned out
very well cooked over the campfire, despite our initial skepticism
about “baking” a meal over an open fire.
HEY ! Emma LOVES baked
chicken thighs. AND baked peaches. HA HA HA … who knew ?
Tuesday
; Skimikin Lake BCFSRS to Salmon Arm to Enderby to Armstrong to
Vernon
Mix of sun and clouds, mild.
We
had a very difficult and stressful overnight. Emma was very ill,
spewing out both ends. Multiple bouts of vomiting and diarrhea.
<sigh> She doesn’t have much time left. Perhaps
I shouldn’t feed her baked chicken thighs and peaches !
Before
leaving Skimikin Lake BCFSRS around noon we went for our early
exercise walk, around the campground. We drove ten
km. back down to Trans-Canada Highway 1, then ten
km. east
on TCH1 to Salmon Arm. We used the free sani-dump station at
Piccadilly Mall to refill our freshwater tank then headed south on
Hwy. 97 to Enderby, finding our way to the elusive Hillstreet RV
Fridge Repair. Should be called Hillstreet RV Fridge Repair &
Hoarding ! The owner was absent, but I had a productive discussion
and demonstration with the service technician. He explained, and
showed, what I need to do to clean and adjust our RV fridge burner
and igniter, which should solve the intermittent “fail to ignite”
problem. Wish me luck.
We
continued south on Hwy. 97 to Armstrong where we stopped
for an extremely late (3 PM) lunch at Village Cheese. WOO-HOO …
today was the weekly fresh cheese curds production day. We each
ordered a bowl of their wonderful soup with cheese curds “to go”
and took them out to our camper in the parking lot. MMMMM … as
usual, I had their borscht with cheese curds and
sour cream.
After eating our soups we went back inside to buy many
packages/types of cheese,
including a large bag of fresh … like minutes old … squeaky
cheddar cheese curds. Inspiring me to beg Joanne to make poutine for
supper. She readily agreed. HA HA HA … thank you, my dear.
We
continued south on Hwy. 97 to downtown Vernon where we found our
meeting place for tomorrow morning’s wild mushroom hunting course.
Then we backtracked a short distance to Superstore, our boondock
location for tonight. We refilled the truck with diesel at
Superstore’s Mobil fuel bar, found a good spot to park overnight,
then Joanne went inside the store to shop for a few items (including
a can of poutine gravy !) while I got a bit of work done on my
laptop. After
Joanne returned from grocery shopping we went for our late exercise
walk around a couple of the large shopping malls’ parking lots,
then began preparing and packing stuff for tomorrow’s mushroom
hunting course.
Poutine
supper was … well … you know ! ! ! Unfortunately I’m currently
in the midst of keeping a food diary to be reviewed by my obesity
clinic. <shrug> Oh, well !
R.I.P
Eddie Van
Halen
Wednesday
; Vernon to Lumby to Mabel Lake to Cottonwood Beach BCFSRS
Today started out cloudy and
chilly but cleared and warmed by mid-morning, becoming a lovely warm
fall day.
We
were up at 7 AM to be ready for our Wild Mushroom Hunting Tour at 9
AM. We met the group and leader at the downtown Vernon meeting place
and after some paperwork we headed east on Hwy. 6 to the group
leader’s family dairy farm near Lumby. We
found and studied Comb Tooth Hericium and Oyster Mushrooms.
Joanne and I were already familiar with the latter, but not the
former.
Today’s mushroom hunting
course did not quite live up to our expectations, although it was
interesting and educational. The course/tour spent a lot of time and
effort finding and identifying many non-edible mushrooms, while what
we (and probably everybody else on the course/tour) wanted was to
find and learn about edible wild mushrooms.
From
the leader/teacher’s family farm we continued a short distance east
to the village of Lumby, then north a
short distance to a recreation park at the site of a small BC Hydro
dam at
Shuswap Falls where
we explored wild mushrooms found there. Then about another half hour
north to Mabel
Lake Provincial Park where we had lunch sitting at picnic tables
beside the beach on Mabel Lake before resuming our mushroom hunting.
We spent about half the afternoon searching for, finding, and
learning about the many types of wild mushrooms to be found at Mabel
Lake Provincial Park, including edible Lobster Mushrooms (well known
to us … I found the first one today), Pine Mushrooms/White
Matsutakes (new to us) and Shaggy Manes (well known to us).
Our final mushroom hunting
spot was further north, on Mabel Lake Forest Service Road. We spent
about the last hour of the course there. Most of the participants
were getting pretty tired, and losing interest, us included. But …
we learned that there was a BC Forest Service remote wilderness
campground only about eighteen km. further north on the Forest
Service Road, so when the course ended at 4 PM and the rest of the
group headed back to Vernon Joanne and I continued further north to
Cottonwood Beach BCFSRS remote wilderness campground on Cottonwood
Bay at the north end of Mabel Lake.
Nice
wilderness campground ! We selected a site then went mushroom
hunting. Until exhausted ! I lit a campfire and was about to grill
a nice fillet of Sockeye Salmon on the open
fire
until Joanne opened the
thawed package
of fish and discovered that it was ruined by “freezer burn”.
DARN ! Plan
B was a sirloin steak, still frozen. It’s difficult to cook a
frozen steak on an open fire. The outside becomes charred while the
inside is still not cooked. Either skill or luck was on my side
today. The steak turned out perfect ! After supper we sat around
the campfire for awhile.
Life
was good today ! Thank you for the wild
mushroom
hunting course birthday gift, my dear.
Thursday
; Cottonwood Beach BCFSRS to Box Lake BCFSRS
Mostly cloudy, mild.
We left Cottonwood Beach /
Cottonwood Bay / Mabel Lake this morning around 11 AM and headed back
south on Mabel Lake Forest Service Road until reaching Mabel Lake
Provincial Park where we dumped our waste holding tanks and refilled
our freshwater tank at the sani-dump station. <whispering>
Then harvested a nice batch of Shaggy Mane Mushrooms !
More
south on Mabel Lake Forest Service Road until we reached Lumby. I
parked at the little shopping mall in town and while Joanne cleaned
the Shaggy Manes I took our provincial election mail in ballots to
the Post Office, then bought a few grocery items at the grocery
store. Including
cream with which to make Cream of Shaggy Mane
Mushroom Soup. WOO-HOO !
We
had lunch while parked in the shopping mall’s parking lot, then
headed east out of Lumby on Hwy. 6. It was a long, tiring day of
driving Hwy. 6, a very winding and
difficult to drive road.
Mid-afternoon we stopped at a rest area to take an exercise walk and
hunt for edible wild mushrooms, finding none. Around 5 PM we reached
the western edge of Arrow Lake at Needles, then took a ferry across
Arrow Lake to Fauquier on the eastern shoreline. About half an hour
later we reached Nakusp, and Hwy. 6 turned south. By 6 PM we were at
Box Lake BCFSRS where we hope to harvest some Lobster Mushrooms
tomorrow,
as we did last year in late September. I
was too tired for a campfire, and it was dark shortly after our
arrival.
Joanne’s home made Cream of
Shaggy Mane Mushroom Soup … with added cheese curds … was
excellent ! Too bad she burned the Texas Toast to a crisp !
<snicker>
Friday
; Box Lake BCFSRS
Today was cloudy and cool,
with light rain until late afternoon.
Late this morning we headed
out to hunt edible wild mushrooms. We walked for about an hour down
an ATV trail through the forest. We found … Lobster Mushrooms,
Cauliflower Mushrooms, a single Pine Mushroom/Matsutake, and
Chanterelle Mushrooms. YIPPEE ! Chanterelles were one of the two
edible wild mushrooms on my “bucket list” that I had not
previously found. The last remaining one I want to find is …
Morels ! It was obvious from the amount of cut stems and discarded
mushrooms that the professional mushroom pickers have been active in
this area.
We returned to our campsite,
had lunch, then Joanne spent quite a bit of the afternoon cleaning
and cooking mushrooms. I napped and fished, catching nothing. I lit
a campfire, left Joanne “in charge”, and walked down to a nearby
dock to fish some more. Inexplicably … she “killed” the
campfire ! By the time I returned from an hour or so of unproductive
fishing, she had made another campfire. HMPH ! Didn’t know she
was capable of that !
She
also baked a birthday cake for me for tomorrow. And had grilled
some chicken thighs on the campfire, and had made Lobster Mushroom
Risotto. Talented
woman ! I, on the other hand, came home with a nice Rainbow Trout.
Given to me by another fisherman on the dock ! When
I filleted it at
our campsite picnic table,
I sliced one side off making a perfect fillet. The other side …
looked like I had filleted it with a weed whacker.
One
perfect fillet. One botched fillet. Of a fish given to me by
another fisherman. HMPH
! What a loser !
Saturday
; Daniel’s 66th Birthday ; Box Lake BCFSRS to McLean
Creek Rest Area
Cold and raining all day,
occasionally very heavy rain. YUCK !
Emma woke me up asking to be
fed at 6:30 AM. It was the crack of dawn. So … after feeding her
I went fishing for about forty-five minutes. In the rain. And
caught nothing. So I went back to bed ! And slept late.
We
left Box Lake around noon, heading south on Hwy. 6. At New Denver we
stopped at New Market Foods, the town’s grocery store, to buy
three large
jars
of Kelly’s Doukhobor Borscht. We would have bought more, but they
only had the “Traditional” style, and we wanted some of the
“Spinach” style as well. While
in New Denver I retrieved phone messages. One was a birthday wishes
call from my sister. The other was a message from the owner of
Dancing Baba’s Perogies. I had previously arranged to meet him
today to pick up and pay for an order of four bags of perogies I had
placed by phone a couple of weeks ago. We played telephone tag until
his wife reached me with the message that my order was waiting for me
at the front counter of Winlaw Mini-Mart, the little grocery store in
their town. WOO-HOO !
We continued south on Hwy. 6,
stopping to have lunch at a rest area before reaching the village of
Winlaw. When we arrived at the Winlaw Mini-Mart and I went to the
front counter to pick up my order of perogies … they had no idea
what I was talking about. I phoned Dancing Baba’s … got their
voice mail, as usual … waited ten minutes for a return phone call,
then left ! Without any perogies ! I guess my money will be better
spent elsewhere ! ! ! <fume>
We
continued south on Hwy. 6, then Hwy. 3A, to Sentinel Meats, a beef
farm and butcher shop specializing in beef products. We bought a lot
of beef salami, beef pepperoni, and beef garlic sausage. When
we came out of the butcher shop, it was raining very heavily. We
continued south on Hwy. 3A to Castlegar. On the outskirts of
Castlegar we pulled onto the grounds of the Doukhobor Museum to look
for Porcini/King Bolete wild mushrooms. None today ! HMPH !
We
continued into Castlegar to refill our freshwater tank at the
sani-dump station at the Visitor Information Centre. As I began to
refill the freshwater tank, it began to rain exceptionally
heavily, with lightning, thunder, and little ice pellets/hail. Our
water tank was near empty, so I stood there beside the camper for
about fifteen minutes being pummeled by ice pellets while the tank
refilled ! I had a rain hat and rain coat on, but still … my nose
hurt from the ice pellet pummeling ! And
I was drenched from the knees down ! Including my shoes and socks !
Happy
****ing birthday, Daniel !
We
found our way to Castlegar’s grocery store Kootenay Market. There
we bought three more large jars of Kelly’s Doukhobor Borscht, this
time the “Spinach” variety. We had planned to boondock overnight
in the Visitor Information Centre’s parking lot, but it was now
signed “no overnight parking”. So … we left town, heading west
on Hwy. 3, our “home highway”. It was raining heavily again in
Castlegar, and we were hoping to escape the heavy rain.
We
stopped to boondock overnight at a rest area about halfway between
Castlegar and Grand Forks. I began to feel quite ill. Joanne
prepared my favourite dinner as a birthday treat, then presented
me a birthday cake as a bedtime snack. Thank
you, my dear !
What a lovely birthday card !
HMPH
! SOME people get taken to the Eiffel Tower in Paris (her 50th)
or the Colosseum in Rome (her 40th)
on their birthday. OTHER people get taken to the sani-dump station
in Castlegar, BC. HMPH !
HA HA HA HA HA !
DSK
