Day 96- July 8
With still no response from Graeme we were in the midst of a leisurely pack up when Graeme arrived, at the same time as his email telling us he was on his way. It was great to see him after so many months. After some catching up and a tour of the beast we followed Graeme to his favourite breakfast spot, the Silver Creek Cookhouse where we all had a very hearty breakfast. Despite my best efforts I could not finish my hot cakes with ham and eggs. It was great to have some time to catch up with Graeme and through him with Alex as well. Just as had happened with our visits with Erin and Casey, the realization that the ‘kids’ were now happy adults making their own way in the world sank in. Even vicarious parenthood has its satisfactions.
Breakfast at the Silver Creek Cookhouse
With a short backtrack we were on highway #29 heading towards Chetwynd on our way to Prince George. We drove through some agricultural land, a marked change from the landscape we had become used to. Large fields of yellow blossomed canola were a stark contrast to the greens of the surrounding hills. However as the Hudson’s Hope Loop Road passed the turnoff for the W.A.C. Bennett Dam (which we opted not to tour) we drove back into the heavily forested lands of the previous day.
The #29 joins the #96 at Chetwynd, a small community that might otherwise not warrant a stop if it were not for its wood sculptures. As host of a yearly chainsaw wood carving contest, the streets of Chetwynd are home to over a hundred very ambitious and well maintained sculptures. Each one has a plaque identifying the name of the piece and the carver. We parked in front of a couple of lunch wagons and looking back it seemed that my joking plan for converting BRT to a chip wagon when re return home might actually work.
Do you want the biggie fries with that?
Welcome to Chetwynd
The drive from Chetwynd to Prince George was interrupted by a couple of stops for photos and a lunch break and we arrived at the Hartway RV Park 8 miles north of Prince George. It was a private site with large nicely treed lots and full services. Although we arrived early enough to go into town we opted to relax and do some chores like laundry and blog posting. I also took the opportunity to work on our electric step which had decided to stop working (luckily in the retracted position) a couple of days before. With little real hope of fixing the unknown problem I surprised myself when I connected a couple of loose wires and it ground back to life with the added feature of a light that had never come on before. Nothing burst into flames or melted so I taped it up. Go figure.
Barbecued chicken was on the menu for the night which we ate while we caught up on all the disasters across Canada, train explosions in Quebec, floods in Toronto, plane crashes in several locations. Life in the bubble of the BRT seems all the more idyllic.