Hope For The Hopeful

Spike, our pretend cat

We phone one of Frank’s relatives just outside of Hope. She answers with a friendly tone and we are welcome to stay with her overnight. It is our great pleasure to connect with friends and family and to meet new people on our 2016 adventure across three provinces.

Big White is as ready as she’ll ever be to haul Frank and me and our Ural motorcycle on a trailer behind her. She’s a powerful beast and doesn’t mind the mountain terrain. 

Big White hauls the Ural

After Hope, we stop in Yale. Their new rest area is complete with large displays of the history of the little town with a big gold-rush past. We take our time with our picnic lunch and chat with other folks on their own journey.

Clean up service

We settle in at Skuppa Rest Area in Skihist Provincial Park for a late dinner. We have the privilege of meeting a wonderful lady who used to be a dump truck driver and helped build the Dempster Highway. She reminds us that it is also referred to as Yukon Highway 5 and Northwest Territories Highway 8. The next morning, Frank cleans the area a bit. It’s a happy service we both enjoy.

Later that afternoon, we arrive at Spences Bridge, a small community north along Highway #1. We take several photographs of the St. Michael and All Angels church with the intention of having Frank prepare a sketch of it. We’ll display it for you when it’s complete. 

St. Michaels and All Saints church

If you like trains, behind you and in front of you and the clickity clack and squeal of metal on metal combined with the sound of a rushing river, then the Cal Woods Recreation Reserve campsite is the one for you. We prepare a meal over an open fire, explore the area on foot and capture memorials of good folks gone on to the next realm.

Panning for gold ~ Fraser River

Frank prepares dinner

Archie Adams memorial

Cal Woods memorial

Beautiful yellow daisies call out to me to take their photograph. All daisies remind me of my mother. Frank and I stand in silence for a while admiring the view and the magnificence of nature.

We pull into Kamloops and make our way to a suburban neighbourhood. We settle in for a few days. Life is good. 

Yellow daisies roadside