Skip to main content

Cariboo adventure

"I'd like to take you up and show you and Mom our cabin," my Sister said to me last week. 

When this invitation came about I was hesitant....could I just up and leave? What about the magazine...what about my garden? 

Throwing the keyboard, and the trowel to the wind, I went on an adventure...we had it timed so the mosquitoes were not yet out, and the ice would be coming off of the lake.


Sun setting over a tree  www.ruralmag.com



We returned wind and sunburned despite tons of sunscreen....with over a thousand pictures on my phone, and camera...along with memories of time spent with those I love.

They were good times... the sound of waves lapping against the dock, and the haunting call of loons at midnight from across the lake echoing in my head. 

Ducks in the bay doing a bit of house hunting, wild bears we startled on the roadside... too many deer to keep track of, a hare, and the most amazing of all, a nesting sandhill crane!

All of the power poles in the Cariboo seem to be marked with these cool tin numbers on them...I was out walking the dusty gravel roads one morning and mentally counting them off in my head...51, 52 53.....

Tin numbers attached to a wooden power pole from www.ruralmag.com



We went on a day adventure searching for the Big Bar Ferry crossing at the Fraser River, driving for a few hours on a bumpy potholed gravel road that forced us to putt along at 15 km an hour...[that's slow]. Passing over countless rattling cattleguards laid on the roadway meant to stop the cows from wandering out of the huge ranches, and travelled past ancient weathered log cabins.

The landscape changed from sparse stunted pine tree and scrub to the gorgeous lush verdant green of newly opened leaves, and towering craggy rocks of the Fraser Canyon.

After what seemed like hours of driving on the dusty gravel road we stood at the top of the switchback above the ferry, looking down below at an old ranch with a huge clump of blooming lilacs...the hot breeze wafting up through the canyon carried up the scent of lilacs ...it was a moment I'll never forget. After travelling through a chilled land dotted with snow in the shade, and still baren from winter to this oasis of warmth and scent in the space of one day.

Sandhill crane nesting in the grasslands from www.ruralmag.com



We even found ourselves plonked down in the middle of a cattle drive at the top of a huge mountain in the desert-like landscape of a huge ranch...Mama cows, and new babies wandering down the road... herded by two authentically real cowboys ....yep, it's still a job up in ranch country, with both dedicated women and men who ride horses all day doing it.

Cow and calf during a cattle drive at the Fraser Canyon from www.ruralmag.com



There was no cell service out there in no man's land, but we did come across one old fashioned telephone booth at a junction...an hour's drive in from where we stayed at the lake. And most unbelievably...it was a wifi hotspot...technology is amazing.

Of course the drive back seemed so much shorter...but the memories last a long time.

Jen @ Rural Magazine

If you are not yet subscribed to the magazine [it's free] now is the time to sign up, the newest issue will be out soon.  Just click on the subscribe button above. 









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

If A Tree Falls

There's a phrase that reads... If a tree falls                                in the forest........ And no one is there. ....                                 Will anyone hear it? Writing blog posts can feel like that at times...                                 If I write it...                                 Does anyone read it?                                 Should I bother, is it even worth it? Then I realized....a blog post is like a tree in the forest.   If it's been written, someone will read it and even if they don't leave a comment it's still be...

The Bear, the Buck and Bella: Notes from a summer garden

We had a visitor the other night. We get a revolving parade of animals some more welcome then others...this one was stealthy, while the other paraded down the street as if out for an afternoon stroll. One visitor made me smile with delight, the other...every so rudely ate the empty quail egg from my decorative bird's nest on my front porch.  And then it b umped into my heavy garden bench sitting by the front door and moved that a few feet, not my kind of visitor... I've got too many childhood encounters with bears to ever be comfortable with them this close. Camping, and living among their world has makes me observant, but cautious.  After eating the quail egg, the bear decided to try out the path to the front garden, and despite its size, not one blossom was bruised...I will give it that. The young buck was a visitor who waltzed down the street in front of our house. It's fuzzy two point antlers proudly held high, and it brought a smile to our faces...it was curious and bo...

Not wasting a second of this season

It's only the second day of Autumn, and all puns aside.. I've Fall-en in love with this season all over again... The soft warming tones of russets, and golds, the way the colors on the trees have just barely started to glow. It's beautiful and favors us with a glow. It's as if the trees are teasing us by tossing their leaves secretly behind our backs...twinkling down so quietly. Autumn is a graceful ageing process, the reverse of spring when everything is reborn, now it's dying, falling, leaving us...and yet across the world, there is renewal. We're still in the honeymoon stage of this season, it's all new, and oh so beautiful. Remarkable, and remarked upon by nearly everyone. Chock full of a colorful texture that will stay for a while, until suddenly the landscape will reveal it's self as an empty house...bereft, forlorn, windows gaping open sadly. The branches will tighten up with the howling wind, and the once vibrant jewel...