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.

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.....

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.

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.

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.