Memory Lane, Southern BC

Well it is now Monday and I haven’t uploaded my last article yet.  I will probably upload both together when I finally get internet access.  We left Banff Saturday afternoon and headed south towards the mine that Mike worked in 44 years ago.  He wanted a walk down memory lane.  We stopped for the night part way there when we saw an RV resort called Fairmont Hot Springs.  After Mike’s walk down the mountain on Friday he thought the hot springs might help his aches and pains.  All the formal hot spring pools that we have seen so far have two or three main pools, each one getting a little cooler.  Only one of them is ever hotter than the 90 degrees F we keep our pool at home.  Mum and Jan – you should advertise “Lorne Park Hot Springs” and make some money 🙂 .  During one of our infrequent periods of internet access I checked the local time in Fairmont Hot Springs, BC.  The internet was wrong.  It said this town was in the Pacific time zone and it was actually still in Mountain time.  Instead of going into the hot springs for the last 1 ½ hours we were only in for about 30 minutes.  Actually that was long enough in water over 100 degrees.  The hot springs adjoined the campground and you could walk there in your swimsuit.  It was quite handy.

Mike’s walk down memory lane didn’t work so well.  The closest town to the mine he worked in was Michel, BC.  Michel is mentioned on the website called Ghost Towns in British Columbia.  There was absolutely nothing left but some information placards telling you about the town/village that used to be there.  As we drove into the area we saw a sign for tours of the mine.  Mike was disappointed when we tried to buy tickets and found out that the tour was only available in July and August.

The weather for the last couple of days has been great again.  We are still driving through the Rockies.  We have driven up some really long uphill roads.  A few times when we got to the top there were big signs to test your brakes before the steep downhill portions, some of 8 km or more.  It has been a lovely drive.  We will probably stop for the day near a place called Christina Lake if we can get cell access and internet.  If not we will drive on further.  From Christina Lake we will need to make the choice about which way we go next.  We have three choices.  We can go north to Kelowna and Kamloops and the BC interior which I had hoped to drive through.  We can go west to the coast which would mean seeing Vancouver and Seattle and that area or we can go straight south into the US and bypass the Pacific coast.  I really have no idea at the moment where we will be going next.  I will let all of you know when I know.

PS It is now 8pm Monday evening and we still don’t know where we are going next but Christina Lake is lovely and we have cell reception.  Houses and cottages, all with docks line the lake.  There are more RVs in campgrounds in this very small town than there are houses.  I guess people really like camping here.  Our campground is having a bunch of motorcyclists arriving tomorrow and a big pig roast next weekend.  Too bad that next weekend is too far away for us to stay for it.