Postcard Mail!

 Hullo! We received a couple of postcards a couple of weeks ago.

The first one is from the Grand Canyon!

I want to go there some day - it's definitely on my bucket list... 

It's from Ajdin! He's on a serious trip around the American Southwest... we are still restricted to our health authorities (i.e. Vancouver Island). Sigh...

But... for the record... let it be known that this little bear wants to travel as soon as we possibly can!! I've got a long list of places to go and things to do and stuffies to see!

The second card is a Route 66 card!

That's a famous highway in the States. I think it's the one that goes all the way across the USA? Let me check... yup, it was one of the first highways to go around the US. That would be similar to our Highway 1 (Trans Canada)... which is pretty much the only highway that goes across Canada!! There is Highway 16 too... it takes a more northern route through the western provinces but only starts in Manitoba...

This card is from Droopy! He's been traveling the SW as well... nice! 

He even put a cute little dog sticker on the card!

Thanks guys!! I hope I get to travel soon as well... but where to go... London? Mexico? Vancouver?

The River at The Trestle

 Hullo! We are at The Trestle... which has some old remnants of a railway bridge. We are trying to get to that abutment... but are going to have to go sideways...

A bit of a scramble but... we made it! We are on the top of one abutment and you can see the other one on the far side...

We had heard this was a swimming spot in the summer but... I don't know about that. The river is flowing pretty fast and furious through this narrow chute... and that "Extreme Danger" sign at the start of this adventure has me a bit concerned...

Let's see if we can get closer to the river... ooohhh... that's what the one side of our abutment looks like. 

The other side has some graffiti too, but not as much...

Still doesn't look swimmable...

Unless you're a fish of course...

Oh wait... this is just downstream from the bridge abutments... hmmm...

That pool looks deep but... dangerous too... We found a video of people jumping off of that abutment into the water...

Yup... some young guys are adrenalin junkies!!!

We also found a bunch of boulders all jumbled together and if you look through them, you can see water flowing... this must be what some people say are "tunnels" at this swimming spot. And yes... some adrenalin junkies actually swim through these jumbles... which is likely where the "extreme danger" kicks in!

See... water... flowing... and if you get stuck in one spot with the water pushing against you... well... you might not make it out again!

Here's a video of someone swimming through those boulders... 

We thought this might be a place to take Rose swimming in the summer... Nope...

We like our niece in one piece... (heh... that rhymed!!)... Oh wait... Rose is our cousin... Mama's niece!

And there's even warning signs plastered all over the trestle abutments...

But there are also some cool rock features here... like these hollows that get carved out by the water and rocks swirling around in them.

Can you see us???

Heh-heh... here we are! There's not water in this hollow... otherwise we'd have wet bums!

Oh wow... some of these erosion holes are deep!! We think they are called potholes... Rocks and boulders get in them eventually and make them bigger and bigger...

See... here's one with a boulder in it... when it's high water, the boulder swirls around in the hole making it bigger and deeper... but the rock can't get out...

There are lots of cool erosion features along here.

We could play a great game of hide and seek here!

But definitely not a swimming place... onwards...

Oh... wait... while writing this blog, we found a guy who did a 20 minute video exploring The Trestle!! He saw a lot of the same stuff we did... cool!

PS... we found a photograph online of the trestle back when it was still around! According to stories, the trestle was first used for coal mining, then logging... and then in the mid 1980s it caught fire. Apparently the Mars water bomber from Sproat Lake came and doused it with water a few times. We saw that plane a few years ago! After the fire, a crane came and tore the rest of the bridge down! This was a super cool expedition!

A Trestle from the Olden Days

 Hullo blogger pals! We are going on a little adventure today. We read about a place called The Trestle which apparently has some interesting swimming opportunities. Let's go!

Hmmm... that's a bit concerning! Not just "Danger" but "Extreme Danger"... stay close blogger pals.

Well... that was like a 5 minute walk from the road. Hmph, not much of a hike. Now we just have to scramble down this weird embankment...

Oooh... it's not just any old embankment... this looks the abutment of an old bridge, made out of old timbers.

Huh... there must have been quite a bridge over the river at this point... you can see more timbers below...

See... and back in the day, they would have been holding up the bridge.

This is cool! And... just for our friends Jerry & Ben... this would have been a railway bridge!

Oh, we have a nice view here looking up the river... it's pretty rapid through here, I can see why this might be dangerous.

And there... in the distance, you can see the concrete supports for the trestle bridge! But we're not there yet.

We found some cool little succulents growing along here.

Even growing on these bits and pieces of the old trestle bridge.

I guess that at some point, when the bridge was decommissioned, it got torn down... that's too bad.

But there are still some fairly big chunks here...

And... you can even find some chunks of coal if you look closely enough... There was a big coal mine just north of here... back in the day.

Oh look, some railway spikes!!

And a bolt or something. We are going to take these home as souvenirs... maybe even a piece of coal. We could start a little mini-archaeological corner in the garden. I think my pal, Little Fox, working on his Bachelor of Archaeology, would be interested in these artifacts.

And look at this! It looks like part of a train wheel!

But there's no other train bits down here... so it probably wasn't a derailment... 

There's even a bit of rail here... which makes a great stuffie bench...

Ohhhhh... and here is a retaining wall made out of sandstone blocks that is holding up the main part of the bridge abutment...

And yet more railway bits and pieces!! Little Fox would have a field day here!

OK... are we at the river yet? Almost...

We keep catching glimpses of it but get distracted by archaeological discoveries!

To Be Continued....