A Mega Road Trip

Hullo!!! This adventure is actually from last fall... have just had too many adventures to find a spot in the schedule. Imagine... my sekrebeary may want to consider if too many adventures is a good thing or not!

Do you see my new pin?? It's Gramma's blood donor pin. It's probably vintage!

We went to bed early and then got up... ridiculously early!!

We are at Rose's place!! This is Luna... Only the cats are up this early!

Alright... want to know where we are going?

We are going on an epic road trip! With Mama's sister... 

But we aren't heading east through the Fraser Valley - the usual route to get out of Vancouver... we are going north, through Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton!!! Oooh... there's the Brittania Mines!

We were there last year!! It was super cool. And yes... this haze is all wildfire smoke... 

There's the Squamish Chief... a big rock-climbing place.

Of course we stopped for some sustenance...

And kept driving...

Sure is a lot of smoke here...

And then we found this!!! O.M.G. This is Duffey Lake, somewhere between Pemberton and Lillooet!

Wow... it's gorgeous!!! And there's no wildfire smoke here... so pretty.

I imagine that tree reflection gets photographed a LOT! Cancel the no smoke... there is some!

This is the car we are driving... beary flashy! It's called Blueberry... I wonder why.

And now... let me introduce you to another Blueberry! One of Rose's squishmallows... who is the car mascot... Blueberry is a bit like Rose... does NOT get up early!

We are getting into the interior more... and you can see it's getting drier... with fewer trees.

It's beary pretty though... This is Seton Lake...

Yup... getting less trees all the time!

We stopped at Marble Canyon and Pavillion Lake. The lake is kind of cool as it is home to freshwater stromatolites. There's lot of limestone around, so the geochemical profile of the lake is quit unique. Apparently it has been the subject of astrobiological research by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency!!

That's pretty cool!!

And onwards we went... into the realm of sagebrush!

Which was actually blooming!! Must have had some rain here...

There are lots of cool old homesteads here...

We finally got pooped out on the main highway north in BC and are continuing our journey... much more wildfire smoke here.

We passed through Clinton, which is a cute little town... and was seriously threatened by wildfires this year. They lost homes on the outskirts this year, but the core of the town was saved... so this little museum should still be there.

And hopefully this old cute house...

We headed further north and took a detour to go and see....

A place called Chasm!

It kind of looks a bit like a mini Grand Canyon...

Lots of layers of volcanic rock in the canyon...

It was formed 10,000 years ago when melting glacial water carved a waterfall and this chasm through the volcanic rocks.

Onwards!!!

And yes... we did stop for food!!

And kept heading north...

Passing old wildfire areas...

But eventually... we went far enough north that we left the smoke behind. Whew1!

We stopped for the night... and had a good night's sleep...

And made an early pit stop...

Because... yes!! We need sustenance!

And kept driving... and driving...

And had some snacks!

Yum!!!

Are we there yet??? This is a super long trip!!!!

It's not comfortable on the dash, so we snuggled into the pillows that Mama's sister packed... much comfier...

We got woke up to take pics at this mega fly rod!

Um... wow!!!

There was a cute heritage village here so we poked around a bit.

An old skidoo!!! Vroom!!!

And a mini version of a bee-hive burner!!!

They didn't burn bee hives... they burned wood scraps back in the day (such a waste)... the wood would go up this conveyor and land in a huge bonfire in the burner...

The train still runs on this rail line... but we're not sure if they have much of a train station here... it looks pretty dilapidated!

And we kept driving!!!

We stopped here to stretch our legs...

And check out the cool suspension bridge! It's one of the highest in North America!

We are almost there!!! ("Almost" is a relative term...)