To Rain or Not to Rain

Day 10: Purden Lake, BC

Distance Traveled: 415 km:

Cumulative distance: 4037 km

Maximum speed:122 km/h

Moving average: unknown

Temperature range: 11.8 – 15.8 C

No cell service last night so I'll post pictures tonight. Just having lunch in McBride, BC.

Despite warnings of revelers by our hostess last night, we didn’t hear a thing. What we did hear were trains going through the main crossing in Telkwa and blasting their horn so that everybody all the way to Smithers would know they were coming through Telkwa. It doesn’t actually bother us; we hear the horn but barely wake up in the process and definitely go straight back to sleep.

Our hostess’s partner is a coffee roaster. More than an amateur, not quite a “professional”, he buys green beans from all over and roasts them in a roaster outside the AirBnB, with an “afterburner” I’m told, so as not to smell up the entire town. I continue to be intrigued by the prospects of this.  He sells his around the town and through the AirBnB. We certainly enjoyed his coffee this morning.

As we barrel towards Prince George, we keep waiting to be hit by a wall of smoke. Environment Canada this morning was announcing a special weather advisory for smoke but there is little to be seen or smelled. It did eventually come but it certainly seems as though the risks we had anticipated from before the trip are diminished.

At Vanderhoof, which we promptly labeled Vanderwoof, we were due for more coffee and something to eat. As we rode into town, we saw a sign that said “O.K. Café” and thought, “doesn’t sound like a bar, fast food or any kind of chain so we pulled in. The setting is an old building that forms part of an historic display of Old Vanderwoof. These are real-life buildings from the olden days and this building is the former hotel. It may not be original in that everything there is from the early 20^th century (it has running water, for example) but it all looks quite authentic.

It doesn’t seem too busy as there is a gentleman sitting by himself at a table for six eating a piece of pie and doing a crossword, as well as a couple sitting at a booth and three kids – probably late teens, come walking in five minutes behind us. This place makes lattes! We are delighted so before we order lunch we order lattes. A young gal, late teens or early 20s, is working the front and seems to make a lot of trips back and for the to the kitchen but never carrying anything either way. We can see directly into the kitchen from where we sit and it appears as though the two people working back there are the original owners. We eventually order two toasted sandwiches and soup and the wait is interminable. The couple in the next booth get their food and the young gal waiting on the tables apologizes profusely for the delay because they “got slammed”. As soon as they get their food, they order pie. Hmmm, are they onto something?

The couple in the kitchen move at half speed for everything that they do. It’s o.k. though, we are on holidays and we don’t mind. Eventually, the food comes. I’m sure it was 40 minutes.  The bacon on my club house was pre-cooked and the turkey was pre-sliced out of a package. However, my chicken vegetable soup was absolutely home made and fabulous. Sadly, they didn’t put into the sandwiches what they put into the soup. Let me make this clear though, I am not complaining. It was far better than bar food or fast food.

This was a rare occasion where Nan said "I won" and I said "she won".

Our entire time there, we are eyeing the pies, several of which are on display behind the front counter. We can see with our own eyes these are home made as well and our only trouble is going  to be deciding which to have.  The lady from the kitchen comes out to the front and I tell her the soup is fantastic. She clears my plate and asks me if I want pie, while Nan is about 50% done with her lunch. First, they can’t get organized enough to serve eight people in the café at one time then they can’t get us out of there fast enough.  She is sweet, though and reminds me of my great, great, great grandmother’s auntie. Only she doesn’t have a wheel chair like auntie. But I’m not complaining! She gives Nan the evil eye and intimidates her into ordering pie before she is done. She intimidates me into ordering ice cream because apple pie just isn’t apple pie without ice cream. Yes, Ma’am! It is clear she is not intimidated by our biker apparel. I should have worn my leather jacket today.

It was really good pie, though, and by the time we get out of there, it is about 3:30 p.m. I felt like I had been in some kind of time warp or yet another episode of The Twilight Zone. I was just waiting for our bike to break down as we reached the edge of town.

There are a number of old buildings around the O.K. Café and the doors are opened to all of them so we take a wander through. They are decorated with furniture and artifacts from 100 years ago and are quite interesting. One building was the former RCMP detachment and there is a mock up of the jail cell with a prisoner inside. (I think it was a mannequin.) There was also the Royal Bank of Canada building, as my employer was known then. We have a wonder through that building and there is a mock-up of a teller’s booth and other trappings. Not sure if the other stuff was meant to be bank stuff but it was still interesting. There was a switchboard that look like it could handle 10 lines. They don’t know how good they had it.

This is the back side of the O.K. Cafe. (Sorry to some of my more sensitive readers for using the term "back side".)

This is the old RCMP station.

Not entirely sure this is RCMP-issue.

As many of you know, my office moved March 23rd.

This is our new reception.

She's no dummy!

We do manage to escape Vanderwoof and there is no force field around the town keeping us in. We get to Prince George and we have to make a decision: push on to camping or stay in Prince George. It appears as though there would be places to stay so that must mean  that the majority of the evacuees have been able to return to their homes. The sky has looked unsettled all day with alternating sun and rain clouds all over the place but we had looked at weather radar during lunch and saw that despite the ominous looking clouds, there was remarkably little rain falling anywhere. It looked like tiny patches of light rain moving through the area so we decide to brave the elements and go onto the targeted camp ground.

About 15 km from the campspot, it starts to rain. Not heavily but enough to be a concern. Fortunately, it stops before we turn off to Purden Lake and the last few km to the park area is a beautiful rain forest. We are surprised at the number of campers that are still here given the long weekend has elapsed. It is not full by any means but it is probably 40% capacity. We have our pick of a number of nice camp spots and the ones of our preference are the levelest that will allow me to turn the bike around.

We get the tent set up immediately and then open a bottle of nice red wine to celebrate our anniversary. We have skipped picking up food because it was a pretty big lunch. The campground attendant comes around to collect our $22 and Nan asks him about bears in the area. It seems that they do have bears and they had just live-trapped one on Saturday. There had been another around with cubs earlier as well. They did install food cache bins early this year because of bears and the one across from our tent shows the telltale signs of bear prints all over it, was well as some deep scratches in the paint. It is somewhat unnerving. Hopefully, the bear that did this is the one they hauled away on the weekend.

Before the rain really started.

I'm not sure that is how you check the bouquet, Sweetie.

Way to go on the Anniversary Ring Toss! Goin' for four!

Eeewwww, Bears.

We have our wine and we decide to go for a walk down to the lake. We throw everything into the cache, I strap my bear spray onto my hip – I really didn’t think I would be needing it up until this point – and we walk down to the lake. There, we see the fish jumping right out of the water. Little ones, but breaching to be sure. We are walking for about a half hour and then it starts to rain. So we are walking back to our tent and the rain is coming with increasing urgency. We forgo brushing our teeth and head straight into the tent. It is 7:30 p.m. Happy 30^th anniversary, Sweetie. There is no place I would rather be than with you, even in the rain and the cold.