#BeautifulBritishColumbia

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Happy 28th Anniversary

One of the downsides of having a nice cup of tea before bed is having you bladder wake you up early in the morning. Friday, May 16th, 2025 was no different in that respect. What I saw when I got up wasn’t usual though. I saw a whitetail doe nursing a small fawn in the field out in front of our cabin. I only had to go about 10 feet to grab my camera, but even with that, they were gone in the 10 seconds it took me to get the and get back to the window. So, no photos but at least I hadn’t woken Lynda up to show her. 4:00 am was a little too early to be up for the day so back to bed for at least a couple of hours before we go find something to do for our anniversary.

I managed to get some more sleep and got up to face the day at a more reasonable hour. After we cleaned up our breakfast dishes, we made ourselves lunch sandwiches for the road on the Booyah Bagels I had bought yesterday with this in mind. Booyah makes awesome bagels but they only do breakfast sandwiches and as great as those are, I like to have ham or pastrami on a bagel every once in a while.

We decided to drive west on Old Tete Jaune Road towards McBride. It looked like it would be a lot more scenic than taking the highway.

We had barely started when I spotted this old truck.

I liked the truck but couldn’t get an angle I really liked but thought maybe switching to black and white would help.

I liked it but it still wasn’t what I’d envisioned when I first saw the truck.

Onwards we go.

But not too far.

As we drove, Lynda said; “Bear”.

We turned around to have a look and when we pulled up to the spot, all we saw was the north end of a south bound grizzly bear booking it. So, no bear photos but it was cool to see. Not wanting to stress him/her further, we turned around to continue on our way.

It wasn’t long before we saw so white water so we stopped for a look.

It wasn’t a very spectacular location but the sound of the running water was soothing.

It was a short distance to the Shere Lake Recreation Site and we drove down that road to check it out. Luckily, there was no one around as it’s a 1 lane road through the bush to get down to the lake.

The water level was higher than the buoyancy level of the boardwalk so I never got down to the water’s edge.

We continued to Dunster.

There isn’t much in Dunster to see but one of the local gentleman asked me about my truck and I chatted with him while Lynda checked out the Dunster General Store.

The Dunster Station Museum is right across the road from the store so it was a very short walk to check it out. Unfortunately, it was closed so a couple of exterior photos is all I got.

We got back on the road and headed into McBride.

We cruised into McBride and took all of about 3 minutes to drive around town before we stopped at the Visitor Center in the old train station.

I came with the same warning sign back when Lynda and I started dating.

There is a bistro, art gallery and gift shop and a model railroad among other things in the visitor center. I never went into the bistro as we had brought our own lunch, but I did get a chance to check out the model railroad. It’s been a long time since I was around such stuff. I missed it for a minute or two.

We wandered back outside and found a place to sit and have some lunch before exploring the town.

We drove down main street and parked to walk around town.

The “Sarcasm. Now served daily” sign in the window at Welcome Home Cafe & Gifts hooked me right away and we wandered in to check it out. They had some interesting gifts and I got myself a few sarcasm related stickers. Lynda got a London Fog that she said was quite tasty and I got a really, really good blended raspberry lemonade. I’d go back just for another one of those.

I grabbed a photo of a couple of old cars in a yard before we headed down the highway back towards the cabin.

At one point, I had to slow down for a moose crossing the road. Not sure if my dash cam caught it or not but no photos of him either.

We had brought some flatbread pizzas to cook over the fire but decided neither of us wanted to cook over a fire today.

We headed into Valemount in search of food and decided that Caribou Grill looked pretty good. And we were not disappointed. The food was really good and the service was great. We really liked the look of the Caribou Coupé dessert but we were too full to have any and having ice cream in it, it wouldn’t travel very well, so we decided we had an excuse to come back.

We had a pretty good day to celebrate our anniversary and had and while there was no wildlife in the yard, it was a nice quiet evening to sit and relax and enjoy the peace and quiet.

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Anniversary getaway

I couldn’t afford to take Lynda on an exotic getaway for your 28th anniversary, so I picked someplace closer to home that we’d never stayed at. The cabins at The Mica Mountain Lodge in Tete Jaune Cache, BC, looked to be a nice quiet getaway.

We left Thursday, May 15th and headed west on highway 11. We stopped at Bighorn Service near Crescent Falls to top up the tank as I figured that would be the most inexpensive fuel I’d see for a while. At least it was a nice day for the fellow who locked his keys in the truck and was waiting for someone to come and let him in.

I love spring in the mountains as there are so many different shades of green as the trees are all budding at different rates and grasses are struggling to grow. It was a nice drive up the Icefield Parkway and the trees were looking pretty good for the most part. That is, until you get close to Athabasca Falls, then you start to see the destruction from last summer’s forest fire. The trees were burned on both sides of the highway and river right up to the top of the tree line. There were a few unburned pockets here and there but for the most part, it was total destruction. Highway 93a was closed from the Falls end so my plan to drive up that way were foiled.

There were clouds obscuring the top of Mount Robson, so we didn’t bother to stop like the last time we were in that neck of the woods. We continued on down to Valemount to go try the Valemount Bakery, formerly, The Swiss Bakery. But, like the last time we tried to visit, they were closed, for renovations this time. The owner came out and talked to us, explaining they were building an apartment above the shop so they wouldn’t have to commute so far to work. Maybe, third time will be the charm, so I guess we’ll have to go back again.

It was now time to check in to our cabin so we headed back north to get settled in. We rented the Pine Bungalow and it is a lovely little cabin. We got our stuff inside and sat on the covered porch for a while, just looking at the mountains in the distance.

We sat and had our lasagna we brought for supper before heading up to meet our host, Elke. She was pretty friendly and we chatted with her for a while before heading back to our cabin. She was going to come by and move her horses out of the pasture and up to their place in a bit so I took a couple of photos while we waited on her. My bride was pretty excited to see the horses. Me, not so much, but if it makes her happy…

I went for a quick walk in the trees to see if I could spot the deer we’d seen earlier. And I did, but I didn’t exactly have the proper lens on my camera to get a great photo of her so see if you can spot her in the picture. You can just see her belly if you look about dead center of the frame. She used the trees wisely.

Elke came by and we followed her to the field. The horses were both being brats and wouldn’t come see her when she called them, so she said no cookies for them and she went in to retrieve them. I took a couple of photos while I waited for her.

Neither horse looked all that happy to being led out of the field, but they were at least, going quietly.

Apparently, the little one is the trouble making ring leader.

Lynda was happy to pet the horses before they went on their way.

I had an idea for a photo I wanted to try with Lynda but I needed it to be a bit darker before I could try it so I grabbed a couple photos of the cabin area.

Finally, it was dark enough to try my idea. It didn’t work out the way I had hoped but it was still fun to try.

It was nice to have an eager participant, too bad what I had in my head and what I got didn’t jive. I’ll have to try a different approach next time. (Spoiler alert; we didn’t do a next time.)

After a bit of reading, it was time for bed. No solid plans are in place for tomorrow but long driving days seem to make me a lot more tired than they used to. I guess we’ll come up with a plan of attack in the morning.