Opal Bed Mining

We were going to leave Burns Lake area where we have been for the last 2 days but decided to stay one more day to go hiking way into the back country to an opal bed to mine for opals and agates. Anyone who knows me knows that I love jewelry and all gem stones. So, I knew if I passed up the chance to take a hammer to chip away at rock in hopes we would find my own opals and agates, well, this is something I would always regret. We drove several miles on this dirt and gravel road to get to the spot where would start hiking. The mountain in the background is the mountain we will hike.  The 3 mile hike, literally up a mountain, in the back country where there is no one but the biggest mosquitoes I have ever seen was steep, long, muddy, and difficult.  To make sure no bear or moose would come near, Tommy and I kept making lots of noise clapping, whistling, knocking trees with our hammer and hatchet. This is the only time I don’t want to see a bear. When we arrived at the opal beds, we were pretty wore out from that climb. We rested a few minutes and then the real work began.  Tommy and I sat for hours smashing at boulders hacking off chunks of rock to chip away little by little hoping we would find a gem. This was tough work, but wow it was exciting when you would see a glimmer of white, blue, or green.

On the way down the mountain I took the time to snap a shot of the view of the valley from a clearing. Beautiful. I wish you could tell how steep this is, this is a steep hike!East going down, tough, real tough, going up. We were pretty successful. Here is a look at what we harvested before they were washed. This is what they look like with the dirt washed off. Now I need to take them to have them tumbled and polished.

I am so glad we stayed to do this. Soon, we will pan for gold!

A Ferry Ride

It’s an off and on rain day today, luckily more off than on. We drove to Francois Lake and took a ferry across, with Hooptie, to drive around Ootsa Lake.                 Hooptie was so excited taking a boat ride.                                                                                      This is wilderness at its best. Lakes, snow capped mountains peakes, thick forest and coyotes! and Bulls! Please note he is on our side of the fence. He got out and we weren’t staying for long. Just beautiful. We came back to our campsite to fish a while since we have sunshine.    Beauty at it’s most simplistic best.

Headache

Wow I can’t believe it, it’s…..raining! And I woke up this morning with one of my killer headaches that lays me out for at least a day. So it is a good day to drive to Prince George and then Burns lake. After we set up at Beaver Point Resort, Tommy got busy fishing on this beautiful lake, Tchesinkut Lake, we are camping on.                                                                                                 This pic not taken 6/2 but taken on 6/3.                    He decided he would pretend it wasn’t raining and fish anyway since I was in bed holding my head.

Tommy was happy that Canada loves their hockey so he was able to watch the 3rd game of of the Stanley Cup and Yes the Flyers won 4-3 in OT.

Barkerville, Bear and Moose

With a few hours of sunshine we drove to Barkerville which is like a small Williamsburg but set up around mining for gold. To get there we drove through Quesnel and saw the largest gold pan in the world. At one time Quesnel was a large gold mining town and you can still pan for gold along the rivers edge.

Barkerville is really nice town with people dressed in period attire performing skits on the dirt streets. 

 

 

  These men were doing a demonstration of the new gismo that would lift up 200 lbs of dirt up from the mine with this water wheel using “gripsion” and “sliptivity” to make it easier to mine for gold. 

We were able to tour about 1/2 of the town when the skies opened up again. So it’s back to Cinema we go and luckily the sun came out for a bit. On the way back look what we got to see.  A Moose! with fuzzy antlers. and Bear right on the side of the road! and more bear! Look at the little cub behind it’s mommy.   and some more!   Wow were we lucky. What a treat! 

We are leaving Cinema and going towards Prince George and Burns lake today since the rain came back again. Might as well drive when it is raining and hope for dry time when we get to the next destination.  Thank you to Theresa and Vic for their generosity for allowing us and other campers to stay on their property.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Rain, rain, go away. We have had nearly 2 weeks of rain starting back in Oregon, all through Washington, and now Canada. Since it rained all day we drove and drove, 381 miles to be exact. We saw in the Milepost (a travel guide to Alaska) that their was a free camping place just up the road from where we were in a town called Cinema, Canada at the Cinema 2nd Hand store and campground. This couple, Theresa and Vic, has a nice store that has everything you could want. They would give Walmart a run for its money. They have 5 floors of goods from kitchen supplies, to camping items, to bathroom towels, to furniture, bedding, food, and fireworks, you name it, they have it.   They have a free camping area next to their store and told us that one time they were driving a long distance and needed to stop to sleep for a few hours. The campground charged them the full rate of $28 to just sleep. They did not hook into utilities and would be awake in a few hours and leave before the sun came up. The full fee stayed. This angered them so badly that they decided that on their piece of ground no one would ever have to pay to camp. So they cleared out the area, put up an outhouse for tenters, put in picnic tables, and said it is free to all. Every night they provide a campfire, coffee, and many tall tales.  Their generosity was amazing.

While sitting at the campfire a couple on a motorcycle pulled in, pitched their tent, and came up to  chat. They were from Germany and have been touring the world for three years on this motorcycle. They have a pup tent, 2 sleeping bags, a one burner stove, a 3 piece mess kit, rain gear, a jacket, and 1 extra pair of jeans. Now that’s traveling lite. The only countries they haven’t gone to is Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. They will be going to Africa after they see Alaska and the Eastern part of the US. I asked how much longer will they be traveling? They shrugged their shoulders and said they like living like this and will continue to go to an area and work a few months then travel on. Sounds neat, romantic, courageous, but I would need a few more changes of clothes and mascara!

Canadian Boarder

I don’t know why getting ready to cross into Canada has been a big deal to Tommy and I,  but it has. We don’t have weapons, pepper spray, mace or anything like that. We have made sure we have our price stickers for meat that we will bring into Canada. We are ok on the amount of beer (only 24 cans are allowed in) but we are over on the amount of liquor. Only 1 liter is allowed and we have about 3 liters, so we know we will pay duty on this. We have been fretting the crossing, again, we are not sure why, but we have. We have heard horror stories about peoples RVs been searched and torn apart, being held for hours after inspections etc. We were looking at our maps and it looked like we still had about 5 or so miles to go before the border. So, I peeled our last apple since apples are not allowed in (even though they import apples from Washington State) and before we ate the apple we are at the border. This took us both by surprise, we never saw the last town that we were looking for to fill up with gas. It took us by surprise so much so that I did not even grab the camera to take a picture of the border. We expected more of something, what I don’t know, but something. We pulled up to where the woman was in what appeared to be a toll booth and she asked us for our passports. She asked where were we going and how long would we be in Canada and did we have any firearms or pepper spray, tobacco or liquor. We said no to the firearms and pepper spray, no to tobacco, and told her we had a 30 pack of beer and several open bottles of liquor totally up to about 3 liters. She said ok have fun on your trip and away we went. Didn’t they want to check my meat? What about the refrig? I made sure I didn’t have any of those dreaded apples or potatoes. Nope, just have fun! So here we are in Canada and it’s getting late, about 7:30 pm and we need to find a place for tonight. Wow look ahead of us, Yes! a Walmart! Ahhh feels like home!

Seattle – Day 3

Seattle has so much to offer, you could be here a week and love every minute of it. When touring this town, your days are certainly full from morning to late evening.

Ok a little factoid: there is over 500 Starbucks coffee houses in the 5 mile loop of downtown Seattle and over 900 in the whole city. Now this does not include other coffee houses such at Tulleys, Seattle’s Best (which Starbucks now owns but keeps the Seattle’s Best roast and blends), and other small espresso shops. That floors me. Everywhere you look there is another coffee shop.

The Asian Art Museum was first up after a trip into the Apple store to get help on downloading iTunes. I could not get that downloaded, it kept getting stuck, and after several tries that took 2 1/2 hours each, I said forget it. Apple you do it. And they did, but it took them awhile too.  Sorry back to the Asian museum. Kimonos, some dating back to 1600’s and 1800’s were so beautiful.                                  The sculptures were amazing.             The Argosy Lakes Seattle cruise was up next. I have been looking forward to this cruise on Lake Union and Lake Washington. I wanted to see all the houses on the water on Lake Union. The homes are not on pilings, they rest on cedar logs.   This is the Sleepless in Seattle house,  The house they used on the show the Bachelor. (Jason, the bachelor, did not live in this house even though the show chose to use it because of the Sleepless in Seattle link, but he does live close by). The multimillion dollar houses on Lake Washington, including the 66,000 sq ft home of Bill Gates, were outstanding.This was such a nice cruise with the draw bridges and homes. I could go on this cruise again.     We were lucky to have an opening.      After the cruise we had to jump back on the monorail one more time. Hey for you Grey’s Anatomy fans, this is the building they use for the show. It’s not a hospital though, but we had a great view of the building while we were on the monorail.        We had so much fun here and saw so much more than I can put in this 3 part blog. It would take at least 6 parts to show all the places we went to and I did not even talk about what we saw when we were just walking around.  Thanks again to all of my co-workers at Brandywine Counseling for the wonderful gift to tour this town. I miss you guys!!!!

We will be crossing into Canada tomorrow on our way to Alaska. I don’t know when I will have internet again while we are in Canada. So my posts may be few until we make it into Alaska in about 2 weeks. We have about 2000 miles to drive through Canada to Alaska. I may be pleasantly surprised, I may have internet quite often. If I do, I will post.