Doing some site visits this week. That’s the upside.
The downside is that the motorhomes have started to arrive. So the out-of-province drivers are busy turkey-necking at the scenery, or freaking out on the narrow winding secondary roads.
To keep from getting overly frustrated, and to break things up, I stopped fairly regularly to take a few photos and stretch my legs.
The first stop was above Lillooet, which is a good place to stretch, have a drink of water and a snack, and marvel and the Mighty Muddy Fraser. There is a stretch of hot weather starting, and Lillooet is one of those parts of BC that is typically the inside of a furnace when the heat arrives.
That heat building across the province is melting the snow and raising river levels. It’s also starting fires in places. So while parts of south-central BC flood, the northeast is burning. Through this area the grasses are crisp and the ground is already baked; it feels more like August today.
Lillooet to Hat Creek is not a stretch I’ve driven many times, and I had two motives for coming through this way today. First, I was trying to avoid Cache Creek. Second, I was curious how rough the Duffey Lake Road was after the slides of two years ago…I wondered if it had been patched up.
Not so much.
BC has some of the most amazing and varied landscapes and every time I drive I see new things, even in areas I’ve driven many times.
Along the side of the road, in a few places, were swaths of bright yellow clumps of flowers. Each clump had some many big bright daisy-type flowers that they looked like bouquets. I don’t often come through here this early in the year, so I also don’t often see the spring wildflowers. These were new to me.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there used to be a statue of a sidehill gouger at this spot, next to that waterwheel. And in my archives, is a black and white photo, of me, at about age four or so, standing next to that sidehill gouger. This place was a funny little museum of oddities and curiosities…I also recalla to-headed snake and a two-headed calf in the buildings behind.
And on the last stretch of highway before I called it a day offered up some horses in a flooded field, acting more like some moose as hey pulled at submerged grasses.
