Thurs July 3, 2008

Thursday, July 3, 2008
Day #37
This is Ila writing tonight. We left Williams Lake BC this morning and headed toward Vancouver on Hwy 97. Near Cache Creek, we decided to go on the Sea to Sky/Sky to Sea highway. That was a most beautiful drive. The Fraser River runs down deep in the canyon. We saw many, many spruce trees that are dead. There is a beetle that attacks the spruce tree and it seems to be prevalent from Arizona to Alaska. If you want to read more about that, I will simply tell you to check out Google.

At a town called Lillooet, we decided to take another highway and head back down to the main road we left when we began the Sky to Sea journey. While driving through this canyon, we saw several places where they were irrigating hay fields. There were beautiful farms nestled on both sides of the river. Also along this highway, we came to a place that had growing plots that were covered with a type of black covering. We discovered these were Ginseng gardens.

Also while on this highway, we came across a rock processing plant. It appeared to be processing a lot of rock. They had what looked to be terraces a long way up the side of one of the mountains and we could see them driving up higher than the equipment that was doing the process work. We also came across a couple of deer. They didn’t appear to be too old but decided they were both male because both had the beginning of a rack of antlers. The antlers looked so soft and velvety. They were standing on opposite sides of the road and we got pictures of both of them. They didn’t seem too frightened by three ole ladies! We also caught sight of a little grizzly bear but by the time we turned around and got back to where we saw him, he was gone or we couldn’t find him.

We also came across the Rocky Mountaineer train running through this valley. We sat at the crossing and waved at the people on the train. We stopped at Hell’s Gate and saw the tram come across the valley but we weren’t interested in riding it so went on our way. In getting back to the highway leading into Vancouver, we passed through several tunnels. They were all very nice and well lighted. It rained on us probably more today than any other day. The clouds were drifting in and around the mountains, which made for a beautiful scene. Some of the places along the canyon road were very narrow and at least two of them had “no stopping” places because of the danger of rock slides. At one point, we had to stop to let a pickup go past before we could proceed.

After reaching Hope, BC, we pretty much had what I would call an interstate highway. We are in Langley, which is a suburb of Vancouver. We’ve had a nice supper and are in our room for the night. It is a somewhat “snug” room but we will manage. We get spoiled by a big one with queen beds and plenty of space and then we get one that isn’t so “great” and we have to learn all over again that we need to be more picky!