Be En-Couraged!: Homeward Bound

.....back to Beautiful British Columbia, the land where all of these Johnson's were born. Just a tad bit excited.

We were awoken by Laars at 5am this morning, asking again for water (I think it is yesterdays pizza that made him so thirsty) and we decided that it was a fine time to get up and packed and on the road. We missed a formal 'Goodbye' to Michelle & David, but fortunately we said "Thank You" several times last night, and were able to leave a note for them. Their kindness was grand and we are grateful for them opening up their home to us. The children enjoyed a fun evening of dress-up and play which gives a great balance to the hours of driving every day. Thanks again, MacLean's. May God bless you for your hospitality.

So, we were on the road by 5:50am, and although the traffic heading into Calgary seemed quite heavy for that time of morning I'm sure it would have just gotten heavier if we had left an hour later. At least it kept moving all the time.

We stopped for breakfast at Burmis,
and while we were getting all our breakfast stuff out onto the picnic table, I guess Anders went down into a ditch area to relieve himself (unknown to me). But then I saw him waddling back to 'camp' looking like this....

I asked him what was the matter. "I dribbled in my underwear!" Oh, how sweet he is!! And so honest, and unashamed.

and once we were all packed up we drove only a few kilometers and discovered the Frank Slide, so we stopped there for a view of the slide and to learn some history.

At 10:35am we crossed over into British Columbia!! Yahoo.

We stopped to fill up our waterbottles at Alexander Creek and the children all said "That water tastes wonderful!" Ahhh, fresh BC mountain water.

We stopped for lunch west of Cranbrook where it was warmer than many of our roadside lunches. Mind you, breakfast was a bit warmer than 'normal' too.

We took a pause in Sparwood to see.......

The World's Largest Truck.

And we were delighted to see the old Overwaitea Foods sign (most have become Save-On-Foods or ????? Price Something-or-other.....I can't recall) And I was able to inform the children of why Overwaitea is called such a name.

The store owner of the first Overwaitea used to sell loose tea by weight, and always gave the customer more tea than they ordered, without charging them for it. Much like how the "baker's dozen" got started. Thus it was Over-weight-tea or Overwaitea. This store, like a couple of others in southern BC have the symbol of a green teapot to go with it. I don't recall seeing that before.

We took a long time to climb and descend from the Kootenay Pass at which the summit was 5757 ft.

With all of the driving we've done in the past 2.5 yrs, across Canada west to east; from Cape Breton to Arizona; Vancouver to Arizona; Arizona to Cape Breton; now Canada east to west......we've only gone thru 2 road checks that we can remember. One in Quebec on our first cross-country trip, and today outside of Salmo, BC. Just checking that driver's license was current.

Everette had a fixing for ice cream, so we stopped at Erie Lake to gobble it up as an afternoon snack. Actually, it's 4pm in BC (time change) so that'll be our supper.

Toveli was asking "Why is the lake creepy?" Everette asked her "Why do you think it's creepy?"
Tov replied, "Mommy said it was creepy!"

Mommy said it was "Erie". It's Erie Lake!!! hahaha (too many mosquitoes for me, though)

We are stopping in Grand Forks with some long-lost friends, Rose and Sid.

I met Rose 30 years ago at our church in White Rock. She's been a great friend to my mama. And Sid was actually married to a cousin of my dad's (then widowed), but I didn't know Sid back in those days. Anyways, they moved to Grand Forks years ago, and we finally got to visit them here.

We went for a wonderful walk, heard the beautiful birds, saw a marmot, and lots of deer. We had great conversation, Laars dug the dirt up for a mile or so, and the tub was left with a dark ring after we got back to Rose's. It was a perfect evening.