Day 9 – Monday, July 9, 2018
Williams Lake, Green Lake Provincial Park, Arrowhead Campground
We bid farewell to Barkerville and its inhabitants this morning, heading west to Quesnel and then turning south on Highway 97 toward warmer climes. As we left it was sunny and warm, again to mock us.
Making good time to Quesnel, we opted to keep going, so I waved at the Quesnel Walmart and all the treasures contained within as we drove by.
At Williams Lake we stopped for gas and I contributed. I’m hoping that my contribution to the gas doesn’t get my debit card flagged since the last time I bought gas was in 1997.
We also did one more round of shopping at the same Save-On Foods, replenishing our supplies with vital snacks and elixirs. As we headed out of Williams Lake I couldn’t help but notice the temperature was now double what it had been at Barkerville. It was weird to step outside and realize it was not actually November.
For lunch we pulled into a small pull-off for tourist trash disposal—a sign actually warns that non-tourists getting rid of their trash will be sent to Garbage Prison or fined millions of dollars. Speaking of signs, there was one of those ugly 1970s signs here that didn’t note anything specific, it just provided a blurb about the Gold Rush Trail. Something to read while dumping your trash, I guess. We had lunch here and at my request it was wieners and beans, a staple from childhood I haven’t had since, well, probably childhood. It was everything I’d remembered, all yummy and warm and sweet. So far no tooting, but no promises. I apparently have beans on my mind, because I also grabbed a can of Bean with Bacon soup, another favorite of mine from when I was a wee lad.
The Save-On also had fresh fudge. FUDGE. I resisted, but now that I have the knowledge it will be hard to keep resisting.
We scouted out a few locations around 70 Mile House to stay for at least the night and settled on Arrowhead Campground in Green Lake Provincial Park. It’s downright tiny compared to the Lowhee Campground, but we are a stone’s throw from the lake. Seriously, I could throw a stone from where I’m sitting and it would hit the lake. The camps are also much closer together, so if I threw the stone left instead I would bean one of the three small girls in the tent next door. To the right I would bean a guy wearing a neon green baseball cap and a pair of plaid shorts. And really, I should, just for his terrible fashion sense.
It’s quite breezy here, and cloudy. Normally this would make you think it was time to don a jacket but it’s still 23ºC and the breeze actually feels nice. As I type this the sun is even starting to poke out. Hello sun, I dimly remember you!
There are still mosquitoes here and a Google review of the park proclaimed them to be “the size of B–52 bombers.” They’re not that big, nor that plentiful, but I’m still dousing myself in Off! to be safe(ish).
Here’s a shot of our site, with wildflowers in the foreground.
Shortly after I took it this small inquisitive bird showed up. I thought it would be spooked and fly away before I could get any decent pics, but it practically posed for them. I swear it followed us down to the beach, where we watched it snap bugs out of the air around both a log and some kid’s collection of sand castles. We actually left before it did.
And here is the inevitable shot of a cinder block, likely having washed ashore from China. You can see the lake in the background, which is big and very full of water.
Tonight we dine on frozen Shepherd’s Pie. Mmm. I should clarify that we are cooking it first, not eating it frozen. After that perhaps a cozy fire that the wind will hopefully not whip into the nearby trees.
UPDATE AT 6:45 P.M.
We have finished the Shepherd’s Pie. Those shepherds know a thing or two about making these things. I can only imagine how delicious Shepherd’s Fudge would be.
Meanwhile, the dial on the wind has been turned up three notches, with whitecaps on the lake and a possible storm sweeping in. Even if it doesn’t rain, you probably want to glue your hat to your head tonight.
UPDATE AT 7:30 P.M.
The lake is now eerily calm, though it looks like it could still get damp. We have decided to go for a bike ride up the road to check out whatever it is people do alongside a lake in the early evening.
As it turns out, some of them are crazy enough to go swimming. A bunch of teens from the Flying U Ranch (the logo is exactly as you’d expect—the letter U with wings on it) were swimming off the dock across from the ranch. They were laughing and seemed in good spirits. Now, you would normally expect swimming in the second week of July to be fine, especially in a shallow lake such as Green Lake, but this July has skewed toward cooler so far, even if you haven’t gone way up north like we did. So I’m assuming the lake was still frigid and they were all drunk.
Speaking of, we stopped in at Little Arrowhead Park, which has some picnic tables and a boat launch. There was one car parked near the launch, but no boat to be seen. Instead there was a young couple frolicking in the water, but upon our arrival (also without a boat, it has to be admitted) the woman began buttoning up her top, and the man began scrambling for his pants, which had somehow gone missing.
We left.
After about 6 km of riding through the bucolic countryside, we opted to turn back, because the alternative would have been something like a 50 km loop around the lake. I don’t know how far it really is, but that seems like a good number.
UPDATE AT 8:30 P.M.
The wind is now whipping the water into a froth again. I can’t figure this lake out. We made a fire and due to the wind it became fully consumed in about three seconds. Then it got too cold anyway because of the wind. Plus it started to rain, which is obviously following us.
But the number of mosquitoes here is vastly reduced. I did not need to wrap myself like a mummy to enjoy the fire before it got too cold.
Still, I yearn for a single day of sun with the temperature above 22ºC. We’ve come oh so close.
(It actually got up to 28ºC today in some of the areas we drove through, though it remained cloudy. It’s actually preferable to sun when driving, so I have no right to complain, except I’ll still be trying to start my tan come November.)
