Houston and Smithers, day 4-9

From Burns Lake we drove out to where I grew up in Houston-a farm near the base of China Nose mountain. I lived there until I was 13. The area had recently gotten a fair bit of rain and cold weather and I didn't quite make it all the way up the driveway. 

This was the log cabin with the very low ceiling we lived in for a year or so when we first moved there while the larger house was being finished. 

It used to have a yard and a porch and an outhouse across the road but that is all gone now. I do have this one photo with me of when we were living in it though.

All the fences are now gone so the new owner's cows can graze everywhere which makes a bit of a mess but Shawn and I really enjoyed looking at everything. Joshua seemed really excited about the cows but when we took him up close he got scared and was finished with being there. We were going to camp nearby closer to China Nose mountain but It looked like it was going to pour rain, so we went to my cousin Karl's place on the other side of Houston and spent the next 3 nights there which was really nice, especially since the next 2 mornings ended up being around +1c (34f). 

Saturday was a day of visiting. First we went to meet the Dawgstrip guys and their new chevy van the bumblebee.

After that we went to Toply to meet Orrin Lieuwen, someone I went to school with in Houston. It was great to be able to talk with him about the work he has done in Papua New Guinea and India. He showed us a bow and arrows he brought back and Shawn got to try out a fancy necklace.

We had a very good but short visit with his family as they had to leave and then we went to visit another classmate of mine- Olinda Weller. After a nice visit with her and her husband we toured around Houston and got some photos beside the world's largest fly fishing rod and some other attractions. Then there was a large family supper to celebrate my uncle and aunt's 40th anniversary. 

On Sunday we had a relaxing day going to church and visiting people.

Monday morning I discovered all our ice jars were broken: we had decided to keep the ice for our coolers in mason jars because they seal nicely. At my cousins place we put them all in the freezer to refreeze the water and all the jars broke... Karl and Krista were very nice and replaced our jars and took all our broken glass so we didn't have to drive around with it. After we left their place I tried to wash all the mud and poop off the car and trailer and ran into another classmate of mine- Evan Delege- where I was washing it. It was great to chat with him again: its been 15 years since I have seen most of these people. I went back to the school I attended to quickly visit a few of my teachers who are still there and then we headed out west again. Stopped at Nathan Dieleman's place- another classmate of mine and then we started on visiting Julie's friends and relatives. She was friends with the Cresswells in Telkwa so we stopped there and had a good visit with them and saw their dogs.

We left their place and went to Julie's cousins the Doorenbos' in Smithers. They very nicely fed us supper, let us do our laundry and shower at their house! 

Tuesday morning we decided we had better sew the zipper into our trailer before the mosquitoes and blackflies get too bad. That ended up taking the majority of the day so when that was finally done we went to Julie's cousins the VanAssen's place for supper and had a good visit with them. 

On Wednesday morning we went to the animal shelter that Julie's friend Edelle Creswell works at and had a look around. That was pretty neat to see but I actually didn't take any photos, too busy talking I suppose. 

After we said goodbye there we had a quick look at where Julie used to live and then visited the Bulkley Valley Museum. The museum had a nice little display of the first nuclear accident that the USA had. Their plane which was carrying a bomb caught fire so they detonated the bomb over the ocean and most of the crew jumped out. It took 4 yrs to find the plane and destroy it, because instead of going down where they thought it would in the ocean, it turned completely around and went all the way out north of Smithers which is a couple hundred miles northeast of where they figured it should have crashed. They had a gun from the plane on display which I somehow did not get a picture of...

Next we went to the airport to see a grizzly that is somewhat locally famous for how much livestock it killed. 

There was also a steelhead that is nearly as big as Shawn....

We went to hike what is called the Twin Falls but an avalanche fell over the trail pretty recently, and the avalanche snow hadn't melted yet so we couldn't finish the hike. It was still nice though!

Back in Smithers I did some grocery shopping while Julie did some clothes shopping which Edelle kindly helped her with. It can be hard to find things in unfamiliar towns. 

After a birthday party of a relative of Julie's, I pulled out half my stitches and we planned our next few days. Its been great the last week visiting old friends and family we haven't seen in ages and being able to just stay at people houses without having move our camp every night. My fingers are starting to heal which is nice. This blog is harder to do than i thought it would be. It takes a fair bit of time and i have a hard time trying to keep it short and not upload too many photos. I hope its not too long winded for people. Anyway, we are heading west again tomorrow!