Monday May 13 Sunny & warm Nelson, BC
The first order of business this morning, apart from breaking camp, was getting to a tire shop to attend to a nail in one of Ali's tires. I don't know how long it has been there, but better to get it repaired than leave it. I noticed it when we pulled into the park in Castlegar. The tire pressure didn't vary over the week, so it wasn't leaking.
Long story short, Kal Tire in Castlegar was too busy so we drove on to Nelson. Both tire shops there were busy too so we headed to our final destination—Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. I'll deal with the tire later.
Nelson is a really neat little town nestled on the hillside above Kootenay lake. On the drive out to the campground from Nelson, we kept a lookout for a place to pull off and have a coffee, and, we eventually found the only one.
Ali was right behind us so I decided to use the fender to take a picture of what we were looking at. I set my phone's timer and shot this. Argh!!
It appears I haven't yet learned the trick to activate the timer. But after muttering a few choice words, I got the picture I wanted.
I texted our travelling companion Garnett and just as we were finishing our coffee break, he and Rosie pulled in behind us.
After chatting for a few minutes, we packed up and drove the couple of kilometres to Kokanee Creek Provincial Park.
Together we toured the open campsites most of which had "Reserved" on them. We eventually tracked down a Park Operator. We booked into site 33 (Garnett) and 35 (us). We were a short walk away from the shower building. Both sites were unserviced which was fine with us as long as the weather stayed nice.
When we passed through Nelson earlier, I had called OK Tire to see how busy they were. Lee, the fellow I spoke to, reminded me how I could removed the tire myself. I had forgotten the trick as I had never had to change a trailer tire before. All I had to do was raise the front tire enough so that, because of how the two axles are connected, the rear tire would come off the ground enough to let me remove the tire. And it worked. Good to know!
I put the spare tire on and even though it was mid-afternoon, took the tire to OK Tire in Nelson.
Jen and I did a walkabout and found a nice coffee shop—Sidewinders—where we enjoyed tea and a Cheesecake Brownie. Mmmmmmm, absolutely scrumptious!!
Before we'd finished our visit to Sidewinders, OK Tire called to say the tire was ready.
Back at camp, I swapped the spare for the repaired tire and called it a day.
A short walk to the lake after dinner and I was done for the day. I was tired.
I think tomorrow will be a day of rest.
See you next time.
