Oct 6-13 - Doug's Trip to 100 Mile House
One of our annual stops since we started travelling has been to visit my old chum Colin and his wife Mary who live just outside of 100 Mile House in the Cariboo (central BC).
As it turns out, thanks to Covid, we haven't seen these guys since April 2019!
Jen can't handle a quick trip, so I'm heading up for a visit by myself.
I left Comox at 0330 and headed for the BC Ferry terminal at Nanaimo. BCF put me right at the front of the ferry - probably as a result of arriving at the terminal BEFORE it even opened at 0500!
I watched with much trepidation as we approached the Horseshoe Bay terminal.
The ferry will turn left after passing the point of land; Horseshoe Bay is somewhere in that dark area - oh joy!
On the brighter side, here's a not-too-great closer picture of the Vancouver skyline
On my return trip to the Island, I knew I did not want to drive down the Duffy Lake road (I did that back in '96 and never again!). So I headed south on Hwy 97 to Hope then west on Hwy 1 to West Vancouver. I had arranged to overnight at my friend Ross's place. We went out for dinner to Trolls in Horseshoe Bay.
The next morning I took the ferry to Nanaimo (which was about 2 hours late due to an "incident") and arrived back at Cape Lazo around 4 p.m.
A good trip to see and help out an old friend - priceless!
Just in case you are interested, here are a couple of maps of the route to and from 100 Mile - 578 kms one way.
Here's the dynamic duo. Amazing that we have known each other since before we were teenagers!
After a ½ hour rest stop, I got back behind the wheel. I arrived in 100 Mile House just after 4 p.m. and hit the gas station. I'd filled up in Courtenay on my way to the ferry. I'd made it all the way on 1 tank of gas - about 22 mpg!! For Alfie, at about 7,000 lbs, I didn't figure that was too bad.
Colin's sister, Janet, visited a couple of days later. Mary had a doc's appointment in the Okanagan Valley and Jan had volunteered to drive Mary there - it was girl's trip. That left Colin & I to entertain ourselves.
Well, I knew CJ had a list of things he wanted to get done. He had mentioned trimming out one window - turns out there were 4 of them. It was cool overnight (elevation ~3200') so we waited for the sun to warm things and then set about finishing the windows. Took us a couple of days but we got it done and Colin was impressed at how nice the windows and house looked.
The weather was the pits, even a small hail storm just leaving Horseshoe Bay! I made it to Squamish and had a kip for about 1½ hours.
I continued north on Hwy 99 through Whistler, Pemberton and up the Duffy Lake road (steep uphill climb). I arrived in Lillooet about 1:30 p.m. and made myself a cuppa by the side of the road, in the sunshine.
