Day of mixed opinions

Day 57

8/16/26 Sunday

Mountain bike ride. Let’s start today with a mountain bike ride….attempt anyway. Started, stopped. Chose a trail that’s better suited to hiking. Reroute to an easier trail on the lake. That was good but too short. Did this same start/stop a couple times. The truth is…I wasn’t interested in really mountain biking anything challenging, narrow, rocky and leading to more bike walking than riding. There are suppose to be some great trails but I wasnt feeling the ambition to seek them out. Jim was looking for something to do for a couple of hours without driving. It was kind of a bust but we were out for a couple of hours! The start of mixed opinions.

Terrain. On the highway by 10am and headed to Prince George BC and beyond south toward Vancouver. We’ve said goodbye to steep rising mountain peaks and now it’s rolling hills with forests and farm fields… a gentle landscape. Farms, barns and rolled hay bales. I should mention lakes… there are lakes all along the way.

Prince George. Population 95,000. We skimmed the edge of Prince George but it has highways intersecting north/south and east/west. It is a major stop for travelers and commerce. North is Dawson Creek (start of the Alaska Highway), east is Jasper and Edmonton, south is Vancouver and west is where we came from. Also important to Prince George is the huge Fraser River which goes out to sea in Vancouver. It’s a thriving community in this province. Very hilly town. You drop way down into the river and then climb back up the other side.

Cariboo country. We are now traveling in what they call Cariboo country. It represents an area of British Columbia with vast forests, lakes and 1860’s gold mining. It extends from the Fraser River to the Cariboo Mountains in central interior BC.  We are starting to see more population and traffic toward Vancouver. The lakes are more popular for vacation homes along the shorelines. It’s a sunny warm Sunday and people are on the water today. All kinds of floatable watercraft.

Mile House towns. In this area of Cariboo country there are towns with names like 150 Mile House and 100 Mile House. They are named for the roadhouses along the Cariboo Wagon Road in the 1860’s gold rush days. These were stops for lodging, meals and changing horses along the way. 

We stopped in Williams Lake to figure out where to camp tonight. It was about 5pm so Jim was ready to quit driving pretty soon. We found a provincial park along the highway at Lac La Heche. After a bit of “mixed opinions” on campsite choice we found one on the top end furthest from the highway and quieter.

Some days you just don’t want to. Today was one of those for me. I only took one photo. But all’s well. Tomorrow I’ll be more agreeable…maybe🤣.