Another brief update, which may not even be possible because the hotel wifi is flakey.

Saturday was Day 2 so after breakfast we went into the city of Nelson to wander around. Being a group of 10, we ended up splitting up into groups. HouseApes 1.0 and 2.0 went with their girl cousin, who is 20, while the boys clustered together in a rabble of 4 with my sister-in-law in tow to provide funds. We, in the meanwhile,had give HA 3.0 $5 to do with as he liked. So Chris and I ended up wandering by ourselves for an hour or so.

Much of the city is of late Victorian vintage, and somehow time and progress have done less damage here than in other places.  It is a small city (I don’t have a population count handy, but I’d guess maybe 30,000) and there are relatively few modern buildings. I remember being through Nelson in about 1970 or so, and it was down at heels then.

It has revitalized since, and is a thriving artsy/craftsy post-hippie place. The West Kootenays were a favourite destination for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam war, and many of the peace n’ love set that came then settled down to stay, so there is a profusion of arts and crafts and crystal readers and ancient Volkswagens along with a dearth of ball caps and pickup trucks – decidedly refreshing for a BC interior city even if you aren’t into the whole granola/earth mother/moon goddess/chakra scene.

We had lunch at an Indian place called Baba’s and then headed back to the motel for the afternoon, where most of us went to the little beach and swam and lazed in the sun, which drove the afternoon temperature to 34 or so. For dinner we had nachos and salad and something else that I can’t remember.

Day 3 we got all prepped and headed for Kokanee Creek park for lunch. We hauled all the coolers et al for 12 people to the picnic table near the water, only to have the wind pick up and blow straight down the lake. I went in for a swim, but Kootenay Lake is big and stays pretty cold, and the wind was churning up the cold water from below. With the wind, it was a cooling experience. Thunderheads started stacking up over the mountains to the west, so we decided to pack up and head north to Ainsworth Hot Springs.

Along the way we stopped at Coffee Creek where it tumbles under the road. It is recent snow-melt, and is cold and clean. We spent a good 45 minutes there before resuming the trip to the hot springs.

The hot springs resort is smallish and low-key. It had been upgraded in the nearly 35 years since I had last been there, a larger main pool, the hotel completely rebuilt, etc, but the central feature, the cave, was the same. They had added a small cold pool, but it is 55 degrees, no colder than the lake below – a good routine is a trip through the caves, including a few minutes at the source where it is the temperature of very hot bathwater, really only tolerable if you’ve already been immersed in the water on your way in, then an immersion in the cold pool, including your head, and then into the main pool to relax for half an hour before repeating.

The thunderstorms continued through the afternoon, and we had to get out of the pool at regular intervals as a cell passed overhead. When we weren’t standing waiting, we were enjoying being in the hot pool in the rain.

We lounged there for 4 hours and then headed back to Nelson for a late dinner at a place called the Redfish Grille, finishing up and closing that place down at 10:00 on a Sunday night. We left our sculptor waitress a $45 tip, though, so I think she was probably ok with it.

On the way back, we had to stop at the motel to change, and as we were leaving, we stopped for a half hour to watch lightning strikes on the mountain opposite the motel. I, stupidly, didn’t take any photos, but Chris took some. The lightning would hit, and then a scant minute later there’d be a plume of smoke. On some of them, you could see the glow of the tree(s) in flame. The lightning was accompanied by heavy rain, though, and the fires went out within a few minutes.

Pictures and more later, I hope.

Day 1:

Clean frantically, do final tidying. Planned to leave at 9:00, wound up leaving around 9:30.

Drive to the Hope Slide. Children attempt to feed chipmunks in the rocks with marginal success.

Drive to the Manning Park Lodge, stopping at two places in between, the Engineer’s Road and Sumallo Grove. The Engineer’s Road is the remnants of a wagon road constructed through this difficult terrain in the 1860’s. Sumallo Grove is old growth forest with a bridge over (I think) 10 Mile Creek. 10 Mile Creek is very cold – I’d guess, from wading, about 5 degrees.

Lunch at Manning Park Lodge, where our waitress was Sandra, a beautiful young woman with an Irish accent. We all had BLTs except HouseApe 3.0, who had a burger. The Instant Twins had salad with theirs, while Chris and I had mulligatawny soup.

After lunch, the rest of the family fed the very tame prairie gophers that have somehow been imported and made their home around the lodge.

After this, we stopped in Princeton for cold drinks and rolled up the windows. It was 36 in spots – at the top edge of comfortable for me, and getting too warm for all my girls.

We had planned to stay near Oliver, but when we got there, there really wasn’t any place to stay. Many of the motels I remember are gone now, torn down for retirement housing. We went back to Osoyoos, and checked in at the Best Western. The restaurant at the hotel is the Bombay Grill, and I have to say that it is as good as anything in Vancouver. We had an excellent meal there: butter chicken, shahi paneer, vegetable pakoras, vegetable pulao, naan, and roti. After that we walked down to the lake, and then had giant ice cream cones. I had licorice, for the first time in many, many years.

To all my American friends, may you have the 4th of July that you most desire.

You aren’t a young republic any more – somewhere in my lifetime you’ve gone from exuberant youth to sober middle age. And just as it is with youthful people who grow into middle age, you have started to realize that the myths that you created for yourself possess only limited truth.

A nation is more than a collection of stories. There is a great deal about you that is good and strong and true.

Happy Birthday, United States of America.