This is the most perfect family vacation ever. Well, not ever, but it follows the template.
The boy's come to visit, arrives Sunday night. Late, but not late enough, we're still busy, and he's forced to wait a couple of hours for me to get off work...
Visit, catch up, the next day we take the jeep to the Crystal Bonanza...
Long roads up to the turnoff, long roads up the mountain, a hot, hot drive and day...
And, 12 KM off the dirt road, up the logging road, verily 6 km past the logging road and perched upon the summit, close, close enough, and the radiator blows in cloud of steam and shower of antifreeze.
Sad to say, it wasn't a surprise. This is the template for my summers, ours (the daughter, mine, and the boys) summer misadventures. Lift the hood and wait for the engine to cool.
Meanwhile, I grab my knapsack, hammers, chisels, shovel, water - "We're close enough, we can walk the rest of the way..." I tell him.
"You're on a different planet" he tells me, by way of skeptical disagreement and attempt to dissuade me from continuing on...we've got a whole new set of problems to worry about.
I expect this. It's the "rebellion" phase, like "Mutiny on The Bounty" I'm used to it.
I'm not worried, I've been here a hundred, thousand times before. "Misadventure" should be my middle name. Let's worry about the crystals, then worry about going home...
...a few hours later, we've gathered a few, enough, and (he's visibly relieved, although he was impressed with the quality of the diggings...), and we're turning the jeep around, rolling it in neutral down the mountain, power steering, brakes, a bit harder to use, but it's all downhill and there aren't any tow-trucks that will pick us up here...
...onto the main dirt road, start the jeep, make it up the small hill, then turn it off and use the inertia to carry us down the hill and over the next...
Until finally we reach Trout Lake. A tiny community still 50 KM from cell service. We borrow a landline and call the AMA. BCAA. A two hour wait and a big flatbed loads us onto the back, the friendliest driver in the world, and another 45 minutes (and a lot of prospects spotted from the back of the truck) and we're in Nakusp. I let the boy pretend to drive while we ride, until I get jealous and replace him. We book into the Leland inn, oldest hotel in BC, have a big deep fried dinner on the happiest patio in the world, 100 year old trees grown up through it, right on the lake, a warm autumn evening, He didn't think we'd make it, here, his sack of crystals, spoils, but - adventure first, misadventure second, here we are...
Lelands, oldest hotel in BC (or so they claim), unpretentious in the extreme, nothing here that doesn't fall off the GFS truck right into the deep fryer. A beautiful summers night, on the lake, a bottle of wine, this is it, our family tradition of misadventures, and I can tell, the boy wants to move out here so very bad, and Me, I'm the worst living advert for the Kootenays there ever was....
We ordered the one bottle of wine with a cork, goddamnit!!!
Note the corkscrew..
The boy on the patio...the illusion of normalcy....