Bowron Lake to Wells and Willams Lake August 25 2013

Bowron Lake – to Wells and Williams Lake August 25^th   (217 km)

It rained hard all night at Bowron Lake so I packed up and headed out, very thankful that I wasn’t portaging canoes. I drove for 24 super muddy km on the Bowron Lake Park Road before I stopped to take photos in Wells which was established in 1930 as a gold mining town.

The road from Bowron to Wells was not very pretty, not a lot to see and lots of dying trees

The coffee shop I found in Wells downtown was tiny, and there were 4 white haired ladies having a great old chat, and no one paid the slightest attention to my arrival.  I wasn’t sure how to order a coffee, so I sat and listened until there was a momentary pause in who was doing what to whom, and I asked if there was coffee. Sure they said, and all four turned to stare at me. Did I look like a drowned rat? I had to eventually ask, “How do I go about getting a coffee?” “Oh,” one of them said, “I’ll get it for you.” 

They didn’t invite me to join in the conversation at their little round table, so I sat at the remaining table, and was joined by an older fellow who jumpstarted the conversation –asking me where I was from. He responded that he too had lived on Vancouver Island, and although he liked Wells, well enough, he missed the long summers on the island. Then he launched into a detailed account of what was not the same anymore, and needed fixing. I snagged a muffin off the counter during this discourse,and the label on the package said they were from Costco; that’s a pretty efficient way to save dishes and soap. When I was ready to leave, my new friend told me that he had enjoyed our talk so much I didn’t have to pay anything, and that it was his wife that ran the shop. When I asked her how much I owed, she told me it was $3.70.


Where's the Easter Bunny?

I think I could get a good deal on this one.

I like the truck!

After Wells, I was back on the long windy, hilly, 80 km Barkerville Highway back to Quesnel.    I turned South onto the Cariboo Highway, 97S, for the 117km trip to Williams Lake. The road curved along the Fraser River, and there were lots of cattle and hay ranches in the valley. I saw the turn off to the east for Likely and Horsefly, where it all began with the discovery of gold in 1859.

Heading south along the Fraser River

Interesting People
I pulled over at a rest stop to take some photos and while there, talked to a woman who was weed eating around the garbage can. She told me that she is 68 and covers a work territory of 450km so she does a lot of driving on the highway. In winter she drives a snow plow. Before this she drove cement trucks for 18 years and said there wasn’t a lot of ethics in that business but sometimes a woman has to take any kind of job just to survive and pay the bills. She owns a ranch, has four dogs, two cats, and two guns. She has had to shoot bears and really watches out for cougars. Sometimes she said they will hunt in pairs, one going up a tree to attract a dog, and then the other one will come up and grab the dog from behind. Retirement soon? Nah, a few more years left yet.

I reached Williams Lake around 3, and one of the first things to do was to find a big enough car wash to fit my trailer and truck because they were so caked with mud from the lake road. Also, I didn’t know where to camp. I found out at the golden arches that the Williams Lake Stampede Grounds had a campground (Really I don’t go there for the burgers!) 

Once I was set up I saw horses arriving in trailers so I wandered over there and watched several women warming up their horses, some of them smoking while trotting around. I thought that was pretty casual, both my hands would have been wrapped around the reins and ready to grab the pommel. Apparently they are the riders who start the stampede, and they were having a practice session with their coach. Loud sexy western music was broadcast over the arena, and the riders whooshed up the dust as they circled and did their turns. It looked like a lot of fun, and it was pretty amazing to see these brave ladies so at ease on these powerful horses.

I found a good place for dinner – fantastic pizza from the Red Tomato.  Nothing like pizza to follow up on a burger!