~Summer Road Trip with Friends!~

This past weekend, Sept long, we jumped in a truck with our friends, Trudy and Wes Dombroskie and headed off North.  Our destination?  Liard River Hot Springs and anything in-between!

It was a lot of driving to get there, we went the first day to Fort Nelson and that was our main base for the weekend.  We got in early in the evening and went for dinner and then called it an early night.  The next morning after a fantastic free continental breakfast we hit the Alaska Highway and went further North than any of us had every been before! 

Right out of Fort Nelson the scenery turned to gorgeous foothills and then eventually mountains.  It took us almost 4 hours to reach the hot springs but we were stopping all the time!  We saw lots of wildlife on the trip: elk, goats, bears, a fox, ravens, and an owl.  We were hoping the see a grizzly but that didn’t pan out, we saw 2 black bears instead. 

All in all we had a great time and the springs were very nice, not at all commercialized like in Radium or Miette.  Still natural and not concrete!

Here are some pictures from the trip!  These ones were taken right outside of Fort Nelson, maybe 50kms away.

Road trip VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

I was so excited that we got to stop at Muncho Lake!  I had heard that it was gorgeous there and I was not let down.  The water is jade green from the stone below leaching I think copper into it.  It was so clear, clean and just as gorgeous green as you see in the pictures!

Muncho Lake, BC VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

Liard River Hot Springs.  It is a short 5 min walk through the woods to get to the springs but as you can see it is as natural as you can get!  The only man made stuff are the walkways and a small waterfall you can see in the top right picture that also dams the hot springs to the top pool.  There are 3 separate pools to these springs but you can only go into these two.  The other one is apparently 34 feet deep and upwards of 70 degrees Celsius! I’m pretty sure I’m okay with not jumping in there!

Randy did the “Rite of passage” at the springs though.  He was told about it by some guys at work.  Apparently you take a small rock from near the man made waterfall and walk it to the other end and see if you can make it all the way to the end to place the rock on the ledge above the hot spring itself.  Well he did it!  He said the last couple of steps felt like boiling water pouring on his legs though!  I couldn’t go in them as much as I wanted since I was pregnant and had to be careful so I stuck to the lower pool where the river starts and the water is like bath water temperature.  It is so amazing that these sorts of things exist!

Liard River Hot Springs VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

		The Wildlife VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It was a fun trip, something I can see us doing again!  We talked about some possibilities for the next trip but nothing solid of course.  Randy and I will be grounded at home for most of next year with our new little one so sneaking off without kids will prove to be a bit more difficult!

~Summer Vacation at the Lake, Week 2 and onwards~

Week 2 at the lake was very laid back.  It was just Ethan and I from Tuesday to Friday hanging out until Randy came up for the weekend.  We mostly just played at the park, read books and played trains and enjoyed some peace and quiet.  I read something like 7 books on this vacation, it was AWESOME!!!

When we were home in GP for the weekend I picked up a little hibachi BBQ for the RV since our main one was missing parts that I couldn’t buy.  Of course it came unassembled…well armed with a butter knife and determination to have BBQ I assembled it myself on one of our first days back to camp.  I was so proud of myself, LOL!

Assembling the BBQ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We came up every weekend for the rest of July and for our last night at the lake we were invited to a HUGE beach BBQ party down at our beach.  We were thrilled to be included!  It was an early celebration of the camp owner, Harold’s birthday.  They had slow cooked a giant prime rib all day and also had lamb chops and pork chops and tonnes of salads and sides.  Of course I was suffering from the worst case of pregnancy related I HATE ALL RED MEAT ever so I didn’t join in on the food.  The best part of the whole night for me was that Ethan made a fast friend, Ben, and they played ALL night!  I literally mean ALL night!  We had to pry them apart at midnight to go to bed.  The next morning they both were up for 8am and itching to play again…it was so cute!  They posed for some pictures for me, check out how cute they are!

		Ethan & Ben VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Randy and Harold also posed for some pictures!  Harold was our host for the whole month and is the owner of the the Marina.

This was a great summer vacation for our family.  Admittedly it was a bit hectic to go there every single weekend and I sure missed just being home but it forced us to go out and enjoy the summer and our family and not just sit around the house.  Or worse yet, renovate all summer!  Will we do it again next summer?  We’re not sure yet, if we do it won’t be to go ever single weekend, that was a bit much and quite exhausting.  We really liked the lake and the people, no question to that!  So we will see, life will be busier next year with a new little one joining the family in January…

I do know that I could get used to watching my little man and his soon to be sibling grow up from this view:

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~

What a wonderful vacation we had this summer!  We made it to the LAKE!  We enjoyed a great visit with my best friend of almost 20 years, Melissa and her son Caleb for the first week.  It was a busy, active week and we crammed in a lot of activities.

We got to the campground on the Sunday night and got all settled in and had a campfire.  On Monday we went into the nearby town of Chetwynd and checked out the visitor centre, wood carvings and had lunch from a food truck called “Everybody Loves Raymond”.  The remainder of our day was filled with walking around the lake, playing at the park and relaxing at the campsite.

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On Tuesday we headed to Tumbler Ridge, the place of dinosaurs and waterfalls!  We ended up doing a 2km hike in the rain to see the dinosaur tracks…it was not fun for pregnant, out of shape me.  Ethan looked so cute putting his hands into the dinosaur prints in the creek bed!

Dinosaur tracks VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We stopped at Gwillim Lake on our way back to our lake…it was really nice and we took some pictures with the kids there.

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Melissa and the boys had evenings of playing catch while we were there.  We had stopped at Value Village in Grande Prairie before heading out and bought a ball glove for Melissa so she could play with Caleb.  While we were there I found one almost the perfect size for Ethan so I grabbed it for him.  Apparently my son is a natural at playing catch.  To my knowledge he has never worn a ball glove before.  He put it on and knew what to do like he was on old pro though!  These pictures don’t do justice to how cute he was playing catch with them!

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On Wednesday we headed to the WAC Bennett Dam.  Randy, Ethan and I had been the year before so we knew what to expect.  However we heard that the spillway was open and were so excited to see that!  It has only been open 9 times in the last almost 50 years and we were going to get to see it!  I was so excited!

WAC Bennett Dam VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The Spillway VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It’s hard to grasp how big that spill waterfall is from the pictures…it was enormous!  We ended up coming back up the following weekend to the dam with Randy just so he could see it…it truly was something to remember!

The week with Melissa and Caleb drew to a close on Thursday when they left to spend the night at our house in GP.  Caleb had to be in St Paul, AB on Friday for provincial soccer tournaments.  They decided to break their trip up as it was a long drive there.

After they left Ethan and I didn’t have a vehicle to tour anywhere…which I was very happy about!  I was tired out from all the running and just wanted to relax at the campsite.  So Ethan and I played in the lake, went to the play park, relaxed at the RV and just generally chilled out.  Randy came up on the weekend to join us and our friends Trudy, Wes and their daughter Sydney came on Saturday with Trudy’s parents. 

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On Sunday we headed home for Grande Prairie as we had to take Randy back to work on Monday.  We went via the Dam and through Fort St John so we could stop for some Vietnamese food at our favourite restaurant there.  It’s a beautiful drive with some very scenic river views on the way to Fort St John.  These pictures are from one of our favourite look out spots on the drive.  The day was kind of hazy but you get the idea…the canola crops are bright yellow and there are fields of wildflowers everywhere!

~Summer Vacation 2012–Week 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Ethan and I stayed in Grande Prairie until Tuesday before heading back to the lake.  We relaxed on our last week…other than going to the pool we stayed close to the campsite and just played and read books.  I was happy to have read like 9 books in the two weeks!

Keep posted for Part 2 of our Vacation!

~Headed to the Lake!~

We’re so excited to finally realize a family dream…spending some serious time at a gorgeous lake in the summer!  As you can see there are a great deal of lakes in this area.  We are staying right in the middle of this map at Moberly Lake.  It’s the only lake I found that had camping with services and that was something I definitely wanted.  Since we don’t have our own truck to enable us to pull our RV off for water and sewer I wanted a place where it would be there for us.  We found only the one campground that was right on a lake…Moberly Marina and Lake resort.  We booked a stall for the whole month of July.  Ethan and I are spending the first two weeks of July there with Randy coming up on the weekends.  My friend Melissa and her son Caleb are joining us for the first week and there’s a couple of others who plan on dropping in for a weekend or day visit.  Then for the rest of July Randy and I are taking Ethan up every weekend.  We had planned on leaving it there for August as well but in the end we have so many things taking up that month that we decided to just do the one month this year.

The lake is beautiful, large a clean, right in the foothills with beautiful vistas! 

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There is swimming, fishing, canoeing, and two kids Christian camps at this lake.  The large provincial park that is adjacent to the campground we are staying at has a great playground for kids as well.  We can walk right from our stall to the park in no time.  In Hudson’s Hope there is the WAC Bennett dam where you can take a interpretive tour underground to see how the dam works and how it was built.  We did it last year but I will likely see if our guests want to check it out while they are visiting.  In Chetwynd there is a huge leisure centre with a pool and waterslides…I’m keeping it in mind in case we experience lots of rain. 

This is the view from the campground that we will be staying at for the month of July!  As is the picture below.  There are only around 12 stalls in the campground so it won’t be a loud, busy place.  The owner tells me that there are about 3-4 families that come for the season, we’re anxious to get to know them because we hope to join them year over year if it all goes good.

I’ve got lots to do to get the RV ready to go for the trip.  We just got it back from the dealership where it had a massive maintenance overhaul.  So it is ready to go mechanically but apparently the winter storage was not kind to it and it’s filthy dirty.  So this week before we head off will be full of deep cleaning and prepping.  It’s been a long time since I’ve used the RV, the last time was when we were living in it and that ended in 2006.  So 6 years…WOW.  So for obvious reasons I’m very excited about using it…but nervous about forgetting something, LOL!  Good thing there are towns close by.

Ethan is getting excited and keeps asking me what we are going to do there.  I keep telling him we are going to play…I can’t wait for him to experience it!  I can’t wait to relax and unplug.  No laptops coming on this trip.  The Ipad is coming but only because I have all the books I want to read on my Kobo.  Otherwise we are bringing Ethans’ train table and some trains and cars, books, card games, board games, playdough, our inflatable boat, swim stuff and good shoes to go walking in!  That will cover off sunny days, rainy days, and lazy days!

So keep posted, there will be some epic posts about this summer vacation coming up in the next month!  If you want to come visit, it’s stall number 8 at the Marina!  Happy summer everyone, hope you enjoy it as much as we plan to!