Clearwater and Revelstoke

“Everything is so expensive!”, I thought to myself reading the menu at Tim Horton’s, taking a lunch break in Kamloops on our long drive from Vancouver to Clearwater. After paying the cashier, the Capitol One app on my phone dinged in acknowledgement of the purchase. 

While the register receipt said that lunch had cost $23.55, Capitol One had charged my card $17.44, because of the exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars. I guess that’s why I spend more than I expect in Europe; everything looks cheaper because the dollar-euro exchange rate goes in the opposite direction. In Canada, everything looks more expensive, so I spend less.

Leaving Vancouver on Monday morning, we headed east on the Trans Canadian Highway 1, turning north at Kamloops on the Southern Yellowhead Highway 5 towards Clearwater, a town at the southern boundary of the Wells Gray regional park.

In Clearwater we stayed at the Hotel Civilia Lakeside, overlooking Dutch Lake. Our rooms had a kitchen, bathroom and separate bedroom which looked out over the lake (or, at least a sliver of the lake). Still, it was peaceful. Kathy and I sat in chairs, out on the patio, reading our books and enjoying the scenery, and the clouds which sprinkled a little.

This far north, the sun doesn’t set until about 8:45 PM, so after dinner we decided to go for a ride, down to the lake, and around the neighborhood. At the Dutch Lake park, we walked out on a pontoon dock, where two young girls were swimming. I wanted to take a picture from the dock, but it was really unsteady, so I abandoned that idea in favor of making it back to solid land.

After our walk on the lake, we drove around the neighborhoods surrounding the lake. When the street we were on dead-ended, a helpful lady walking down the street asked if we were lost. We said we were just looking around, and she started telling us about interesting things we could see in the immediate area, such as Spahats Creek Falls. It was only about 20 minutes away, and it was only 7:45, so we took off on the completely deserted road.

There were only three other cars in the large parking lot when we got there. The path through the dense forest was short and a little unnerving. When you reached the cliffs, protected with a fence, you can see the falls immediately. About a hundred yards along the cliff there is a viewing platform where you can get a better look.

According to the Wikipedia article I’ve linked above, the main fall is 60 meters high (196 feet), but that the addition of the secondary falls gives it a height of 90 meters, or 295 feet. By contrast, Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls is only about 57 meters high. It’s frustrating to try to get a photograph to give a real sense of how high the cliffs are and how powerful the water was. Even on the fenced-in viewing platform, I was nervous walking to the railing.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had reservations in Jasper National Park, which we had to cancel after the devastating fire that destroyed more than half of the town and closed down the park. Because of that, we made last minute reservations in Revelstoke (near the Mount Revelstoke National Park) and in Golden (near Yoho National Park).

We had breakfast at the Hungry Hiker Cafe in Clearwater. After breakfast, I talked to the waitress and she said that the business in the whole community has just about disappeared. Clearwater is on one of the main two roads to Jasper, and since Jasper is closed, only the locals (and tourists like us who didn’t cancel our reservations) are coming to eat.

Backtracking south to Kamloops once again, we got back on the Trans Canada Highway, and headed for Revelstoke. We got there around 4PM and checked into our B&B, The Courthouse Inn, right across the street from, you guessed it, the courthouse. The town of Revelstoke grew up around the Trans-Canadian Railroad. There is even a tourist attraction right out of town where the final spike was driven. Today, it’s a recreation mecca, with the National Park right next door.

Even though it was only a little after 4PM, we were pretty hungry, having skipped lunch. The two recommended restaurants in my guidebook didn’t open until 5PM, so we relied on the recommendations on Google Maps and had dinner at Paramjit’s Kitchen, which specializes in Indian, German, and Thai food. I had chicken schnitzel, and Kathy had Pad Thai. Kathy liked hers, but my schnitzel was just OK. 

Tomorrow morning, we’re going to try to get going by 9AM, and drive the Meadows in the Sky Parkway in Mount Revelstoke National Park. Hope to have some better pictures then.

On to Vancouver BC

On Saturday we finally made it to Canada. In Portland we stayed at the Hampton Inn, had a nice breakfast, and were over the river into Washington State before 9 AM. At Kelso Washington, we stopped at Safeway for some supplies: sparkling water, trail mix, and turkey jerky. While I’m sure that we could find all of these in Vancouver, we weren’t taking any chances.

Back on the road, we made a call to David and Debbie Grisanti, to see how Debbie was doing after her knee surgery, and to touch base with them since we wouldn’t be stopping in Seattle. We talked together for more than half an hour, and had a wonderful time of fellowship. However. David couldn’t help bringing up (again) the fact that when David di Sabatino interviewed us for his 2003 book, The Jesus People Movement, he mistakenly attributed David’s famous “carrot story” to me.

When I was planning this trip, I used Google Maps extensively, making sure that we never travelled more than 6 hours a day. After the first three days, I realized that Google Maps was excessively optimistic when it came to travel time, even ignoring rest stops and meal breaks, Friday was no exception. According to Google, it should have taken us roughly five hours to travel from Portland to Vancouver. Instead, it took us a little more than eight.

Of course, at least an hour and a half of that was because we stopped to get gas in Edmonds, Washington, and ended up at the Rick Steve’s Europe headquarters and store, where Kathy got a new backpack and coin purse. I also got a chance to look at all of the different models of travel luggage. It’s one thing to look at it on the Web, but an entirely different thing to touch and feel them. We left without buying any new luggage. We did pick some more blackberries, though.

From Edmonds to the Canadian border reminded me of rush hour in LA—slow moving, bumper-to-bumper, with occasional complete stops. One of these was caused by a stalled car on the freeway, but most of them were just unexplained. Perhaps it had something to do with it being a Saturday?

Crossing the border was easy. We needed our passports of course, but the questions were pretty cursory. We probably looked pretty harmless. Of course, if they actually did do any in-depth interviews, the traffic would probably back up even further. As it was, there were six or seven lanes open, and we only had about a ten-minute wait in line.

Once across the border, we immediately knew we were in a foreign country. On the USA side, the speed limit was 65 miles-per-hour. Once across the border, it went to 50 kilometers-per-hour. Kathy was driving (since I had sort of fallen asleep while driving about an hour earlier), and both of us were trying to figure out exactly what that meant, since our Subaru didn’t have a kilometer ring on the speedometer. Fortunately, after a mile or two, the car popped up a little notification, automatically converting the KPH to MPH.

We got to our hotel (the Burnaby Best Western) at 5:30, got checked in, and went looking for dinner. Our son Judah, and his wife Mari Kristin (MK) lived in Vancouver a few years ago and before we left, she stopped by and told us that we needed to try two things: Ukrainian pierogi and poutine. I Googled pierogi and found a highly-rated Ukrainian bakery and restaurant, the Kozak Ukrainian Eatery, only a few miles away.

Remembering how much she loved them when we visited Poland, Kathy went with the lamb and cilantro pierogi, while I want to try something a little more adventurous. I ordered Mama’s Combo, and added a bowl of goulash as well. The goulash was as good as it looks: rich, spicy, and meaty. Delicious.

In addition to the goulash, the combo included some pierogi, a kolbassa sausage, and a cabbage roll. Neither Kathy, nor I were that impressed with the pierogi. Perhaps the Ukrainian and Polish ones are different. However, the cabbage roll and the sausage were just great.

Next morning was our full day in Vancouver. Our plan was to take the Sky Train (Vancouver’s light-rail system) downtown and, to perhaps bike around the sea wall at Stanley Park. After breakfast at the hotel, we walked the six blocks to the Royal Oak station on the Expo line and purchased two day passes ($11CA each). A few minutes later, the train came and we set off for downtown.

When we reached the end of the line (Waterfront Station) we saw that the Sea Bus was leaving for Lonsdale Quay on the other side of the harbor. Hoping to get the most out of our day pass, get a free harbor tour, and see a different part of Vancouver, we hopped on. 

Lonsdale Quay was fun. My guidebook calls it a “miniature Granville Island public market”. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on that. We browsed, I had some gelato, and took some pictures of Phoenix Toys and Phoenix Books. (One of our granddaughters’ name is Phoenix.)

By now it was getting close to noon. We knew if we wanted to ride bikes, we’d better get over to the park, so we got back on the Sea Bus and headed back to Waterfront Station and Canada Place. It turns out that even though on the map everything looks very close together, it’s really not. Our guidebook says that Vancouver is “eminently walkable”. I guess it is, if you like walking long, long distances. I do not, so we went looking for Bus 19 which goes to the center of Stanley Park.

By this time, it was pretty hot, and I was pretty tired. Instead of an early afternoon bike ride, we looked into a horse-drawn trolley tour that circled the park. On hearing that it cost $75 per person, though, we settled for an amble around the park. We sat down on a bench overlooking Lost Lagoon, and a stork flew up and landed in the branches just over our head. I tried to get a picture of it, but couldn’t.

By two, even ambling was a little taxing and so we caught the bus, and then the Sky Train back to our hotel. Since we hadn’t eaten yet, we took the car to go get some poutine. According to MK, the best poutine is at the Costco Food court. For those of you who don’t know, poutine is French fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Kathy liked it, but I just couldn’t get into it, so I got a slice of pizza instead, and, on the way home, some Chinese food. I guess I’m just not that adventurous.

Tomorrow morning we’re leaving for the British Columbia interior, and I’ll have another chance to try something new.

Visiting with Old Friends

Fifty-four years ago, in January 1970, I left college and moved to Oregon to work on the Shiloh Study Center (aka the Land) in Dexter Oregon. I was one of sixteen single men, along with two single women (Niki Sands and Nancy Finley), and one married couple, David and Cathy Stewart. (I’m in the far right in this picture.) According to Wikipedia, Shiloh YRC was the largest Christian communal outreach organization in the United States. If you’ve seen the movie The Jesus Revolution [now on Netflix], you’ve seen a depiction of the House of Miracles, the early incarnation of Shiloh.

In June, Kathy Gross was hitchhiking on Rattlesnake Road, just outside of Dexter, when two brothers from the Land, John Higgins and Jack Sawyer, picked her up and asked her if she wanted to come for dinner. She came for dinner, and spent the night in the girl’s dorm where Debbie Bryson shared the Good News of the Gospel with her. She left, but the next day she prayed to receive Christ, and came back and moved onto the Land, where we met.

Later in the summer, two of the brothers, George Bryson (Debbie’s husband), and Larry Pilgrim moved to Burns, Oregon to start a Christian House, and Kathy soon moved there. In August, I left Oregon with three other brothers, Steve Waters, Brad Anderson, and Peter David, for Boise, Idaho where we started one of the first Shiloh Houses outside of Oregon.

 

In January 1971, three of us 21-year-olds left Eugene, Oregon in a 1965 Volkswagen bus, heading for Savannah, Georgia, a city none of us had ever visited. My companions were Larry and Toni Pilgrim and their dog Shadow. Larry and Toni were going to pastor a new Shiloh house, and I was going as their deacon.

Driving over the Rockies, we had the feeling, as Larry said, that “we could have walked faster.” It was bitter cold driving through Montana and Wyoming, and we bought a heater so I wouldn’t freeze in the back seat. It is still one of my fondest memories. This is the Whitaker Street House, across from Forsyth Park in Savannah.

On Monday, Kathy and I went to see Larry and Toni Pilgrim at their home in South Lake Tahoe. We haven’t seen them for over twenty years.

We got to Carson City, Nevada, around 2:30, where we met Larry at his business, Sierra Home and Hearth, where he sells wood stoves, closets, and window coverings. His son, Tobiah and the rest of his staff got a kick out of us old-folks reminiscing about our time in Shiloh.

Larry had some photos on his iPad that we’d never seen, and Kathy insisted he send her this photo of chicken picking, one of the jobs we did to support ourselves. 

I pulled out some pictures that I had of our time in Savannah. This was me in front of a candle shop which we opened, called Beauty for Ashes, and here is Larry officiating at our wedding in Dexter Oregon, a year later.

Around 4 PM, Kathy and I took off to check into our motel, the Blackjack Inn in South Lake Tahoe. It took a while because the street was closed, and we had to figure out how to get by the road blocks. 

By 5 PM we were back at Larry and Toni’s house in Marla Bay on Tahoe’s North Shore. Toni prepared a delicious dinner (although Larry smoked the meat), which we ate on the patio, overlooking the lake.

After dinner, we all took the dog for a walk down to the lake, where a kind neighbor took our picture. The sunset was beautiful. Afterwards, back at the house, we continued talking until almost 11 PM. It was really a wonderful time.

If it’s Thursday, it must be Redding

By the summer of 1972, Kathy and I were engaged. On Saturday’s a group of us would go to the Broadway House in Eugene for a Bible study and then go witnessing on the streets. In Shiloh, couples weren’t allowed to be alone together, so we took this opportunity to go on a date and stop by the Thrifty Drugstore for an ice cream cone while we handed out our tracts.

In front of Thrifty’s we met a young hippie couple named Bruce and Teresa Muller, and engaged them in conversation. We asked if they needed a place to stay, and directed them to the Broadway house, handing them over to a couple of sisters, since Kathy and I were more interested in being alone together, to tell you the truth. They are in the lower-left corner of this picture of the Atlanta Shiloh team.

On Thursday, we went to visit Bruce at their new home in Redding California. We left Tahoe before 9 AM, after a delicious breakfast at the Driftwood Cafe (rated 4.7 on Google Maps, which I’ll attest to). Kathy had a vegetable scramble, while I had a High-Sierra turkey and bacon omelette.

Leaving Tahoe, we headed West on Highway 44 towards Susanville and Lassen National Park. The smoke from the Park fire was heavy in the air. When we stopped in Susanville to get some lunch and supplies, the Safeway was full of firefighters from Cal Fire.

Luckily, the road was not closed by the fire and we got to Redding around 4 PM and checked into our hotel. After getting settled, we headed over to Bruce and Teresa’s house. Unfortunately, the address we had for them, which was eight years old, took us to a condo where they no longer lived. We gave them a call and Teresa sent us their new address, on the other side of town.

Their house is beautiful, set on ten acres above the Sacramento River. It is really a hippie’s dream. All of our old Shiloh friends we have visited on this trip have remarked on how good the Lord has been to us.

Teresa made us a wonderful dinner, and, as the sun set, we went out on the patio to get a picture. Then, as we had the night before, we spent the evening catching up and remembering our time in Shiloh.

It was hard to tear ourselves away, but we had a long drive on Friday to Portland, our next stop, so we left a little after 9 PM and headed back to our hotel.

Friday in Portlandia

Friday was our longest driving day so far. We had breakfast at our hotel, and got started early. The driving was pretty easy, since it is straight up the 5 freeway. We only got off the freeway once in Cottage Grove, where I got a root-beer float and Kathy picked some Oregon blackberries, which were delicious.

Since Kathy is scrupulously honest, I should mention that this picture is actually some blackberries we picked on Saturday, while visiting the Rick Steves Europe store in Edmonds, Washington. However, the Oregon blackberries looked exactly like this, so I’m claiming artistic license.

We didn’t get to Portland until around 5PM. After checking into our hotel, we called Nancy Finley Lukcik, one of the two single women (girls really) who worked on the Land with us when I first got there in 1970, and made arrangements to meet at the Olive Garden. Here’s Nancy on the Land in 1970 taking care of two of the baby goats we had.

Neither of us had seen Nancy for more than 25 years. It was wonderful sharing a meal with her and catching. Nancy’s husband, Andy Lukcik, died a few years ago, and she still deeply misses him. Nancy says that he was the true love of her life. Andy was also one of the brothers in the Savannah House when I was there, as well as the best man at Larry Pilgrim’s wedding.

The last three days have been a wonderful start to our vacation. It’s amazing how strong our friendships are, and how comfortable we all felt with each other. Talking this over with Larry, he said, “It’s just different when you live with someone 24 hours a day.” I agree. I have a lot of acquaintances, colleagues and friends, but there is nothing like the brothers and sisters that we met in Shiloh.

Twenty Mules to Mammoth

Howdy folks. Well, Kathy and I are setting out on another Epic Road Trip Adventure this summer, this time to the Canadian Rockies. This time the blog is going to be a little bit more stream of consciousness, since I’m dictating it on my iPad. 

We left home about 7 AM on Tuesday morning heading for Mammoth Mountain. 

It was a nice sunny day, and we had almost no traffic. On highway 15, going through the El Cajon pass, we could see the traffic backed up in the other direction for miles and miles. We were so thankful that we weren’t going backtowards home.

By 9 o’clock we had reached lonely Kramer Junction on Highway 395, right where it meets with Twenty-mule Team Road. Twenty-mule teams were teams of mules (I know, duh!) which transported Borax and other minerals from mines in Death Valley across the Mohave Desert starting in the late 1800s. 

We were hungry, and there was only a gas station and the Roadhouse Restaurant. I thought we should try to get food at the gas station, but Kathy agreed with me that sitting down at the restaurant would be far better. That’s one of the things I love about road trips; finding these unique yet quintessential American diners, in the back of nowhere.

The food was excellent. I had chicken fried steak and eggs with hash browns. Kathy got her vegetable scramble. Both of us were in our happy place.

After breakfast, we drove north through the Owens Valley, passing the partially dried up Owens Lake. Those of you who saw the movie Chinatown will remember that the plot revolves around Los Angeles Department of Water and Power attempting to divert the water from the Owens River into the San Fernando Valley.

They were successful and Owens Lake dried up. In 2006 a lawsuit forced the DWP to divert 5% of the flow from the river back into the lake, so now there is a little bit of water. Owens Lake is still, however, the greatest producer of dust pollution in the United States.

A little towns of Independence, Lone Pine, and Big Pine were all cute. We got to Bishop, the turn off for Mammoth Lakes, about 1 o’clock and stopped for gas, 45 minutes later we were in Mammoth. 

We couldn’t check into our B&B, the Cinnamon Bear Inn, until 4 o’clock. So we decided to drive around the town in the surrounding area. 

Our first stop was the Inyo National Forest Earthquake Fault. This deep crevice, about 500 yards long is much more impressive in person than in my pictures. 

It was a pretty short hike (most of you would call it a stroll) from the parking lot. But, at more than 9,000 feet, I found that I got winded pretty quickly.

After the earthquake fault, we drove to the end of Minaret Road and looked out on the viewpoint over the Reds Meadow Valley and the Ansel Adams Wilderness. It was a beautiful view, overlooking the valley where the Pacific Crest Trail and the Muir Trail meet. We wanted to go down into the valley to see the Devils Postpile National Monument, but they’re rebuilding the road and it is only open on the weekends.

After that we drove past the Mammoth Ski resort, the mountain biking park, around Mammoth Mountain, and down to the lakes, which were lovely.

Back in town we stopped at Vons to pick up some supplies and then went across the street for an early dinner at Distant Brewery. Again we were really lucky with our food. I had the biggest Cuban sandwich I’ve ever had, and Kathy had a feta-rich Greek salad.

Back at our B&B we checked in around 4:30. I slept very poorly for the last week of Summer school, waking up at 2:00 or 3:00 AM, so, by 7PM I was pretty tired, and so both just turned in.

Tomorrow we are heading up to Lake Tahoe to see our friends, Toni and Larry Pilgrim, who we haven’t seen in 20 years or so. Larry was the pastor who performed our wedding ceremony, so it’s gonna be good to see him again.