A Drop More of the 'Shine My Dear?

May long weekend! Typically the best weekend of the year. Chris happened to be out of town this year so I was going to be all by my lonesome. No worries, though! I was fully prepared to hunker down and work my regular Saturday shift and maybe just go for a bike ride, read some books, watch some 80’s movies… you know, just chill.

Then suddenly I got an invitation from my lovely friend Katelyn to spend the weekend at her family’s cottage at the lake. How do I have such cool friends? I do not know. Luckily enough, work let me take a last-minute vacation day and just like that I had the whole weekend to chill in the mountains!

Putt Putt was pretty excited too, and he even offered his services to haul us and all our weekend stuff out to Hope, BC. Now, about 10 minutes before I was going to jump behind the wheel, I got a call from another one of our friends, Katy, whom we had been trying to convince to come along with us! “I’m in!” she says, and Putt Putt and I were more than happy to swing around the block and pick her up.

The weather this May Long wasn’t quite as pleasant as previous years, but we certainly made the best of it, sitting on the dock despite the drizzle, pulling weeds in the garden, cooking fantastic meals, hanging out inside on the old couches and reading old books and playing piano. Oh, and the sauna. Sitting in the sauna with chilled glasses of homemade white wine. Ahhhhhh. All in all just a tiny bit better than working the Saturday shift.

One morning I woke up and was greeted by a few woodland friends on the patio.


Well hello there, I think I will call you Blacky-head!
Katelyn later told me this is a Sterlings Jay. Ok fine.


Honk Honk, good morning Jen! You look beautiful today!


Huh? Coffee?

On Sunday we were able to cruise on over to nearby Camp Squeah where our church was having a weekend retreat. We got there just in time for breakfast (french toast, fruit salad, bacon), which of course led to lunch (giant burritos) and eventually dinner (perogies and farmers sausage). Oh, and in addition to gorging ourselves on camp food, we also had a church service and also did some hiking and exploring. The weather even improved just long enough for us to hike way down into the canyon and stand in wonder at the edge of some huge rapids. On the way back up, we took a detour and explored a little place everyone called “The Hermitage”. What? So are there hermits? I see enough stinky dirty men in downtown Vancouver, thank you very much! Nobody would tell me as we hiked along, but to my delight, there were no stinky hermits living at this “hermitage”. At one point in the 1970s, apparently one quite handy and contemplative theologian crafted a collection of homey little shacks up here in the forest and lived up there for a year or more, just reflecting and such.

It was a pretty impressive place with a nice view and the structures were really beautifully made. Some of them had dark corners, though, and I was afraid to wander inside, lest creepy critters jump out at me.

I didn’t have my camera along on that hike, so no pictures unfortunately. Maybe next time!

Sunday night is when we hit the sauna. Yes Katelyn’s uncle saw fit at one point to grace the family’s cottage with a fantastic little sauna in the basement! Our big plan was to do the whole Scandinavian thing where you get nice and hot and then go jump in the lake. We were all guts about it until we fully understood that the lake was a good 200m from the house along a winding 45-degree pathway… and it was raining…. and we’d each had a couple of glasses of wine… Sauna it is, then!

To be fair, those two young whippersnappers stayed up a couple hours past this old lady and I’m not completely clear on what took place. At least we were all present and accounted for in the morning.

Monday eventually came, and after we packed up the car and very slowly and reluctantly left the cottage, we decided on a tiny bit more hiking in the neighborhood.


Katelyn had some serious equipment going on.

These 7-foot original high altitude douglas fir hiking sticks will run you about $80 a pair at MEC. We just found them on the ground.


Katy was very excited when we reached our lookout point.


Picking edible flowers, which I cannot attest to eating. So brave, these two.


In this picture you can see one smaller river running into the Fraser. See the two colors at the fork? Amazing!



Unfortunately, the hiking couldn’t go on all day. We needed lunch and we also needed to get on the road. You know, it’s always dumb stuff like eating and jobs and responsibilities that keep you from spending quality time in the woods. Maybe that hermit had the right idea…

Anyway, thanks for a fun weekend girls! Putt Putt and I stand ready to forsake our responsibilities at any time!