Remnants of Canada

I have a terrible habit of starting out strong with sharing highlights of road trips and then tapering off at the end to the extent that no-one knows (including me as memories fade) what happened on the last few days of vacation.  Herein lies my experiment in better diligence on the matter.  

After a smoky day in Kamloops that came with the most awesome macaroni and cheese I have ever had on an outdoor patio at a downtown brewery, we headed out of Kamloops and back into the mountains. At first, it seemed like the color coding on the map was wrong; it had led us to believe that the quality of the road would be several tiers below "free and easy" highway driving.  But, the map did not mislead; it just took awhile to reach the twisty turns, stretches of gravel, and plethora of bumps and scrapes that disrupted the spectacular scenery around us.  

But, despite the smoke, the scenery near Lilloet on the Fraser River was spectacular:

If the conditions look dry, they were and as expected, the scenery hinted at vineyards to come. The kind of grapes that turn into good wine love rocky, troubled soil and this area of British Columbia was home to another niche of the expanding wine industry in Canada:

Lazer was more interested in the buck and doe that had just travelled past at high rates of speed than the grape vines that stretched as far as the eye could see, but we all enjoyed getting out of the car for a bit to sample the regional wines.   

As we continued to travel west, the landscape evolved from sparse, desert-like vegetation to the more familiar temperate forests that we were accustomed to in Western Washington. 

While the requisite day pass and stern park ranger turned us off to a longer hike to middle and upper Joffre Lakes, the lower lake (above) was still beautiful and worth a peek before escaping the crowds to sights at lower elevation.  My favorite part of an otherwise long day of driving was a hike to Nairn Falls just outside Pemberton, in the (aptly named) Green River:

Nairn Falls turned out to be my favorite waterfall on a waterfall-laden road trip.  Nairn "fell" in multiple stages and unlike the straight and dramatic drops of the falls at Wells Gray Provincial Park, Nairn Falls did its thing through multiple dramatic curves carved into the  rock canyon.  The fact that we could spend some time alone with this beautiful piece of Canada only made the experience more memorable:

If I were a freshwater mermaid (rather than the mermaid of the sea that I longed to be when I was a kid), I would choose this waterfall.  I would spend the heat of the day cooling off in the falls themselves:

.. but the cool of the early morning and early evening would lure me into relaxing by the green pools of serenity that lay at periodic intervals along the length of the falls:

And at night, I would nestle close to the river shore, under the trees and moon and dream of what it would be like to be able to walk on land ... but that's a cliche from a movie of the 80's, isn't it?

After our waterfall binge in the previous week in BC, the third largest waterfall (Shannon Falls in Squamish) in Canada wasn't nearly as spectacular:

Clearly, I had become jaded after the Nairn Falls experience along the Green River.

(pun intended) 

In the last days of our 2022 trip to Canada, we would spend a couple of nights in a cabin in Squamish alongside yet another beautiful river, before engaging in the daunting task of many hours of traffic near and in Vancouver before we entered back into the United Staes.  Four hours to travel 40 miles. Re-entry into civilization.  Ugh!

See you next year Canada, eh?