Heading to Penticton

We left Edmonton Saturday morning, June 25, heading west on the Yellowhead Highway, aka Highway 16. This was our first trip with Duffy and I was excited to be travelling with him!! He's been to BC before--just a day trip though from Olds to Golden and back, with Dave.  But this was his first time to spend a night away from one of his 2 homes!!

First view of the Rocky Mountains at Edson--I'm always thrilled to see them!!

Pit stop for Duffy

Pit stop for us at Hinton--gassed up as this would be the cheapest gas until we were back in Alberta.  There's about a 20 cent difference in gas prices between the 2 provinces.

Our fearless driver!!! ♥♥

Beautiful scenery everywhere.  I took a bazilliion photos, but I won't post them all, as I'm sure most folks would be bored out of their minds!!

Mt. Edith Cavell. Named for the English nurse executed by the Germans in WWI for helping allied soldiers escape from Belgium to the Netherlands. It's 11,033 feet in altitude and has Angel Glacier.  Lots of snow still on most of the mountain peaks for this time of year--due to the cool and wet Spring, and now Summer!

Canadian National Railway's mainline.

Impressive Mt. Robson.  Highest point in the Canadian Rockies at 12, 989 feet. Apparently only 10% of the attempts to climb this mountain over the years, have been successful.  Steep faces and bad weather are the reasons given.

At Mt. Robson Park's interpretative centre looking across the meadow to the mountain.  It's very rare to see the top of the mountain because of the weather, and we weren't lucky that day either. There's still 1/3 of the mountain obscured by clouds.

I love seeing how the flora changes through the climate zones.  In the foothills and mountains in Alberta, it was a lodgepole pine, larch (tamarack) and poplar forest. In BC, this photo shows fir and poplar, and it won't be long before we start to see cedars.  So neat!!

We stayed overnight at the Blue Mountain Motel in--you guessed it--Blue Mountain.  Very clean and quiet--I would highly recommend it!!  We stayed there again on the way back, although we didn't have a reservation this time and had to stay in a one roomer.  There's a great restaurant in town called the Saddleback--named for one of the mountains in the Cariboo Range east of the valley which has a number of ski slopes on it.  They serve cordon bleu style food, local produce, even organic!! Dave and I both liked the town.  It's so quiet there, there's not even an RCMP detachment!! The only problem is the 10 feet of snow in the winter!! We'll spend summers there though!! And no allergies for me!!! Yippee!!

Heading south through the Thompson River Valley on Highway 97.

Destruction from the Barriere fire of 2003. It was one of the 2 worst fires that year, 3000 people were evacuated, homes, and the saw mill were destroyed.  The fire jumped the river too, which is highly unusual and really scary!!

I love this picture.

Stuck in a construction zone north of Kamloops.

But at least there were some sheep and goats to look at!!

Kamloops--we are definitely out of the lush terrain!! This is Ponderosa Pine and sage brush country and it's really hot there because you just bake between the hills.  There was a gas war going on and we got gas at 10 cents cheaper!!

We are now in the Okanagan Valley, coming down towards Vernon.

Crossing Lake Okanagan at Kelowna on the William R. Bennett Bridge, opened in 2008. This 5-lane bridge replaced the old 3 lane bridge.  I wonder why they couldn't make it a 6-lane? Anyway, this is the most congested portion of Highway 97 through the valley, so it was a much needed improvement.  Imagine what this looks like on a long weekend???

Penticton at last!!!