On the road again - 2 days

Leaving Donna's place today, sad to leave but happy to be on the road again. Initially the drive is through orchard country:

 Once over the big hill past Osoyoos though, we're back into hills and ranch country:

Looking back at Osoyoos

A switchback going down

More of the old "Drive with care but we're not reducing the 100k speed limit" signs

 

The weather forecast predicted we could see snow in the passes at about 1500 metres. We got a bit over that but luckily the temps stayed above freezing where we were:

Lots of moisture in the air

We crept up to and over the 1500 metre mark, but only saw some wet flakes

It only got down to 2C where we were

Once we reached Castlegar and had a break, we decided to check out a nearby provincial park for the night. It was only about 1:30 but getting close to 300 km for the day. The park had lots of room, nice wooded sites, and the weather started clearing up, so we parked at Syringa Provincial Park for the night:

Our site, backing on to the Columbia River

A really nice new playground nearby for the kiddies.

A great-looking area for a dog park

No internet signal at Syringa park. Maybe parents would bring their kids here on purpose, with no internet available, a nice playground, and hiking trails.

That straight line below our blue route is the US border.

 

The 20km roadway into Syringa park runs off of route 3A along the Columbia River, which starts here in BC (we didn't know that). We didn't take any pictures on our way to the park, as it was overcast and drizzly, but a much nicer day this morning for our drive back out to the highway.

It looked like a settlement of houseboats at one spot:

There's a major power-producing dam on the Columbia River, close to Castlegar:

Also a paper mill just downstream from the power dam

 

Further north on Hwy 3A we came across another power dam on the Kootenay River. The Kootenay heads down from here and merges with the Columbia at Castlegar:

Lots of power lines near the dam

We met several log trucks along route 6. Notice the size of these logs. They extended the full length of the trailer, which would be nearly as long as on a normal tractor-trailer:

We stopped for a break and some internet at this day park in Silverton:

We had thought we'd stay around New Denver, but after a bit of a tour we decided to press on, partly due to the poor weather forecast for the area. It was too early to stop and be stuck in the van all afternoon.

One of the places in New Denver that caught our eye was this very unique-looking lodge:

There were quite a few roadside lupins in bloom today:

We started getting some rain and a few distractions. Luckily Cathie noticed this crossing doe in time for me to get stopped:

We didn't see her coming

It's a nice winding drive up into the hills along 31A from New Denver. The weather started off nice, then as we got into higher elevations things deteriorated:

We're heading right into that

Luckily it remained as rain, but dropped from 16C to 7C in minutes 

Lots of rushing streams

We decided we'd take the (free) ferry across Kootenay Lake to Kootenay Bay, and on to Crawford Bay. The ferry is still on winter schedule and we had just missed one by about 20 minutes, so had about 1 1/2 hours to wait until the 4:30 run.

We each got one of these "kiddie-sized" cones while waiting

We had a pleasant wait, with the sky clearing up. When the ferry arrived a caravan of old cars disembarked. There must have been a dozen or more:

This one was nicely restored. Others were a 'work in progress'. One had to be towed off.

Underway on the ferry, the skies closed in again:

Approaching the dock the rain really started:

A little video of the docking. It must have been a bit tricky today:

Once we got docked the fun started. They couldn't get the barrier to the parking lot opened, and then the drawbridge wouldn't come all the way down to meet the ferry deck. So a few more delays.

 It finally got sorted, and we were the second vehicle off the ferry. We headed to a nearby campground right away, since it was getting close to 6pm by now, and still raining. We settled in here at the Kokanee Chalets and Campground. They had some whimsical chainsaw art near their entrance:

A soggy evening, nice to be settled in for the night.