Monday, June 6, 2011

The day has arrived! I leave for Yellowknife!... And Barkerville!

Internet will be few & far between on this trip, but maybe i can type up some entries, and just post them all on one day, whenever possible! Ok.. here goes...

Sunday June 5 – Today was the day... the first day of my new life. I waved a tearful goodbye to my Island in the Pacific, and Moo & i headed north. A long day drive.. about 800 kms, because i wanted to go to Barkerville. We went there with a couple of my kids years ago, and i just love the gold-rush history of the place! Can't wait to see Skagway Alaska & Dawson City Yukon for the same reasons, but that's not until next week.

A disaster was averted, thankfully... Moo left my backpack containing this very netbook, at Mr. Mike's in Quesnel, and made it about 1/3 of the way to Barkerville when i realized we had forgotten it. A quick, rather stressful (for Moo), sombre (for me) drive back, but (obviously), i was allowed to keep my netbook. I can't imagine howi could survive a year (or 6 months?) in Yellowknife without being connected to my life in Vancouver! *Whew*

Btw, there was a really cute little Casino in Quesnel... made to look like a sternwheeler... Just thought i'd mention that.

Anyway, we finally made it to Barkerville by around 9 pm,and we (and by we, i mean Moo) are setting up the tent as i 'speak'. It's 9:30 now, it's still light, and there's snow in the campground (it's 8 degrees C). Chilly willy! And the tent's zipper is broken and won't shut. Me.. with a phobia about bugs in the tent while camping... Hehe. *shakes head* Oh well. Tomorrow i get to go to Barkerville! Got to have Chinese food in the cute little 1860's Chinese restaurant there! Yum! Apparently when we went all those years ago, we went to that restaurant two days in a row because we liked it so much!

Well, i should go. Maybe help set up the tent. Oops! It's already done? Good job Moo! :-)

Monday June 6 – Today was Barkerville Day! Yay! Moo had a bit of a rough night last night though. His air mattress kept losing air, and he found himself lying on the hard ground 3 times! Poor guy had to keep re-pumping it. He ended up pissed off the third time (@ 3 am), and going and trying to sleep in the car. But it was WAY too cold... It went down to zero... there was snow on the campground. So he ended up coming back to the tent & pumping it up @ 6:30. Btw, it was full daylight at 3 am he said!

OH! The Whiskey Jacks in the morning! I had a bag of Popcorn Twists for 'breakfast', and i ended up holding my hand out with them, and the birds would land on my hand, look at me, take the twist & fly off. Lots of fun!

Anyway, Barkerville cost $15 to get in, so Moo decided to drive up to Bowren Lake to check out the canoe circut he wants to do some time instead, and i went into Barkerville alone. There was a fun historical tour with actors...

Barkerville, BC
Of course i ended up buying a few things (pink/green jade earrings, a hat, and some chopsticks & spoon from the Chinatown). Took pics, and i bought 5 varieties of reeeally cool fudge, including 'Drunken Cherry' and 'Chili Chocolate', because Moo loves fudge.. especially the fudge from Hell's Gate! And we both think this fudge from the Barkerville Mercantile (not the little fudge/candy shop) rivals Hell's Gate! And that says a lot!

And i didn't end up going to the Barkerville Chinese Restaurant after all. It was WAY too expensive! I ended up having a chocolate eclair at the Bakery instead. We DID end up at the China Cup Buffet in Prince George tonight instead. Whoa. I've never been to a buffet that had such a BIG variety! Pretty good Martian (what i call Canadian Chinese food (because it's so different than real Chinese food), and even their Chinese wasn't half bad! I ate so much i can hardly breath. SO good, but NO MORE BUFFETS! They're evil! I don't want to even THINK about how much weight i've gained!

And tonight, we're staying at the Prince Hotel in Prince George. Why are we not camping? Well yes, Moo does need to buy a new air mattress before we can camp again, but we'll do that tomorrow morning on the way out. We're at a motel because tonight is the Season Finale of 'Being Human'! I couldn't miss that!! AND Moo gets to watch most of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final. So we're both happy, and it's worth paying for a room! Plus obviously, i got to get online! :-)

3 comments:

Random Bug Bytes said...

How exciting! Your first entries from the road! Apart from the air mattress and Martian food, it all sounds just wonderful! I'm glad the game gave you a reason to be online but let's not discuss the hockey game itself. *ahem*

Anonymous said...

So cool that you'll be blogging your adventures! I look forward to reading everything! Hugs to both of you!When do you take your leave of Murray and go solo?
I'll have to get a proper account to comment regularly so for now it's just a. nonymuss me! from Abby!

Amberjoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.