BC 16
June 7th 16, 7:30am:
The meeting place Smith & Nelson
Warehouse, Tonasket.
I pulled
in just a bit early and just as I was shutting down the truck and ready to open
up the trailer and the back of the truck to load up Gary’s fishing equipment.
In pulls Gary and Scott, the bed in Gary’s truck is full of supplies. Multi fly
rods with reels, waders, fly boxes, this time he is prepared for just about any
kind of fishing adventure, I may take them to. While Scott was pulling the
stuff out of his rig stacking alongside of his truck in pulls Big Rich, right
on time and pulling his 20ft. trailer (S&G’s sleeping quarters) In goes
their clothes and camp gear. While they return Gary’s truck back up the hill to
his house, Doctor Dave shows up wishing he was still part of this year’s fishing
adventure…………… But with his over extending his rowing up at Chopaka the week
before, he just didn’t want to go up and make his shoulder and elbow any worst.
By the
time G&S returned we had theirs boats loaded including Gary’s old boat just
in case something went haywire with one of ours. Completely loaded we were off
to the border crossing at Nighthawk.
Nighthawk
doesn’t open till 9am and we were just a little early so we waited. When it
opened we rolled thru the US side and stopping at the Canadian side the
question from a very friendly customs guard. Where are you headed and for how
long? “ the Tunkwa region to fish 5 lakes in the next 6 days. Gun’s or weapon? Fruit or veggies? Tobacco or
alcohol? May I see what you have in the trailer? No to all the first questions
and sure to the last.
I open up
the back of the trailer. “He said it looks fun wish I was going with you, but
you’ll have to take the firewood back to the states wood is not allowed here
might bring in more bugs. Then he changed his mind and told us that we could
pull forward and put the wood by a fire put off to the side. While Gary and I
unloaded the wood he cleared Scott and Rich.
We were on are way north along
the Similkameen River Valley. With the 2way radios we were able to stay in
contact with each other.
The road
up the valley is beautiful nice slow grade with nice easy twisty tourney and EZ
uphill grade. There looks like some nice water to fish and lots of places to
camp along the river. (Another adventure to think about for the future.)
By noon we were pulling into Merritt, finding our way back to the grocery store to pick up some fresh fruit and veggies for dinner,
then just down the road to Wally World to get our BC Fishing License. Next stop
fuel up. Who would of thought that the fire up in Fort McMurray, Alberta would create a
gas shortage, but it did most of the gas stations were closed and the ones open
had long lines reminded me of the gas shortage way back in the 70s & 80s here in the
states. We filled up and down the road to the A&W Rootbeer for a quick
burger.
The place we planned to camp up at Tunkwa was only a hour away, but was wide open and had lots of people in the camping area, so we decided to head
back down the road to where we camped last year and find a camp spot. Lac Le
Jeune someone was already in our old camp spot but that was A-OK we found
another that was just as good close to the what looked like a old pit outhouse
but was really a very clean flush toilet outhouse. The Provincial parks up here
are out of this world nothing like in Washington every site is cleaned and the
grown raked before the next person pulls in, when the attendant come to get
your camp fee he also brings you a bag full of firewood, very friendly.
Camp didn’t take us too long to get setup.
Rich was able to back his trailer in close to the firepit and we unloaded the
camper next to it and I backed in my trailer next to the camper, once
everything was set up it easy time to have a nice refreshing adult beverage.
Then onto loading up the boats and gear so that we can get a early start on our
first lake. we had a EZ dinner of polish dogs and after Scott and Rich pulled
out the guitars and played us some nice tunes while Gary and I sat and listen,
there were a few fellow campers that strolled by but only stopped for a short
while to listen, staying on the road.
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