as october continues to give us nice weather, kylie and i have been outdoors every chance we get. our trip to clear creek hotsprings was planned for the only rainy day in the forecast, but as we drove out of the rainy fraser valley and out along harrison lake, the clouds parted and the sun appeared!
the drive out took us less than 2 hours. east harrison forest service road was beautiful in the sunshine with the fall colours coming on. the last 30 min was pretty bumpy and a bit technical. i had a wonderful time driving, and ty enjoyed the ride, however, kylie wasnt buying the whole "but the journey IS the destination!" thing.
these springs arent quite as natural as
sloquet creek. there are two nice homemade wooden tubs and 3 old hottubs in various states of repair. the view is wonderful though, and the setting is perfect.
the wooden platform was great for changing, but ty found it pretty slippery! the top tub was piping hot, while the middle one containing kylie and ty was just slightly cooler than your average public pool hottub. each tub in the line is slightly cooler than the one before. all with a simple system of siphoning pipes. impressive backcountry engineering.
after a good long soak it was time to throw some rocks in the water. i love this picture's clear portrayal of ty's determination. he had just decided to abandon rock throwing and go find mommy, who we had left soaking in the tub. as i hefted the camera to capture a throw, he dropped his rock, executed a neat about face and began marching toward the springs muttering "mama... maMMa"
after one more soak, we threw everything and everyone back into the 4runner and drove down the valley and back to harrison lake.
the road descended to a couple logging camps and then led to a beautiful beach where we sat down for a snack. kylie had purchased a selection of scones from our favourite bakery. moist pumpkin spice scones are delicious on a beach in the evening sun.
the beach also offered numerous gnarled rock formations to jump around on. we stayed until sunset and then drove home in the dusk.
on the way home we saw a black bear crossing the road. no picture, but i did take a picture of these tracks on the beach at jespersen dyke, one of our favourite running spots.
priority number one: let me assure all of you vitamin D deficient canadians that ty is taking every precaution in limiting his exposure to tropical steep angle photons.
we are safely in maui and have collected our various relatives and hangers on. so far we have participated in swimming, boogie boarding, frisbee, running and eating lots of american priced cheese (US costco is bad for my arteries, but sooo good for my mouth).
i would like you all to note lowell's sweet dumb and dumber hairdo in this picture.
ty is loving the sand and the water, and after a few good poundings, has developed a healthy fear of large waves.
our evenings have been quite enjoyable as well. it is nice to have tante yulie around to entertain us all with her austin powers routines.
it is also fun to watch tyrn and fraser interact. except when ty throws his cars at fraser's little face. but look at those eyes... he didnt mean it. he couldnt have.
on sunday night the family ventured out to little beach to party at sunset. the sky was on fire, and pretty soon the beach was too.
every sunday night there's a party on little beach, featuring a drum circle, fire dancing, frolicking in the waves and general debauchery. we participated in the frolicking and drumming, but shied away from the fire and debauchery.
did i mention it was a clothing optional beach? don't worry... with a little darkening and some artfully placed retouching, this blog can remain family friendly.
