Yukon Ho!

June 1, 2006: Vancouver

We woke up early so we could be on the road by nine and, hopefully, in Vancouver early.
As we were packing some guy in a plaid shirt and jeans drove up in a red pick-up and told me a night’s camping was $17 and we could pay him. It seemed kind if sketchy since he was…you know -a guy in jeans and a hoser shirt driving and unmarked truck and wearing a Value Village-esque trucker hat with a random parks patch on it. We finished packing up and considered just taking off but we ended up cruising by Ranger MacKenzie and asking if there was some sort of night deposit box with receipts, which there was, but it said camping was only $10, which is what we paid. I’m pretty sure he kept the cash since he put the envelope directly into his pocket instead of the deposit box.
Anywhoooo, the closest town to the campground was Chrsitina Lake -a very cool little cottage-y place. The bakery we stopped at didn;t have any coffee but they these excellent things called…I don’t even know what. There was a pepperette and homemade salsa in each one, and then that was wrapped in fresh-cooked bread and sprinkled with cheese.
Delicious.
Coffee we got at the general store.
An hour down the road in Greenwood we stopped for more coffee at an awesome cappucino place on a sweet strip of shops, including a wicked saloon that was for rent.
Another couple hours down the highway was Osooyoos -a bizarre New Mexico-type town built on Canada’s warmest lake. It doesn’t even feel like you’re in Canada. Driving through Osooyoos is like driving through Nevada or something. It’s like everyone got together at the beginning of building the town and decided “right, it’s pretty dry here so let’s go with that desert theme -HARDCORE.” The old buildings, the new buildings, every building in Osooyoos is stucco, painted in either sandy or sherbet shades, the roofs are covered with clay shingles and their peaks are all scalloped western-style. Even the Tim Horton’s design was re-tooled to fit the town’s motif. It’s wild, wild west in your face and don’t you forget it!
We stopped for gas in Princeton and tried to get pizza at the pizzeria next door to the Esso station but they only had one slice left. And all they made was pepperoni. But they did direct us to Pizza Party across the street, which was closed until 4pm, so we ended up paying $17 for two salads and one small Blizzard at Dairy Queen. It also started raining while we were there. Princeton funken blows.
The rain continued when we stopped near Abbotsford for Tim Horton’s. There was a Panago in that city but of course we had no money left to spend because Dairy Queen raped us all on salads and ice cream.
Half an hour later we were in Vancouver where we were reunited with sweet sweet bumper-to-bumper ruch hour. Thank GOD. I was getting tired of zooming around the gorgeous mountains. We finally got to Dave’s new apartment around 6pm, dropped him off, picked some stuff up at MEC, met  Chris and Myle, hung out at their place for a while, then went to this wicked little pub called The King’s Head. We stayed there till about 12:30am when they closed, then walked down to the beach and wandered around for a while, looking at the waterfront.
Amy