Wedding Voyage 2011 - Ainsworth & Goat River Canyon

Thurs­day morn­ing we got up, and aimed almost imme­di­ately for Ainsworth Hot Springs.  These are the first com­mer­cial ones of our lit­tle hot springs tour, but still well worth it.  If you’ve never stopped in here, it’s worth check­ing out at least once.  There’s a lit­tle cave where the springs come out of the moun­tain, and you can walk through the hot, waist-deep water.  There’s also a lit­tle cold-plunge pool, which I was even brave enough to use this time around!  Twice!  My dad used to do it, and tried to con­vince us, but one toe in the water was enough to send us shriek­ing back to the main pool.

After Ainsworth, we went back to Nel­son, because we were not yet ready to say good­bye to it (as per usual).  We grabbed lunch at Koote­nay Bak­ery, which was all veg­e­tar­ian – and super super yummy.  On our way out of Nel­son, we got a lit­tle turned around and ended up on a dead-end one-way road hii­i­igh up the hill…  Unfor­tu­nately, as Brian was attempt­ing a 57-point-turn to get us out of there, he bumped a con­crete block retain­ing wall.  It was shock­ing, and a lit­tle embarass­ing, but far from the worst thing that could have hap­pened.  One cor­ner of our back bumper is now a lit­tle scuffed, and has unat­tached itself from the van – noth­ing unfix­able.  For now, it’s bungee cords hold­ing it on.  But in my opin­ion, what’s a Westy with­out bungee cords hold­ing on the bumper?

We crossed on the Koote­nay Lake Ferry, and just as we were dock­ing, some very dark clouds dropped some big fat drips on us.  And as we hit the road again, it turned into hail.  We res­cued our lawn chairs from the roof (we’re taught this les­son over and over), and car­ried on down the road.  The weather made us won­der if we should have stayed on the other side of the lake…  Per­haps indef­i­nitely…  But it didn’t last long.  The rain and hail just cooled every­thing off, and then lifted as sud­denly as it had appeared.  The weather went back to hot and dry.

We camped at Goat River Canyon on Thurs­day night, which we found in Camp Free BC.  It’s a beau­ti­ful spot just up the hill from a roar­ing river.  The sound is amaz­ingly sooth­ing.  We made gnocci for din­ner with pesto, toma­toes, and mush­rooms.  Fol­lowed of course by smores.  Just as the day­light was drain­ing from the sky, this dark lit­tle cloud started spit­ting out light­ning.  We noticed it was grow­ing and mov­ing pretty quickly, headed straight for us.  As the light­ning and thun­der expanded around us, we gath­ered up every­thing we didn’t want get­ting too wet, and piled it into the van.  And took pho­tos and pho­tos of the devel­op­ing storm.  Our camp­fire was a good one, and it sur­vived the down­pour.  We sat by the fire in between cloud bursts.  When the storms had finally all moved along up the val­ley, the sky opened up to the most bril­liant stars.

Video: Goat River – Lightning