Roadtrek Zion Campervan at Paul Lake, BC

So it's a cloudy Saturday and we're just heading over for a quick overnight trip to Paw Lake, which is about 19 kilometers away from Kamloops. And we are taking the Coquihalla Highway No. 5 north today. Some Tesla charging stations. Six here and three over there. There's several stations here and then there's also some stations just for regular or electric vehicles on the Coquihalla in the middle. They have some pretty nice carvings here, I hope, that are scattered around the town. Oh, it's kind of like something out of Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There's a little sneaky girl today. Carrier opened, she got out and we didn't even notice. We're at the summit of the Coquihalla. We found a car that was going slow and of course we lost the momentum of the speed. I think the speed limit here is 110. 120. 120, yeah. So there's no way we could maintain that. So it's after lunch time. It's 1.09. We're both hungry so we're going to stop at the Britton Creek rest area for vegetarian... Samosas. Yeah. Veggie samosas. They have the best veggie samosas. So there's nice big spots for trucks and RVs to stop here. Precious always enjoys stretching her legs and having a little snack when we stop for a break. This is cheating. Yummy samosas. Gordon's having a hot dog. Good hot dogs but the samosas are probably the best we've ever eaten so whenever we come by here we stop at the concession stand and pick up a couple. They're great. They're homemade. Weather's looking a little nicer over here. Chasing sunshine and I think we're starting to find a little bit of it. So we just pulled into a spot but we're going to go and walk around and check out some other sites. There's quite a few available. Number 18 here. Okay. We decided to stay in this site. It's pretty good. The road's here but I don't think there'll be a lot of cars coming by so... And we're just now heading out for a quick hike over to I think it's called Gibraltar Rock. The Bluff Lookout. This is the shirt that started at least me looking at RVs. Not a class B but a small class A or a class C perhaps and that's how we started looking. Yeah. Yeah we actually came up from our campsite a bit of a circuitous route. It was about 3.2 kilometers so that's about two miles. You can actually come up a little more direct and probably shave that in half but nice hike. Steep. Not particularly difficult but you know we were certainly panting in a couple sections so we felt like we did something. It was just beautiful up here. You get a chance to look to the end of both sides of the lake from the summit and you can see the sun getting ready to go down in the west. Still a little early. It's only about 5.30 so we've got a couple hours yet before sunset. Alternate route campground so we did a nice circuit. Yeah this way will be a little bit faster. It's about 1.6 kilometers which is one mile so it will be a little bit faster but it's nice to do the circle. I think the elevation here is 500 meters or 1,500, 1,600 feet something like that. Oh yeah. That one looks a little bit like Ponderosa Pine. I think it's fast becoming my favorite tree, Ponderosa Pine. We can't find them in Vancouver at all in that area but. Too wet. Yeah. I've been sort of looking for them over here because it's a little bit drier. Right there in the middle, that's definitely a Ponderosa Pine right there. Beautiful. Actually I think I like the name Ponderosa. I think that's what it is. It just makes me feel like, you know, you're in the old west or something. Okay, we were able to avoid the uphill beach up so that was good. It's a nice circuit and somebody's got a campfire going. Empire Band was just lifted this weekend. Yeah, it's amazing how bad it was and now it's completely different. They've actually closed off all the reservable sites so maybe like half the campground and they've only left the first come first serve sites open for I guess the rest of the month. These are all the reservable sites and they're really nice. This one just backs into the woods. Yeah, very nice sites. I think you guys can probably tell that we're not heavy drinkers because we still have Hazy Days beer. We still have two left. I only have at maximum this amount so maybe a third of a beer to 20% of a beer. Mickey guzzles the rest. So anyway, cheers. Nice short hike. Cheers. Cheese, olives and some nuts. Mickey won't eat any of the cheese because she's lactose intolerant but I will. We have to make dinner soon. We're hungry. Well, good morning. Sunday morning. Just a little after 7am. I'm just heading down to the lake for a morning paddle. It's just a little over I think maybe .6, .7 a kilometer from where we're camped to the lake. Kind of brisk. It's about 8 degrees. Got down to about 7 last night but pleasant enough if you've got a reasonably warm jacket on. We had a good evening and it's a beautiful sunny day which is great because the whole reason we came here for the weekend was to get away from what looked like a rainy weekend on the coast. So we were successful which is nice. Well, good morning. We're having breakfast. I just got back from my paddle. Mickey's been enjoying her coffee, watching the sun on the ridge behind us and listening to the birds sing. I think some of the other campers are starting to get up now so we can hear some kids' noises but it was super quiet all night and then down at the lake this morning, absolutely no one. Just as I was leaving the lake on my paddle though, the people across from us in an RV, they have a C-class pulled in and they were German tourists. One of the things that I would note in our adventures all summer, just about everywhere we ran, everywhere we camped, we ran into German tourists who had rented small class Cs and were just driving and enjoying all the views. Generally kind of going from Banff and Jasper and then working themselves over to Vancouver Island and just loving it. Only spending a day in every place I think though in many cases whereas I find for us that's just a little too short. So we've enjoyed, we came here primarily because it was supposed to be raining and cloudy everywhere else so we tried the Kamloops area and it's been, this morning's just gorgeous. Yesterday was pretty well sunny and this morning's a little bit of cloud in the sky but pretty much just blue and gorgeous. So just a really nice start to our day. One of the things too, we haven't actually seen very much in the wild wildlife on this trip though when I was paddling there were a number of loons on the lake but every time I went to film them when they were making their wonderful loon call, they'd be quiet. Then I'd turn off the camera, start to paddle and they'd make a call. And I'm pretty, I'm fairly certain that there is deer or something nearby because I could hear them crunching on the leaves. Oh, just in the middle of the night? No, this morning. Oh, this morning. I didn't want to go explore just in case there was a bear. Whereas I, the other thing that we've noticed in our travels this summer is actually the lack of bears. I haven't even seen any bear scat which is very unusual for us when we're on hikes so I don't know if that was representative just of some of the areas we were at or whether just with the really dry weather there wasn't as many in the areas as there normally would be. Disappointing in a way. We've run into bears a number of times on our trips, usually at a distance, but not always. Sometimes within probably ten meters or so and have never had any challenges with them. We're always very bear aware and always give them the respect that they deserve. But I was hopeful that we'd get to see some sometime this summer, maybe this fall. I'm kind of hoping not to see a bear but Gordon wants to see one. It's just nice, we enjoy any of the nature, any of the wildlife that we can in nature and as I say we always give it the respect it's due. I wouldn't feed a bear, I wouldn't get too close to a bear. We always try to make a lot of noise if we're on a trail, especially if it's a trail without a lot of, you know, it's very bushy and you can't see very far ahead. We always try to make some noise so a bear knows we're coming and we've never had any challenges so far. So we're just about packing up to leave and Gordon was just testing out his cell booster, new booster and... Which we still mount properly but it seems to work. Yeah so we only had, we had no service and then we got two bars? Two to three. So we just checked our YouTube channel and we have... 1,010 subscribers so thank you! Yay! We're so happy to have all of you guys join us and become subscribers to our channel. We're really thrilled and excited so thank you so much. And thank you for all your great positive feedback and comments and everything. We really appreciate that and suggestions as well. Bye!