Christina Lake – The Daily EO

Greetings from Burnaby, BC at the Mulberry Retirement Residence!
Cranbrook to Burnaby.

Hours (door to door): 11
Kms driven: 864
Money spent: $116

We departed the house at 9:00 am exactly. We had targeted leaving between 9 and 9:30 am, but my mom doesn’t understand time ranges and therefore she amended our departure time to 9:00 am. When she climbed into the car, she gleefully announced that we were exactly on time – 9:00 am. Emile couldn’t let that slide – he announced back that it I keep the clock 2 minutes fast. But, I’ll bet we actually pulled out of the driveway at 9:00 am.

The drive on Highway 3 – Crowsnest Highway – is tremendous. There is no shortage of glorious twisting turning mountains passes bored through the mountains dotted with picturesque – and now growing – towns.

We stopped frequently on this trip – we needed to help Mom spent her Tim Hortons gift cards, and we needed smoke breaks and pee breaks. And food breaks.

When my parents were first married, they moved to Trail BC, and often returned to Vancouver to visit family. This meant much of the trip was spent recollecting family lore stories about the travels. Next time you see my mom, ask her about “Never Again (subtitled “The Whipsaw” and the “Sidewinder”)”, “I’ll Shut Up Now about the Sewing Machine” and “CastleGAAAAR” – they are stories worth the time.

I told you about Christina Lake visits when we were kids – it was 3.5 hours for my mom driving a 1969 Barracuda over two mountain passes. To keep the peace, she bribed at us always with a visit to the Castlegar Dairy Queen on the journey. It was old, brown and decorated with Dennis the Menace cartoons and we loved the stop. We stopped on this trip also and found to my dismay that the place – although still in the same location – had been modernized and updated.

We stopped in at Christina Lake at the house we always stayed at and found to my delight that although some updates had been made – it had been left almost totally alone.

We pushed through the Okanogan pleased to see the same fruit stands advertising local cherries and other fruit. We timed our arrival into the Lower Mainland perfectly – little traffic and still light.

Grandpa is so pleased to see us all.

July 23rd, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Standing on the Christina Lake beach recalling long summer days and times gone by. Wishing so much that things didn’t change and that youth didn’t fade.

(Photo Credit Emile)

Feed your children something that makes you feel a little guilty. Occasionally something they clamour for, something they love, and let them eat as much as they want. Make it a special occasion out of nothing. It’s part of childhood, it’s part of growing up and it will form the basis of a memories that they will hold dear for life. The rest of the time, feed them chickpeas, quinoa, organic fruits and vegetables, homemade meals, or whatever you believe gives them the best start at life. But don’t forget to satisfy the kids in them.

When we were kids, every summer we spent one week at Christina Lake at a friend’s house. During that week, we were allowed to eat anything we wanted – as long as we ate a good dinner and drank a glass of milk. I ate creamsicles, sugar cereal, cans of pop, potato chips, bugles, corn chips, cookies and anything else I could get my hands on. During the rest of the year, we didn’t have ready access to such abundances – it was carefully monitored and often not even purchased. Frankly, I spent so much time swimming in the lake and running around the beach that I probably burned all those calories anyways. And the joy it brought my brother and I!

I’ve told you of our wiener roasts before. Today we had another one. We gathered our new roasting sticks, fried onions and white hot dog buns and cooked them over an open flame. Yes, I know that hot dogs have terrible things in them, I know that white bread has little redeeming value and that marshmallows are sugar bombs. I don’t eat like this normally, and so I let myself savour the taste memories.

July 16th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary: Ordinary food made extraordinary with layered memories over time.

(Photo Credit Emile – no post processing)

Tag: Christina Lake

The Daily EO: July 23rd, 2012

The Daily EO: July 16th, 2012