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Writer's pictureRuth Mcbride

Why couldn’t we have grandkids first?

My mother and father used to say that to me after I had my son Josh. I never really understood them. Now I do. What a delight to see baby Owen today! He has really grown a lot since we last saw him in November. He is now 7.5 months and such a sweetie!


When Richard first held Owen, he made strange for a second, but then he started to warm up to Grandpa!


When we woke up this morning it was such a nice day. We had no water still at our RV campsite, so Richard called the RV park office to make sure that they were going to work on the water and get it going for us today. If the water wasn’t going to be turned on, then we would need to move to another RV site.


Over breakfast this morning we reflected on our drive yesterday. We were both surprised that we were able to drive as long as we did AND through the mountains! I grabbed my IPad to take a look at RV Trip Wizard to look at the route I had planned for us going home and started making adjustments to the trip. The great thing about RV Trip Wizard is it automatically calculates the driving distance and kilometres so we can determine if the stops we have calculated are going to work for us. I adjusted our trip to have our next stop as Swift Current, Saskatchewan. We know the Walmart parking lot in Swift Current very well and while we will be BOONDOCKING there for a night, it will work for us. Based on our calculations, if all goes according to plan and we feel up to it, we should he home to Fort Erie by next Sunday April 11, 2021. Unfortunately I would have preferred to get home the night before so we could watch the final round of the Masters on Masters Sunday!






This morning I wanted to have a work out, wash my hair and shower before going out. Since we were operating off just our water on board Newman, I suggested to Richard that maybe he should walk up to the showers at the RV park. They do not charge campers for showers at this RV park, and therefore there would be lots of hot water and good water pressure too! Richard walked up to the showers at the RV park and had a great hot, plentiful shower. I was able to wash my hair and take a shower and did not run out of hot water which was a huge bonus, despite not having the best water pressure, since we are using our on board water, and not the RV park’s water.



We had bought Owen a cute little colourful wooden pull toy in Coombs at Goats on the Roof, but do you think we could find where we had put it in Newman? We had also bought Owen some books. We found the books, but do you think we could find the toy? We tore Newman apart looking for the toy and finally after looking twice, we found it stored behind the TV in the bedroom! Oh my goodness. This getting old is for the birds!




We drove over to Richard’s son Jonathan and his wife Christal’s home around 12:30pm and little Owen was still napping. We were very anxious to see him, but we knew that it was best to let him sleep. As soon as he woke up Christal brought him down to see us.



He sure is a Handsome BOY! We had given Owen this little outfit last time we were here and it was nice to see him wearing it! The little lumberjack shirt matched his grandpa’s many lumberjack shirts!



Somebody really loves his food!



I’m looking at you he’s saying to me!


After lunch it was time for Nana to have some Owen time.



What a darling boy! He was very intrigued by the string on the toy we brought him from Coombs.



Owen kept pulling the string to have the toy fall off the table. I’m sure he will enjoy pulling this toy when he is a bit bigger.


We decided to go for hike after Owen had some lunch.

These fancy strollers are amazing to be able to go through rough terrain. Owen looks pretty content waiting to go on our hike.



At 17C today no one really needed a jacket. Owen has figured out how to put his pacifier in his mouth, so he was pulling it out and putting it back in his mouth the entire hike.



Owen kept falling over so we put my sweater in his stroller to keep him propped up. I shouldn’t have brought the sweater. It was way too hot for such a warm sweater today.


Jon & Christal’s street goes straight up at a 90 degree angle I think! What a hike just to get to the trail where we were hiking! Crazy how hilly it is in their subdivision of beautiful homes in Cranbrook.



What an interesting lawn ornament! The home has a nice view of the Rocky mountains in the distance though!

This is the flatter part of the street where new home lots have been serviced, but homes are not built yet. The trail starts in the forest, at the end of the street.


As we were walking up to the forest, one of the neighbours on the street pulled out of their driveway and said to Jon & Christal that there was a bear and a homeless person in the forest. I’m thinking to myself what do we do if we see a bear? And just then Jon says, “Oh ya, we had a bear in our backyard a few weeks ago!” I said ”What did you do about that?” ”Nothing” he replied. Oh my goodness! We definitely aren’t in Fort Erie anymore!

When I saw this sign on our hike, after just hiking up the very steep street, I was hoping we wouldn’t be taking the ‘Roller Coaster” route. We didn’t. We went to Sylvan instead.


Christal plowing through the forest with the great Mountain Equipment Co-op stroller they got used on Facebook Marketplace.



Richard and Jonathan going down the trail to Sylvan Lake.



Sylvan Lake is a part of the Cranbrook Community Forest. This 2,000 hectare area of Crown Land is designated as an interpretive Forest and is managed for the community to enjoy a range of education and recreational activities. The goal is to minimize environmental impacts and restore and enhance ecosystem function in this unique and sensitive area. The Forest is located in the Interior Douglas Fir Zone which is characterized by forests dominated by Douglas Fir trees, grassy understories, dry shallow

soils, hot and dry summers and low snow levels in winter. I have to say that I definitely feel that it is dryer here. I can feel it in my nose and I have had a lot of water to drink today!


We had to make sure that Owen stayed awake on the hike. He needed to go down for his nap after we got home to stay on his schedule!


When we got back to Jon & Christal’s home Owen was going down for another nap after a feed and we decided to leave and get some groceries. We are having a turkey breast, potatoes and green beans tonight for our own little Easter celebration tonight. Nothing fancy, but it should be delicious and the key is to have some leftover turkey for our road trip coming up!






Cranbrook is located in the mountain time zone and is in the East Kootenays. From Cranbrook we can see both the Purcell Mountain range as well as the Rocky Mountain range.



Rocky Mountains as we drove back to Fort Steele RV Resort this afternoon.


Fisher Peak (Mount Fisher) is the highest summit on the Southern Rocky Mountains, in the Hughes Range, at an elevation of 2846m or 9336 feet. Mount Fisher was named in 1915 for John S. (Jack) Fisher a prospector who discovered gold in nearby Wildhorse Creek in 1863 and 1864. The mining community that sprang up at Wildhorse Creek was called ‘Fisherville’, only to be razed in 1866 in order to work the ground where it stood. When Cranbrook resident Scott Niedermayer won the Stanley Cup in 2000 and 2007, he stood atop the summit with the Stanley Cup!


We had a lovely day visiting with family and seeing baby Owen again. Such a sweetheart and its nice to see him laughing and so happy! We were able to come back to Newman and open our windows and let some fresh air in as we enjoyed out late afternoon and early evening sunshine through our windows. It’s hard to believe that we had to leave Vancouver Island to finally get some nice spring weather! It is very enjoyable to be able to rest this weekend before the big drive we have coming up next week!






And the RV park got our water going so we are very happy about that! We’ll be taking full advantage of having water again and filling up our water tank before we leave here to start BOONDOCKING!







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