Showing posts with label Coquihalla Highway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coquihalla Highway. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Gratitude December - Day 22

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

Today's post is Day 22 of Gratitude December.  I'm grateful that the Coquihalla Highway has been reopened to commercial traffic.  The reopening is about 1 month earlier than initially expected through the hard work of so many workers, engineers and so on who worked around the clock to reopen it.  


Photo credit:   BC Ministry of Transportation

The highway is a major route that connects the City of Vancouver and the other municipalities in the Lower Mainland with the rest of the country. While it was closed the supply chain was badly affected. Truckers had to use alternate and very dangerous routes to move goods. It will be awhile yet before this major highway is reopened to recreational traffic but today's reopening is definitely good news!

Photo credit:  Darrel Dyck, The Canadian Press

There will be major upgrades to the highway going forward.  Upgrades that will try to strategize around climate change issues so these repairs are temporary in nature.  BC Minister of Transportation, Rob Fleming called the reopening, a Christmas Miracle and I would agree.

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Just Before We Usher in 2020

 Happy New Year everyone!!!

I trust you all had a wonderful Christmas.
The time has gone by so quickly and now the new year is upon us.
I have a New Year's prayer for you as you move into 2020.



I had a nice Christmas with family members and post Christmas with friends of mine. 
It is nice to spend time with loved ones over the special holidays.

I also went with my nephew and my brother to visit my niece in Kamloops, BC.
It is about 4.5 or 5 hours drive from where I live.
The roads were great and the weather was fine as well.

The snow started falling while my niece and I were at the newest (and last) Star Wars movie.
The city looked like a winter wonderland that evening as we exited the movie theatre.

I had the very best sleep that I can recall in recent memory at a new to me hotel.
It was nice to feel refreshed and rested.

I took a few photos to share with you. 
I hope you enjoy them.

These photos were all taken along the Coquihalla Highway about 10 minutes north of the Town of Hope, BC.





 


 I haven't had a chance to make the next post my travel series because time passed so quickly over the holiday.
I hope to resume the travel posts early in 2020.


The next time I post, we will have turned a corner and entered the next decade.
My hope and prayer is it will be a wonderful, healthy and peaceful decade for each of you.

Many blessings.
♥♥♥





Thursday, April 12, 2018

Quick Travels

Hello friends and fellow bloggers,

I'm now back from my quick trip out of town to attend my late Sister-in-Laws (SIL) funeral. It was a very unique funeral. My late SIL had many interests in life and a host of friends and family members. She was a bit of a maverick and one of the MC's at her service called her one of the last true cowgirls of the area.

It is only fitting then that they opened service with a Cowboy's prayer. The MC's were and are cowboys too. Her son and other relatives also work with horses and cattle and many work on the land. Many First Nations dancers, drummers and singers were there to honour and sing to her for several days before and during the service.  A fire was kept for several days and nights with young fire keepers staying awake to ensure the flame never burned out. Food was brought in by many locals and tea, coffee, juice and water was constantly available as we condoled with family in the days and nights before the service.

One thing that stood out to me is how everyone spoke of my late SIL's hospitality and kindness. Her brother was one of the MC's and he told the assembled crowd to put aside any differences and love one another as that is what his late sister was good at. Loving others and embracing people of all backgrounds. I certainly do remember her kindness and care.   She was always positive whenever we interacted.  I also remember her as an avid cowgirl and outdoor person, a hunter and fisher providing food not only to her family but to others. These are just a few of her unique characteristics and accomplishments.

After the service, her casket was driven to the local cemetery in a truck and was escorted there by several horses and riders including her son. Her grave marker was carved by one of her nephews.  All in all, I know she would have been happy with how her family organized everything on her behalf and I'm sure she was looking down and smiling at the proceedings.

Her son (my nephew) on the gray horse.

These friendly horses came up to greet us as we parked to get photos of the riders.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the service, a few of us drove back to Vancouver. 
About an hour into the journey home, we ran into miserable weather.  At one point the weather was extremely stormy and windy while the skies poured down hail.  
Other times it snowed or rained until about 2 hours from home when the sun came out.
Thankfully my brother was the driver and he is a most excellent driver in terrible weather conditions.

This photo was taken about half way through the journey home.

All this wintry weather is not terribly surprising given that much of our journey is through the mountain highway, called the Coquihalla (Coq for short). It has the distinction of being the deadliest highways in the province with 400-500 accidents during the Winter seasons.  Fortunately for us, there was not much traffic on the way home given it was still early in the week.

We arrived at the dinner hour but most of the traffic was leaving Vancouver, not entering,  as people headed home from work in the city. We didn't have to compete for highway space.  To be honest, the traffic was lighter going into Vancouver than I've seen it for many, many years in all my many journies back and forth to visit my late mom.


This photo is taken at the highest elevation of the highway. Surprisingly it was not snowing here.

I'm now back home, recovering from the past week and trying to catch up to things.
It has been a very busy and difficult week to lose and bury a friend and family member.
I need a bit of recovery time too.
We are expecting a wet weekend so I won't likely be going far afield.
 I'm hoping the weather will improve before all the cherry blossoms disappear so I can get more photos.

~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you to everyone who made inquiries and kept good thoughts and prayers for the family.


~~~~~~~~~

I'm joining in with



and

Monday, November 23, 2015

A Beautiful Sunrise

A few weeks ago I had the good pleasure of going with a friend to our local central library for an event but haven't had a chance to write about it here.

The occasion was a reading and book launch by local author, Carol Cram.


She was launching her latest book, A Woman of Note.

Here is a summary of the book as provided by the Goodreads site

"Virtuoso pianist Isabette GrĂ¼ber captivates audiences in the salons and concert halls of early nineteenth-century Vienna. Yet in a profession dominated by men, Isabette longs to compose and play her own music—a secret she keeps from both her lascivious manager and her resentful mother. She meets and loves Amelia Mason, a dazzling American singer with her own secrets, and Josef Hauser, an ambitious young composer. But even they cannot fully comprehend the depths of  Isabette’s talent.

Her ambitions come with a price when Isabette embarks on a journey that delicately balances the line between duty and passion. Amid heartbreak and sacrifice, music remains her one constant."
~~~

What appealed to me about this launch is that the author was going to give a reading and her brother composed a piece of music which was going to be unveiled especially for the book launch. He is the clarinetist in the photo below and travelled all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Vancouver for the performance.  It's an all day journey by plane across Canada.  What a wonderful brother he must be!


The composition was performed by a trio.  The pianist is hidden from view behind the beautiful piano.  The piece very powerful. While I wouldn't say it was my favourite piece of music it was certainly interesting and enjoyable in many ways.  An unexpected bonus in the program is that the author also played a piano piece which was composed by a little known 19th century woman composer.  The piece was very enjoyable.

Of  course there was an opportunity to purchase the book. I paid my $20 (it is less expensive on line) to the author's husband and the author signed it.  If anyone is interested in purchasing a copy, it is easily available on Amazon in digital and paper paper formats. I haven't started reading it yet but it is in my 'to read' pile. It should be very interesting because I'm intrigued by the the subject matter of women composers in early history since there is so little known about them. The author spent time in Italy reviewing documents as the background research for her book.

~~~~
In other news, I had a chance to visit my mom. 
I wanted to go last week but had a cold and didn't want to pass long any germs.
It so happened that there was a major storm last weekend and early week as well as an accident which closed the highway for considerable length of time.  So the delay in travel was a god thing.

There were a lot of things to take on this trip.  Mainly food related items though mom also needed socks and a few other items.

This time mom also requested some fried bread. I made a small batch of it the day before. The best way to eat it is with a bit of butter and jam but you can also use cheese or other spreads or just eat it plain.  This kind of bread has to be eaten when it is relatively fresh so one can't make it too far ahead.


I do not usually fry foods.  But in the case of fried bread, it must be fried. One should also have the grease properly heated so the bread fries very quickly. 

I didn't quite have my oil hot enough but after it was done I let it rest on paper towel to absorb the grease. After sampling I realized I didn't put enough salt in it.  That is okay since too much salt is not good and given the jam topping, the salt wouldn't be missed.

 


On the day's journey we were met with a dazzling sunrise. The colours were out of this world however the phone camera doesn't really do it justice. The following photos were taken on the highway near the City of Chilliwack.


"Sunrise looks spectacular in the nature; sunrise looks spectacular in the photos; sunrise looks spectacular in our dreams; sunrise looks spectacular in the paintings, because it really is spectacular!”
~
Mehmet Murat ildan (Turkish novelist and playwright)






Further along up the mountain highway past the Town of Hope, I captured these clouds above the mountains. I thought they made an interesting pattern.


I'm always in awe at the beauty and majesty of the mountains. 

We were able to enjoy a beautiful, sunny day for most of the journey.



   
The last photo I'm sharing was taken near the approach to the Town of Merritt on the Coquihalla Highway. 
You can see it was starting to cloud over and that it the way it looked for the remainder of the drive (approximately another hour and fifteen minutes).


The weather was nice and brisk. Not too cold. 
We were also fortunate that road conditions were very good for both legs of the journey.  

Thank you for stopping by. 
I'll be joining in with Our World Tuesday this week.
Have a terrific week!

Thursday, September 3, 2015

On the Road Again



On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again
"On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson




Another whirl wind trip has been completed.
I got home very late on Wednesday and was quite tired but had some missions business to attend to in Kenya.

That done, I tried to do a number of things: call my mom to let her know I arrived safely home, partially knit a new dishcloth, view & cull  trip photos and prepare this post.
I thought it would be nice to share a lot more photos this time of the road trip especially since the weather was quite variable throughout.


I'm not sure what happened but it took several tries before the mosaics were successfully saved.

Starting out in Vancouver it was raining. I didn't start taking photos until almost in Chilliwack. Here is a map just to help situate you if you are not so familiar with the Province of British Columbia.




 A map is always nice to situate oneself. We travelled from Vancouver through Burnaby, Surrey, Chilliwack, Hope, Merritt and Kamloops (Merritt is located just south of where it says Logan Lake).
Clicking on the collages/mosaics will enlarge them a bit.
Highway & weather between Vancouver and Hope



The weather conditions in both directions was much the same each way; raining in the Lower Mainland and 
scattered cloud in the Interior. 

The gusts of wind were quite chilly. Most definitely not like the past few months.

Highway and weather between Merritt and Kamloops

A small group of 5 enjoyed a combination of Chinese cuisine topped off with sodas and white cake as per my mother's favourite cake. It was all quite the starch overload today. 



I compensated by having water and a chicken Caesar Salad for dinner as well as the requisite road beverage, coffee!

The tops, skirt and care package here were all gratefully received but the telephone has to be exchanged since the new set didn't have clips to attach to clothing.

As always I managed to tidy the dresser drawers and closet, cull the clothing and put away all food snacks.
It is always a quick journey requiring days of preparation to make sure everything is done just right.
This trip went very smoothly and enjoyably.

I hope your week is going well.

Skywatch Friday

and
Mosaic Monday

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Following the Sky

This was the scene as we made our way from Kamloops to Vancouver this afternoon and early evening.  It was all kinds of strange weather on the way home.  There shouldn't be such cool weather and snow this late in the season even through these high mountain passes.


It was snowing just a short way into our journey and it snowed intermittently.  I thought the strange weather made for interesting sky photos for today's Skywatch meme; especially since there were also bits of blue sky and some sun here and there.











This is nearing the home stretch as we cross the Fraser River on the Port Mann Bridge.



Just as we crossed the bridge into Coquitlam it started to rain.




Then as we drove on it stopped. I expect there will be rain overnight or perhaps tomorrow.



Click on the badge above to see more skies from around the world.



It Was a Spectacular Day! ~ Skywatch

Hello friends and fellow bloggers, It was a spectacular, sunny day where I live. It's still rather chilly from my point of view but the ...