Circa November 2020~ If you've been following our travels for a while, you may have noticed that we never share much about our Canadian adventures--Our time at home always feels quite personal, relatively mundane and so familiar, that it's hard to imagine that anyone would want to read (and in my case write) about our comings and goings in the Great White North. But alas, we haven't travelled anywhere outside of Canada since November 2019 (WILD), and I'm finding myself with more time to write these days (shoutout to the unemployed👐) so let's crack into some homegrown travel stories.
I often get thinking about timelines and where we were and what we were doing at this time a year ago (5 years ago, 10 years ago, etc.) Let's take it back to exactly one year ago. We were still strongly discouraged to travel outside of our province (let alone internationally), but were really feeling the need to stretch our wings beyond the city limits. Working within pandemic parameters, we decided to strike out on a 10 day road trip, looping through the mountains on the hunt for some hot springs and big vista views. Luckily, around every corner in British Columbia is another stunning panorama and the impressive peaks are endless--not a lot of planing was needed!
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| Turns out November has always been a good travel month for us! |
....But first wine (always). Breezing through B.C's biggest wine region --Kelowna/Okanagan Valley-- for a couple nights, we reunited with friends from university, and checked out the city. This area is busting full of wineries and vineyards, lakes and mountains (basically a bachelorette party haven).
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| From Kelowna we meandered towards Nelson |
Literally overnight we went from sunny, crisp autumn to a dreamy, white winter wonderland. As we rolled into Fairmont Hot Springs, as far as I could tell it is a stop on the highway that includes a couple of hotels, a mini mall, a population of less than 500 people...and of course, its namesake and raison d'etre, hot springs! We arrived just as the snow began to fall, and it was absolutely mountain magic!
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| Big steamy pools at Fairmont Hot Spring Resort |
We first hit up the natural hot springs (opposed to the hotel pools where they pipe the water in). We trudged through the snow in our winter boots, bikini bottoms and parkas, equipped with a soggy box of wine, eager to sit in a puddle of tepid water that smells like farts...Screams winter magic, doesn't it? Given this was a random weekday in November with sub-zero temps, we had those puddles all to ourselves! It was magical in that silence that comes when the snow falls all around you. It really felt like we were the only people in existence. After being sufficiently soused, we sprinted back to the quintessential mountain lodge to adorn ourselves with robes, before our evening soak in the steaming pools at the hotel. Then came our morning soak, midday soak, afternoons soak, and again, evening soak. Honestly, basing any holiday around sitting in the tub for hours is, in my opinion, the way to go. So after a couple days, us pruned raisins reluctantly put our pants back on and continued the drive, heading straight through the rockies.
After driving through some pretty big mountain passes, and thanking our lucky stars we had a clear blue day for the drive, we arrived in Revelstoke. To our delight, we woke up the next morning to LOTS of big fluffy snow! The first big snow of the season is always so exciting (ask us how we feel about snow in March after sloshing around in it for 4 months). After a day of reveling in the winter wonderland and frolicking around town, we started to think about the coming day's drive. Would our all-season tires guide us safely home through the snowy mountains? (In Canada our cars wear their winter boots too--Tires get switched over to a more grippier winter version for safety reasons.) In true Mary and Tyler fashion, we started calling around in a slight panic, asking if there was any way we could 1)buy winter tires, and 2)could they be put on...like today. When we got a resounding "No" (nothing available for 6+weeks), we then followed-up with question #3 "Do you think our all-season tires will make it through the mountains?" With notable hesitation from everyone we asked, we knew we had to make a new plan. You see, the problem was that the fastest, most direct route back to Vancouver was up and over the Coquihalla highway mountain pass...which has some pretty unpredictable weather and frequently gets shut down in the winter. Enough so that the highway has inspired a TV show called
Highway Thru Hell, where they chronicle the driving adventures of trucks going over the mountain in the winter. Needless to say, we did not want to make our reality show debut, and needed a different route home. We ended up taking a slightly longer, less snowy, death-defying highway home that turned out to be a really beautiful drive...and we arrived safe and sound--Win, win!!
....Oh! And a year later, we still don't have winter tires.
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| Not no snow, but decidedly way less snow. |
As we settled back into the monotony of pandemic lockdown life, we knew we'd likely be sticking close to home for awhile.... Little did we know the next big adventure was already underway!
