Veronica's blog: Summer road trippin'

British Columbia is such a massive place and we always feel that we have only scratched the surface of it. We wanted to go on a holiday to explore more of Interior B.C. which is famous for its hot, dry weather.. and great mtbiking!

Cycle touring was unfortunately not an option this summer. We wanted to move quickly, bring lots of toys and friends! We had our dearest friends Dugall, Katie, Charlie and Grace visiting from New Zealand for almost a month. On our trip we were also planning to meet up with our Vancouver friends, Adam and Ashley.

We're on the road again..This time without touring bikes which takes waaay tooo long!

The first stop was Rossland, a tiny town of less than 4,000 residents, all mad about skiing in the winter. We felt truly at home at the Red Barn Lodge where we had our own house with access to: a sand pit, paddle pool, three donkeys, two goats, chickens, a trampoline etc. The kids were over the moon as you can expect!

Triple trouble!

Charlie is in heaven!

Are the children tall or the donkeys small?

The jumping genes shows

Biking is for everyone! Little Charlie is such a daredevil. The whole family Wilson-Henderson made it down the rail trail in Rossland with all bones intact. Charlie had a few crashes but nothing that a snack break couldn't sort out.
Mylla was more interested in my bike than her own wooden runner bike.

It felt like we had done the majority of all the fun Rossland trails after five days and patted the donkeys enough times. It was time to move onto the next place: Nelson. We visited our friends Sam and Colleen here a couple of winters ago, but it was exciting to check out the place in the summer. It was great to catch up with those guys again and see how they have settled in after the move fron Vancouver. I could tell that Colleen is never going back. She was loving it.

When we arrived to the Kokanee Creek Provincial camp ground we got literally attacked by swarms of mosquitos. It was a very beautiful spot on the Kootenay Lake but the insect situation made the experience somewhat hard work. It was stupidly hot (35 - 40 degrees Celsius) during the days and the best way to get Mylla to nap was to drive and park in the shade with all the doors open. We often utilized this time to do some shuttling since it was too stinking hot to bike uphill.

Nelson had some very interesting (and sometime suicidal) biking. We all got lots of practice of riding rock slabs. My favourite ride was probably Paper Bag which I rode with Dugall when it was close to 40 degrees. I felt like pork crackling when we worked our way through some open forest in completely still conditions. The downhill paid off and was fast and loose.

Smash, the jumping queen

Nelson in the background

Lots of great riding in seriously dry and hot conditions. We were on fire!

Ok, the trip was a lot about riding our bikes, but of course also about camping and having fun with our little ones. We spent our last few days in Revelstoke. The camping was perfect right by Williamson lake and we were all so relieved to be away from the fierce Kokanee mosquitos. There were hardly any in Revelstoke. It made a perfect end to a great trip. After a lot of biking we were all happy to just hang out, swim, visit the railway museum and Mount Revelstoke National Park before heading home again.

Summer camping in 35 degree heat! The beach in Nelson and the lake at our Revelstoke camp spot made the camping worth it. I am amazed that kids never get sick of building sand castles.