Our trip to Barriere BC, Part one

On Friday August 24, 2012 we headed for Barriere BC after picking up Merina at the Joyce Station at 10 am.

Fortunately she suffered no ill effects from riding in the back of our small Toyota!

We still miss the Toyota Rav4 for long road trips.

Our first stop was at Cottonwood Mall in Chilliwack to stretch our legs and have lunch.

Chilliwack is only a one our drive when the traffic flows smoothly.

Here is Robert and Merina relaxing in the mall's "living room".

Merina and I both bought craft magazines at the bookstore; mine was for scrapbooking, hers for cross stitch.

A rest stop at Britton Creek on the Coquihalla Highway. Robert is keeping up with emails from work.

Truly I amazed and astounded with today's technology. I still find it intriguing that one can text and email from a phone of all things. Along the way I texted with Leona as it is free on the Telus network.

Eating dinner at Montanas in Kamloops. We made good time.

We stopped in Merritt at 2:30 to visit with Sylvia and Gary. I gave Sylvia a framed photo of our last time together, including Dad. She really liked it. She has many photos of family framed in her living room. We had all had a lovely Father's Day at her and Gary's house back in June, exactly 10 weeks ago.

We arrived in Barriere around 7 pm. It takes an hour to get there from Kamloops along the #5 highway.

We took a scenic drive, the 5A, from Merritt to Kamloops and it was quite relaxing.

This pretty sunset greeted us at Faedar park in Barriere, where we met up with Margaret and Wim.

It felt like Dad Houben was saying goodbye.

Me and Margaret in her tent which she sets up in the park each Friday night and sells her lovely cards.

I bought 3 of them. Margaret is very talented. We gave each other a long hug and cried.

It was a strange feeling to be in Barriere without Dad there.

Wim took the picture. The new bandstand is in the background.

Barriere is really coming along! There is a new paved track in the park too.

The musical groups were very good. It was relaxing and peaceful to be there after the long drive.

We went to the house afterwards and that's where it really hit me that Dad was gone.

I went to the basement where his collection of Harlequin novels are stored, all 7,000 of them!

I chose 10 to take home and enjoy and to remember him by.

We visited a bit, munching on Welsh cakes I had baked and brought with.

We headed back to our motel at 11 pm.