At The Airport

Kamloops Airport is formally named Fulton Field and handles a nominal amount of daily traffic. After over twenty years jet service has also returned to our fair city. Every kid loves to go to the airport to watch the planes land and take off.

During the dry summer months there can be a plethora of planes landing and taking off. But these are not the average passenger prop or jet planes. No, these planes are fire planes. When we hear these planes flying over the house we know that there's a forest fire out there somewhere. We hope that it isn't threatening any homes and that the firefighters can beat it down quickly.

The summer of 2003 was a wildfire bonanza for British Columbia and I was one of the many thousands evacuated from their homes. Some, like myself and my family, were lucky, others lost not just their homes, but their livelihoods as well.

My eternal gratitude goes to the BC Forest Service and all that they do for our forests.

Tranquille....Not So Serene

Today my daughter and I took a drive out to the old Tranquille Sanatorium. At first it was a hospital that treated TB patients, and was quite successful until the early 1940's, when they found that medicine better treated the ailment. It was then turned into a hospital for the mentally challenged and was run by the BC government until the late 1980's. Since then it has been bought and sold several times with each buyer espousing grand plans for development. Most of the buildings are abandoned and falling apart, but there are a few that are occupied.

I was happily taking pictures from the road when a rather portly young man (I am being polite) speed up to me and threatened to take my camera. This is what happens when bullies grow up and realize they can't get a real job. Unfortunately for him I am very much aware of my rights and, being a red head, dared him. I also made a big show of writing down his license plate.

I was somewhat confused by this silo and wondered what caused the dome to go askew. We shall have to see how long it takes to completely fall off.

It's too bad this site has been allowed to go to ruin. Most of the buildings are too far gone to ever be restored to their previous state.

Unfortunately most of the buildings contain asbestos and would need to be stripped before they could be used again. The cost is likely too high.

That Goose Is Watching Me!

The goose kept watching us as we walked along the quickly dwindling beach. It's spring, which means the snow pack in the mountains is beginning to melt rapidly and the water level in the North Thompson River is rising quickly.

Across The River.......

Across the river from Rae-Mor Park I found an interesting sight.

Half way up the mountain, parked among a fleet of Semi tractors......

A CABOOSE!

Remember you can click on the picture to get a full view.

That's right.......a caboose! It's been eons since the trains have ended their lines with a caboose. Apparently they are not economical once all the engines have been converted to diesel power. They didn't need anyone riding the back of the train watching for fires from the steam barrel (if that's what it was called).

The caboose was my favorite part of the train. As a small child I can remember standing at the crossings and waving, just to say hello. The engineers waved back to us all the time, and it was always a thrill when they did. But the guy in the caboose must have been a father or an uncle because on special days like Halloween and Easter, he would toss candy at us from his perch on that back porch at the very end of the car. He made our day and we felt special for a little while. There are days, when the world has gone just too far that I long to be that small child standing at the crossing once again.

Much of my young life was spent in the Northwest Territories, where there are no trains. The muskeg would just swallow the tracks overnight, I'm sure, and the permafrost made laying a solid foundation for the tracks impossibly expensive and improbable.

Now I live down the road from the home base of the Rocky Mountaineer and, when my daughter was smaller, I used to walk to the train tracks every Thursday afternoon to wave at the passengers. Never has a train gone buy when someone didn't wave back at us! April is upon us and soon the Mountaineer will once again blow past our community. I hope to be there to say "hello" once again.