What a day! I woke up bright and early to accompany Dave and Lynne on their daily dog walk they do every morning with the neighborhood. Winnie was ecstatic, she was running around jumping, prancing, and having the time of her life playing with all the other dogs. Upon getting back to the house I started working on my website for my blog that I hope to have finalized soon, then I can finally start posting my stories for all to see! Both Dave and Lynne were wonderful company and I was thankful for their kind hospitality and love.
I got back on the road around 2:30pm heading to Williams Lake. Once again the scenery had me stopping a lot and a 4 hour drive took me nearly twice as long, but oh was it worth it. The wildlife was incredible, I saw a great many deer, birds and horses. I have yet to see a bear yet but I did drive past quite a few of the bear proof garbage cans that were pretty banged up, reminding me that I was in fact in bear country.
I finally made it to Williams Lake and headed into the Stampede Campground. The lady on the phone had mentioned it would be busy, being that it was stampede weekend and their busiest time of the year, but there’d be room for me to camp. When I got there it was packed, and I mean ridiculously packed. Since the office was closed, I drove around looking for anything available, planning on camping and paying in the morning but I was having no luck. At one point I found myself in the wrong neighborhood, it turns out I had driven into the riders only section with a bunch rowdy drunk cowboys, to make matters worse I hit a dead end in their camp and had to do a seven point turn to get back out. I was friendly but I could get the obvious vibe that I was intruding on their territory and some of them seemed pretty annoyed about it. I said a quick friendly goodbye and moved on.
I found myself sitting on the top of a hill overlooking the event feeling rather defeated, the decently priced motels had horrible reviews and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I found a campground online an hour out towards Prince George and gave them a call, the man seemed friendly at first but when I mentioned I had a dog he said that if the dog got off leash and scared his goats he’d shoot it, so ya, kinda sketchy.
I started driving out towards Prince George not knowing what I was gonna do, I wanted to do the majority of my driving during the day to appreciate all the scenery and I really didn’t wanna stay at the campsite with the dog threat. Regardless if the man was kidding or not, I got a bad vibe from it. I found myself saying a prayer hoping that something would work itself out. Well, that prayer was certainly answered when I came across a motel/campground that hadn’t shown up on my gps until the last moment. I walked in and called, sure enough a tired woman answered the phone and told me that there was room, not only that but I had a beautiful lake view, something I’m eager to see in the morning when it’s bright out. So ends day 3, it’s turning out to be quite the adventure after all!
