On Tuesday, August 8th, we drove our motorhome from Predator to Crawford Bay in the East Kootenays. The weather was in the thirties, as usual this summer, so a beautiful day to travel despite the lingering smoke from the abundant forest fires in BC. We had to make a stop at Costco in Kelowna, so our route was a little longer, and took us thru Rock Creek to highway 3, three Grand Forks, Castlegar and north on highway 6 to Nelson and the ferry at Balfour. The ferry trip is 35 minutes, and is like all inland ferries, free! Five and a half hours plus the ferry got us to our campground around 4:30. Just in time as a campfire is planned with the Predator group at one of the campsites real close to the one we booked. Sixteen people made the trip, so a nice group. We knew most of them but made a few new friends as well.
Well, there is an ever present fire ban in BC so no campfire, but appetizers, wine and games substituted and the promised s’mores stayed in the trailer. The game that night was Bum Darts! The object is to squeeze a quarter in your cheeks, walk about 15 feet and drop it into a glass. Winners moved on to the next round, losers out. The final round was squeezing a quarter and a dime and dropping both into the cup. I found out that I have a talent for something that only took 67 years to figure out and walked home with the thirty five cents, or would have if I had not forgotten it there. Not sure if I wanted to handle that money afterwards anyways.
Wednesday was golf at Kokanee Springs, two guys teams and two girls teams. The girls won the money as they finished first and second. The organizer, Alanna Petrusich, did the tabulating. Hmm, very fishy. Both Marg and I won Kps though. Kokanee golf is always fun. Dinner at the clubhouse for prize announcements and more fun. The girls managed to fit in a shopping trip to the broom store in Crawford Bay and purchase brooms that were way more expensive than Walmart. These brooms are special, I guess, as this store supplied the brooms for the Harry Potter films. They have them on display there.
Off early in the morning to the ferry and a three hour trip to Christina Lakes for more golf. The course was very nice, especially the back nine. 
Bought a shirt in the pro shop as Marg shrunk the shirt that I brought to wear. That darn Joe Petrusich made a big deal about not being able to shrink golf shirts and that other things had to expand for a shirt not to fit! Golf was very enjoyable and the company was excellent. Our good friends Bob and Lisa were there and have the same motorhome as us so we had notes to compare. I even beat Bob 1 day and tied him the other, so very happy about that. Back to Predator after the game and got home about nine. Would have liked to camp one more night with the group but Jessica, Andy and families were at the lake, so wanted to get home to spend the next day with them on the water.
Hey you guys this blog is really cool!! This might be something we want to set up for our 14 day trip from BC down to La Quinta, CA. And yes Ken, your “squeeze” and “release” technique was far superior to anyone else in the Bum Darts game. You could literally fart dimes and quarters. The trip was lots of fun and we look forward to attending again next year. PS, don’t get to comfortable about your 1 shot victory – it won’t happen again.
Of course I won’t beat you again! That is why I took the opportunity to announce it to the world