Day 47 - Vancouver - Revelstoke

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After waking to the sound of others already up and getting ready to load up once more, I removed myself from my very uncomfortable sleeping position; rolled my sleeping bag up before getting my wash kit and a change of clothes and heading to the showers to really wake up.
After returning, and packing my wash kit and clothes from yesterday away, I moved my kit from the container and put it behind the trailer ready to move on.
As the others had their tents and kit to still pack up as well as breakfast, I decided to call work, speaking to Andi and Karl once more. I talked about the Tour since we last spoke.
Once more it was great to speak to Andi and Karl, and left me in a great mood to start the day off with.

We were on another long drive, but as we started heading into the Rockies once more, the scenery became more and more beautiful to look at.

Our next destination was a KOA just outside of Revelstoke, and having passed through that town, we were held up in a growing traffic jam caused by a collision on the road out of town. What’s more annoying was that the campsite is not too far up the road beyond the collision.
After sitting there for a few minutes we were told it will take a while and were encouraged to turn back and kill time in Revelstoke, so we did.
We parked up in a side street, and went on a casual wander for one or two blocks before discovering the Last Drop Inn, a sports bar with memories of home, and decided to spend our time waiting by wetting our whistles.
As we were walking through the town, a distant mountain dominated the skyline of the nearby horizon, making the place seem a little special.

When we walked into the Last Drop Inn, there were some regulars at two of the barstools, and some other patrons at the tables and booths nearby. We were served by a waitress who turned out to be the owner of the place.
After the drinks were ordered, a mixture of soft drinks and beer, or Guinness in Scott’s case, we all agreed to take our drinks back out of the door, and made use of the free seating area outside, made up of 2 comfortable looking, and feeling, patio sofas and spare chairs from other vacant tables. A lone rogue bee was the only down point to an otherwise well spent hour in a small town in the middle of nowhere in the glorious warm sun.

Sadly we had to pull ourselves away from this temporary sanctuary as the road out of Revelstoke had cleared and we could now gain access to the KOA.
The road out of town actually runs beneath a nearby mountain and slowly climbs and winds, with a valley on the other side. After a mile or so, the mountain goes, and the road is wide open again, with forests either side. All of a sudden there was a dirt road that appeared that takes us off the highway and down amongst road works at first, then further into the surrounding trees.
The dirt track got smaller and more intimate with the trees and goes back on itself 2 or 3 times whilst still going down in the valley, until we turned a corner and suddenly a house appeared and then a lot further along the KOA.

After Todd checked us in, we made our way back on ourselves and down another track and round to an intimate site which we hade all to our self. Actually it wasn’t far from the office, just a quick walk up a track shortcut to the main site road and the office itself.
Our site was off the track and is an opening from the trees and bushes. At the back of the site was the camp fire, and to the right of it was the path that lead back up to the office and main track of the site, and before that a long stretch for us to make ourselves at home.

The trailer was unloaded and everyone started putting their tents up, but I had decided to sleep out again, so just messed about with the volleyball and plastic softball bat and ball Todd purchased the other day. It didn’t take too long for the ball to get lost in the surrounding bush, but Zach managed to retrieve it. Only for it to be lost several more times.
So my attention soon turned to the volleyball, although that soon stopped as well as I treated it like a football and tried to catch it on the volley, on succeeding in hitting Kristina nearby in the mouth. It was quite impressive as she was about 20 feet away. Straightaway I rushed over to her and checked if she is ok, hugging her as way of apology. Fortunately she was ok, and the pain quickly went away, but I had just been banned from volleying any balls!

I quickly headed over to the camp fire and began trying to get a fire going. I think I may have taken this ‘job’ too seriously as I insisted that as member of the Scout Movement I don’t need any help in getting the fire started, it eventually took me over an hour to get this particular fire steady, although I maintained I got the fire started with one match and that it never went out – it just took its time to grow into something a little bigger!
Group A were cooking dinner tonight and we decided on another Group’s idea (in that we might have stolen it!) by buying several cans of two different types of soup and pouring them into to pots and cook them that way. We had original decided on making soup from scratch but quickly decided that that wasn’t going to work!
It was a good thing we stole the idea from Group B, because when they come to do the same idea, they will know to buy a few more tins each, as we just had about enough for one helping each.

After dinner I headed up to the office to put some washing on, before taking a quick shower. Once I finished I gathered my now clean clothes and left Steve behind to carry on with his and Zach’s. Steve was there for much longer than planned.
It didn’t help when that one of the workers on the site was trying to use some of the machines to wash some bed sheets and that the laundry actually closed. I eventually took a bowl up to Steve as he had slaved away for a while without eating anything.
When I returned, Zach had introduced Mark, Jess and Scott to some beer games, which actually caught on rather quickly, so much so, that others gathered around the tables and fire to watch or even have a go.

When I head to my sleeping bag, I over hear that Annabel had just become an Auntie for the second time so a small celebration broke out between her, Kylie, Todd and a couple of others.
I ignored all the shenanigans over by the fire, and the celebrations near the trailer, and tried to get to sleep.
I say tried, because it wasn’t as simple as just sleeping out under the stars. It wasn’t the celebrations or the fun and games over by the fire, but instead it was the damn mozzies! Those little blighters would not quit, and I even tried sleeping with my hoody on and with the hood right up and covering the majority of my face.
It might have taken a long time, but I finally fell asleep.

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