Today we awoke to rainy, drizzly weather – not the greatest for traveling, but so needed after three months without any rain. We had a quick bite to eat of leftovers from yesterday before heading out.
We stopped in Hope to grab coffee at one of the busiest Tim Horton’s I’ve been to, then proceeded to drive around Hope a couple of times trying to find our way out of town. We finally found our way and headed up the Coq towards Merritt and Kamloops. I had watched an episode of Highway Thru Hell last night and was hoping that I might see one of Jamie or Al’s tow trucks on the way. Unfortunately, the only tow truck was from Hope Towing, but luckily it was not needed by us.
We made it to Kamloops and by then the rain had subsided and the sun was even coming out from behind the clouds. Our initial plans were to have lunch in Kamloops but neither of us were very hungry yet so we drove to an overlook that Mum knew about and I took a few pictures. It was a beautiful place to get a picture of the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers. Then, as we were leaving town, the same thing happened that always happens to me in Kamloops – I got lost (misplaced). Luckily I got less lost than usually do in Kamloops and we finally made it to Highway 1 East.
Over the next two hours we continued along the Trans-Canada. The weather alternated between rain and sun as we chatted about our last trip along through the Shuswap area when we drove to Nova Scotia in 2010. It was fairly uneventful as we counted down the kilometres to Malakwa, our new lunch destination.
We arrived at The Burner Grille around 2pm, hungry and ready for another Food Network restaurant to add to the list. We started with bruschetta that we shared and I had a Burner Blue Cheese Bacon Burger and Mum had their special which was perogies and smokies. I managed to grab a picture of our appy but totally forgot to grab a pic of our main course. I will tell you, it was absolutely delicious.
After our much needed food stop, we continued down the road 20 minutes to our hotel for the night. This hotel is a place that I have taken pictures of every time I have driven by but have never had a chance to stop and explore. This year the opportunity came up and I jumped on it. It is in a very picturesque location and with the red roofs, I just couldn’t resist booking us here for the night.
After checking in, we explored the gardens outside the hotel and Mum snarfed a few seed pods from the beds scattered around the property. We then killed some time watching tv in the room before we headed down to the restaurant for dinner. Mum and I had a light dinner of a soup and sandwich and then headed back to our room.
Although it wasn’t terribly late, we decided to turn in early as we have a fairly long day tomorrow which ends in Jasper.
Thank you for sharing our adventures and I will talk to you tomorrow.
L
